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More on KDE Groupware
e8johan writes "The KDE PIM Team will integrate all their applications into one common interface and create an Outlook-like application.This is being done in the Kroupware project commissioned by the German government. There is a prototype of KOrganizer with KMain embedded into it (shots 1, 2), and another prototype with KMain running as a KPart in Kaplan (shot 1, 2, 3). This looks hopeful and if they manage to build the application as flexible and modular as other KDE projects this will hopefully mature into something great." Kroupware is a catchy name, but I wonder if the KDE team is aware of the English word croup.
This is exactly what KDE needs. Best of luck to the PIM teams because this is the final piece of the KDE on the desktop puzzle that businesses need to supplant outlook/exchange. If it hooks into a nice backend as easily as Outlook does to exchange then we're looking at a contendor.
Have a Happy.
A large part of this project is the server-side, grouping together existing applications (cyrus IMAP, OpenLDAP, etc) to provide a "Groupware server".
You should be able to use Evolution with all of those parts anyway (and actually, currently I don't think Evo supports stuff like LDAP and shared calendering, a project like this might influence support for such things).
God Fucking Damnit
I've been seeing people say 'this is the last step' or similar things, about some type of 'outlook killer' app for Linux. It won't be the last step. By the time there is something that is workable/usable for the majority of companies, there will be some other roadblock/obstacle which people start saying 'we have to have or we can't switch'. I'm not saying I necessarily even know what that is at this point, but it'll happen.
First it was web browsers.
Then an office suite.
Now an 'outlook' killer.
What next? `
Personal security/prefs setting ala 'passport'? Though that hasn't seemed to have taken off as pervasively (or publicly) as might have been. Honestly I can't think of what it might be, but there'll no doubt be some other area of corporate culture MS gets embedded into quickly, which will take years to wean people away from (if in fact they want to get weaned away - if it works for them, just let it be).
creation science book
if you feel you can be a respectable KDE user while using software that doesn't start with "K", then go ahead...
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Kroupware is a catchy name, but I wonder if the KDE team is aware of the English word croup.
;-)
Hmmmmm.....
A viral disease, often caused by..
Well, it _is_ supposed to be an Outlook replacement, isn't it?
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
...It refers to a portion of the back end of a horse. This makes it quite appropriate for an all-in-one "Outlook-like" application.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It's been pointed out to them and they've explained that it's a working name, not a final decision.
Meanwhile, I've tried to suggest that the developers of the Perl/QT user interface compiler choose a less disgusting name than "puic" ...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
If we all stopped at the point where somebody says "It's been done before" we wouldn't have Linux, KDE or GNOME and I'd be posting to /. in IE.
Why not compete? I bet with a little pride on the line, Kroupware and Ximian could take turns leap-frogging each other, possibly resulting in having TWO products that outstrip Outlook!
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
KDE development is bound to hit a brickwall in a couple of years, as they're only so many nouns in english that begin with "K".
-- por uma vida + open source
i know evolution does support LDAP.
dunno about the shared calender stuff =)
still reading?
Is it the governments job to take tax-money payed by all of us and put them into projects that competes (unfairly) with the products we make?
Is the government supposed to squander our tax money on over-priced software produced by a company constantly in court due to anticompetitive business practices and abuse of its monopoly? I see where you're coming from but it's not that simple. Frankly I'd rather compete against open source apps in a truly open market than compete with microsoft.
As a geek, I would agree with you. As a past sys admin for email and scheduling, I would have to disagree with you. I managed email and scheduling for a 4500 employee business and we used separate email and scheduling systems (based on Linux/Unix servers). The biggest complaint that I got was that the users had to keep two applications opened to do the job. Another was that it was hard to get reminders emailed to you or meeting invitations emailed properly. The administration liked the fact that we didn't have outlook/exchange and thus avoided many problems (virus problems, etc.), but the users complained all the time.
Also remember that a big part of this is getting something that works client/server. This is one of my personal complaints. I would love to have a scheduling server at home for the family. We have a busy family life and keeping up with everyones schedules would be so much easier if it were in a centralized place. I used to use Star Office as it included email and scheduling, yes I actually bought it for the scheduling server. I didn't really like the one big application, but it had what I needed and thus was my choice. But Sun dropped the email client and the scheduling stuff and that leaves me out of luck.
I have no sig, does anyone have one to spare?
What makes you think that twice as many developers on one app will make that app come out twice as fast or twice as good?
.NET - they are putting *everything* behind it - if they drop the ball with it, it isn't going to work. If we fuck up (*cough cough* united linux *cough*) at least we have other distros/apps/forks/etc to fall back on.
And what if all the developers work on one app and it sucks? The net result is we will be even further behind Outlook. If we have two or more projects in development at least if one sucks, others will come out on top.
We have that much over Microsoft - if they fuck up, they're fucked. Look at
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
The different "modules", i.e. the mailer part, the calendering part, etc, are implemented as KParts. This means that you will be able to specify which KPart you want to embed for what functions (similar to how you can choose which text editing widget you want to use, KVim as Konqueror's textarea anyone?).
:)
It also means it is mostly "just" a shell around existing components, not another re-invented wheel. Not more bloated than running the components seperately (probably less overhead even, because you only need one KApplication instance).
In a sense it is tying existing technologies together (think back-end here too, using Open Source tech) into a slick package.
You don't *have* to use it, but corporate settings will probably like it.
As for your tax money (you live in Germany?) paying for the development, would you rather see the money go to Microsoft and get a product in return which will need upgrading eventually? Oh, and *you* personally don't get anything out of it, whereas now you get to use this development to your heart's content. And even if you don't like to use it personally, you'll be able to deploy it for your clients so they can at least use open technology).
To loosely quote Miguel de Icaza: it's not about making money, it's about *solving the problem*.
Personally, I'd happily pay 1% extra taxes to Germany (and I don't even live there!) to be used on similar projects because they benefit *everyone* (read below before you say "except software companies").
You see, times change. It used to be good business selling boxed software, but it's becoming less and less so. The trick now lies in providing a *service*. There will always be a need for skilled IT people, but to provide services, not simply products. I.e. a company specifies what their infrastructure needs to do, what requirements there are, etc, and you implement it using open source technology. There are no purchase or license fees (apart from specialised high-end software) and the value is in how well you set things up. It works for me
I dont ever need to use two PIM client (outlook clone) that has identical functionality but with two different set of configuration files and stores my information differently.
Oops. I forgot to comment on this. I agree with you here - we need a standard format (open good, standard better). Different apps, same storage format. Ain't gonna happen but it would be nice.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
You said to wake you up...
From the link in the article...Kolab is the name of the server component.
Archetecture Paper
Once again a /. comment that goes off ranting without folowing any of the links in the story...
or other imporant Linux functions started relying on Gnome or KDE, it would be the beginning of the end for Linux--because it would then really start being just like Windows.
And why would this be the end of Linux? It might be the end of egotistical elitest Linux hippie types, as any and everyone would be able to use it rather than just the 1337 few but, it wouldn't be the end of Linux. In fact, if Linux were exactly like Windows, do you think that anyone would ever again PAY for Windows? This is exactly what Microsoft fears the most from Linux. If it does get to be the same as Windows, no one will shell out US$300 for a copy of Windows XP whatever when they can down load the "same thing"(Linux) for free.
Indeed, if Linux were to become the same as Windows, it would be a crushing blow to Microsoft, not Linux. BillG can't sell his product against the same thing for free. If Linux were being made by a company and sold for even only US$5 a pop, Microsoft wouldn't be worried. In that case they could afford to give Windows away, just long enought to put that company out of business and then Microsoft could return to charging thier usual prices. But, Linux is totally free. Forever! Microsoft can't compete against that and BillG knows it. So, he must instead make Windows better and point out the shortcomings of Linux to make people want to spend big bucks on his overpriced OS.
The fact is however, that Linux is not becoming the same as Windows. Linux is very different from Windows and that is part of the reason that so many people presently fear using it. But, the KDE and Gnome interfaces to Linux are becoming more Windows like everyday. This is a good thing as it will hide the differences and complexities of Linux from people who do not know, care or want to think about what's underneath. Instead, it will present them with an interface that 99% of the computer using population is already familiar and comfortable with. They will be far less fearful and far more likely to give Linux a try. Then they will think, "I can spend US$300 for MS Windows or I can have the "same thing" for free?!?!?!?!? Hmmmm....."
While you definately have a point, it's also the developer's choice. Most KDE development is in framework, i.e. you can embed the Kmail component into Kaplan. The requirement for this is that the component was designed with this framework in mind, or is ported to do so.
Application development with KDE is fast, because you get to build on a great framework with many components to choose from.
There is very little duplicate code in KDE, although much of the KDE code does the same as similar code in other projects. What you have to remember is that this KDE code can be plugged into any other KDE program, and KMail for example is a shell for the (now) KMail component which is built on SMTP, POP, IMAP, etc kio-slaves.
KDE's architecture is very advanced, and very well planned. To make full use of it, it needs to be considered from the start. Hence re-doing something for KDE as opposed to slapping KDE menu's on an existing program.
The reason KMail is part of KDE is that any KDE app can embed and control KMail components and vice versa. If you need IMAP in your application, it's trivial to add it.
The reason Xchat is part of Gnome is that it uses Gtk and some other Gnome libs. If you want to include IRC in your Gnome app (along with all Xchat functionality), is it also trivial?
There's a difference. And no this does not say anything about wether Gnome or KDE is better, bless both projects. I'm just pointing out there *are* others reasons than NIH.
The components (KMail, KOrganizer, KNode and knotes) will continue to be available seperately
So everybody should be happy, right? - Wrong, some people will always whine, no matter what.
Exchange goes far beyond what you describe. First by centralizing these functions it makes it easier to manage the single application, rather than several different ones. Backups are a breeze.
The calendaring goes beyond what you describe. Not only can you receive a meeting invitation, you can also share calendars or entire mail boxes. This is a common practice, where managers will share their calendar or mailbox with a secretary so that the secretary can perform various functions, like setting appointments, for the manager while they are out of the office. If you call and would like an appointment with the manager, you will more likely get his secretary who, if they are using Exchange, can look at his calendar and tell you when he would be available for such an appointment. Then the secretary can register the appointment in the manager's Outlook calendar. Beyond that still, even if you do not care to share a calendar with anyone, people who wish to schedule meetings with you can immediately see if any and all of the meeting participants are available at that particular time. They cannot see what is on the calendar but, they can see that you have something scheduled and are unavailable at the time they are trying to schedule the meeting for. This makes meeting scheduling much faster than the older method of offering several different times to various participants and hoping that they will respond and that their responses do not conflict with other meeting participants.
Then there is the additional feature of Exchange called public folders. Here you can store publicly available discussion forums, rather like USENET. Also, you can store forms, bulletin boards and any other public information that you like. You can also restrict access to these "public" areas to certain people.
Exchange 2000 also has a NNTP server built in so you can host USENET news or your own NNTP news groups.
Then there is the BIG difference. Exchange is extensible meaning that other applications can be layered on top of or integrated into Exchange. These third party applications include things like document management, voice mail, Faxing and much much more.
Don't forget, Outlook is not the same as Outlook Express and that Outlook is simply a client application. It is the Exchange server at the back end that really provides the great services that people want. Many of these service are mission critical to a LOT of businesses. Also, don't forget that although you claim not to like Outlook, the VAST majority of users like it very much. They like having everything right there in a single convenient location and for them, it just works!
From the design documents listed on their site, this doesn't look like much on the server side. They're going to 'jerry-rig' the asynchronous shared calendaring hack that Bynari uses. This is still not the shared calendaring that exchange provides.
These guys should be supporting and helping http://www.opencap.org, which is implementing the IETF draft for real-time shared calendaring. What they are doing is pushing static free-busy files to an FTP server then using a Calendar folder in the IMAP server for storage.
This does not enable real-time calendaring. From what I can tell, they aren't writing anything for the server-side, just configuring known packages. I can understand that their goals and time restrictions may mean that the methodology they are using for calendaring is the best they can do right now. In fact I believe this is the case, since you would pretty much have had to come across the CAP protocols doing the research that would lead you to the solution they've chosen.
I think this is a great project, and I hope they write some nice server admin tools, but this is not the 'Exchange Killer' that everyone seems to be touting it as. It is a nice start.
If you want an 'Exchange Killer', help out http://www.opencap.org. This guy has the right design (LDAP and SASL support) that will allow it to integrate with Cyrus IMAP and OpenLDAP. Since most of the OpenSource calendaring client projects (Evolution, Mozilla, etc) use libical, it should be relatively small amounts of work to make sure they work with OpenCAP, once it's ready.
BTW, Evolutions history with LDAP support has completely sucked. I noticed the last release had some work done on LDAP, but it had a ways to go last time I tried it. I want the ability to add addresses to the LDAP address book from Evolution (assuming the LDAP server has the correct ACL's).
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
As much as I hate Microsoft and dislike Outlook, I must admit that the meeting planner in Outlook is a "must have" application in business.
The one serious flaw in the planner is the human factor. All too often people wouldn't keep their calendar up to date or wouldn't bother to reply to a meeting notice.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Just run Solaris, and you'll already have CDE.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!