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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
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
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?
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.
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!
Man oh, man, if I hear another person say OpenOffice isn't ready for prime time, I swear I'm gonna yank out their odbc and hit them over the head with it.
In my experience joe-generic office drone, when faced with OpenOffice or MS Office, is gonna make all the same mistakes independent of brand.
Try MS Word/Writer:
He's going to double carriage return to put spaces between paragraphs. He's going to indent with spaces. He's going to to use the B I U and font settings to change heading's characteristics (which are double carriage returned as well). He's going to freak out if you mention ODBC and mail merge. He's going to tediously type out envelopes and form letters ("testing" them in the printer to align them correctly). After you teach him how to mail merge off of a DB, or that documents are easier to update when you define styles etc., he will thank you. When you return a few weeks later, he will be back to his same tried and true plodding slow-wittedness.
Powerpoint/Presenter
He's going to make a presentation by first deciding on a background and header style. Then he's going to mess with borders for 30 minutes. Then he's going to play around with slide transitions. Then he's going to import some useless graphics. Eventually he will think about content. Once there, he will repeat steps used to make MS Word document.
Excel/Calc:
Will pour over columns of numbers for hours, hand editing and typing values. He will alt-tab between his spreadsheet and his calculator program to add numbers. He will select some columns and make a chart, spending 15 minutes to find the pie/scatter/bar configuration that looks prettiest, and then proceed to misname the dependent and independent axises. Then he will select fonts, backgrounds, borders... and then spend no less then three hours trying to get his 40x129 monstrosity to fit on ONE page. He will waste no less then 40 sheets of paper to accomplish this. Upon success he will make 56 copies for distribution.
Did I miss anything? I'd say both products let people do their work as they normally do. I've observed for some time and both products give you equal levels of functionality.
This has been my experience for 95% of all office workers, and I also find that their adamance towards MS is inversely proportional to their competence with it.
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
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