Opengroupware

An anonymous reader writes: "From the OpenGroupware.org site: the OGo project announces its formation and the release today to the worldwide open source development community of its groupware server software. Gary Frederick, Leader of the OpenOffice.org Groupware Project says: 'Just to be perfectly clear, this is an MS Exchange take-out. OGo is important because it's the missing link in the open source software stack. It's the end of a decade-long effort to map all the key infrastructure and standard desktop applications to free software.' There are also plenty of screenshots of Outlook, Evolution, Korganizer, iCal etc. accessing the server."

Comments

MAPI?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the screenshots page it says:

Microsoft Outlook using the ZideLook plugin and Ximian Evolution using the Connector for Exchange

So does this mean Outlook will work natively or not?

Re:MAPI?

[Acidangl]

The problem i see with having to use a plugin is that it adds time to your install. Does the plugin and OpenGroupware support public folders, notes, and shareing calendars? Does OpenGroupware support multiple sites? How did OpenGroupware address Outlook Web Access? My users require that feature.

Re:MAPI?

[dalslad]

Et tu Brutus?

This project is laden with hurdles and I'd be very careful before contributing to it or deploying it. In fact, it needs a serious technical review. We've heard this story before.

Bynari, who has actually replaced Exchange with a Linux server running on the IBM S/390 had some problems with Ximian. Any plugin for Ximian required that one gives the code to Ximian, lock stock and everything.

The Ximian connector no work with anything but Exchange 2000 in "web mode". Not all functionality is present.

In an article in Linux Journal, February, 2003 page 52, the author outlines the components necessary for create this product.

Outlook only works natively with Bynari's Exchange Client Extension and it's Global Address Book. Otherwise, you're looking at an internet mode of Outlook and nothing special exists with that.

MAPI no longer runs the Exchange server, instead the monster runs XML-RPC. It will accommodate some legacy Outlook software, but not much.

Outlook 2000 service pack 3 running on Windows 2000 or XP desktop enables most of the functionality. But Microsoft has pulled off another lock in to obsolete Outlook 97 and 98 and will required installing the .Net framework to enable Outlook 2000 which will wind up on the chopping block once Office 2003 makes it's debut.

I wouldn't want to tackle this project. While the intentions appear good, it's just another me too.

Now, Colab - the German government's well funded project already works albeit with their own client and Bynari's connector which took the place of Steltor after Oracle bought Steltor.

I hope these guys succeed. But look at the carnage. Ever look at the Open Exchange Project. Abandoned by Luke. What about Sendmail.com's fierce announcement that it was going into groupware -- two years ago?

This is a tough customer. One of the worse development glitches, you need Microsoft developers to build parts of the product. Ooh, they just don't mix.

Documentation?

[nakhla]

Hmmm...The site seems to be lacking any decent documentation as to functionality. Is this just a drop-in replacement for Exchange? Or, do I have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get Outlook, et al to connect to it?

Good, but

[grennis]

This is certainly a great step in the right direction, but Microsoft will be releasing their next-generation Titanium Exchange server. The major new feature of Titanium is integrated mobile device support for accessing your calendar, emails, etc.

It sure would be nice to see these features in an open source alternative!

Why always "big enterprise"?

[laetus]

Microsoft didn't start out at the enterprise level. Their apps started small and then they (tried, some people say) to scale them to the enterprise.

I'm glad to see you're at least giving these guys a chance at the "mid-sized" business market.

Note on Outlook compatability

[Zeddicus_Z]

If you notice, the screenies of Outlook are using a plugin called Zidelook. They dont mention whether this is requisite to get full compatibility (i.e. drop-in replacement for exchange), but they DO mention that OpenGroupware base is not compatible with Zidelook.

To use Zidelook, you must use SKYRiX, and "enterprise distribution" of OpenGroupware. I.e. it's a commercial plug-in.

Of course, I could be wrong, but that's just how it reads.

Re:Note on Outlook compatability

[lennart78]

Why you would use a security-hole ridden, payware product to access your mail and calendar, when you're allready on the open source bandwagon is beyond me.

The staying power of Outlook is mostly due to the fact that a lot of companies are hooked on Microsoft products anyway. And I guess it will continue to be that way as long as Exchange keeps outrunning open source groupware alternatives. (Which it probably will for another couple of years, since this is a 1.0 version or something like that.)

Kroupware/Kolab 1.0

[twener]

Don't forget the Kolab 1.0 server which is supposed to be released during LinuxTag too.

My search is (hopefully) over!

[invisik]

As a consultant to small- to miz-sized companies, this has been the place where Linux has fallen short of a "complete" server solution. Everyone wants what Exchange can do, but can't break the bank to buy it. And to top it off, the archive is about 20mb!

One concern is the selection of client programs. Most need an additional connector ($) or are less then functional (Mozilla Calendar or the web--people always complain about the web access for some reason). It would be my vote that the new split Mozilla works closely on their calendar features with this project. They have a good start already.

Thanks to all the developers and companies that put OpenGroupware.Org together!!!

-m

The problem is not techical its social

[Advocadus Diaboli]

I'm working for a "big enterprise" firm and we tried out Groupware several times. All the projects more or less failed not because of technical problems, the real problem is that using Groupware also means that the user has to be "open-minded". Our users unnfortuantely were afraid that by using Groupware others could do some "data mining" on their work and that they have no secrets anymore. Everybody could see what they are working on, how much they do and so on. And they didn't want that. As long as people don't want to share their knowledge and data about their actual jobs you won't get Groupware working, no matter if its proprietary Groupware solutions or OpenGroupware.

Evolution must have Connector??

[Bates]

Umm.... Why do I have to use a closed source plugin to connect an open source client to an open source server?

Only part of Oracle Collab Suite

[Lysol]

I'm not necessairly a fan of Oracle and I'm definitely no fan of Exchange (out of experience), but I watched a little Oracle Collaboration Suite marketing demo on their site and for a moment, just a moment, I put myself in a biz guy frame of mind and thought "wow, that actually looks pretty kick ass". They have it intergrated not only with pda/phone but also with voice commands - everything. The whole enchalada.

Of course, I have no idea about the stability, hardware costs, and licenses. But, it seems as tho Oracle is already ahead of Titanium - not that that matters much to M$ customers. Still interesting nonetheless.

While I commend the Opengroupware product, I'm not too sure when the OS community will be able to come up with something like the Oracle Collab Suite. Not that they have to, but I guess biz types will be looking for features that exist in a shrink wrapped solution.

Yes, I was wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Starting with the launch of OpenGroupware.org, SKYRiX becomes an enterprise distribution of the OpenGroupware.org software...

The SKYRiX distribution also includes some additional software which is not available as part of the OpenGroupware.org project
[snip]
Outlook Support for ZideStore

So it is not Open Source. However the OGo wire protocol is documented & available; so it is possible to write an Open Source Outlook plugin that can interface to OGo. Now wether someone does that is another matter (No one has written any Outlook plugins for any other OSS groupware projects yet).

FC Admins may feel otherwise

[ehintz]

I sure do. The UI for FC is sweet, but the back end server is a mess. We migrated off to Lotus last year, because FC was so far behind the curve. From a user point of veiw FC was great, but from the admin side it could be extremely painful to deal with(for instance, client level mail filtering was just implemented in the last year, well after we migrated; they were way behind the curve on that one, so spam filtering was rather more difficult-the gateway could tag it but the client couldn't use that information to dump it somewhere). All that being said, for a small company or some such it might be useful still; the good part is the server end was generally fairly robust(though feature poor and several years behind modern) so the admin needs were infrequent.

Re:Buzzwords

[gi-tux]

My experiences are a little different than yours. Where I presently work, we use Exchange/Outlook for groupware. Some of the folks use it and use it well, however most use it as email (similar to your experience) or because they are forced to use it by their manager.

However, at my previous job, we didn't use a groupware package. We had a real X.500 directory server for addressing within the organization, we had an email system that was best of class that tied to the X.500 DSA, we had a calendaring system that was best of class that tied to the X.500 DSA and the email system (at the server). We had shared email folders via the email server and shared addressbooks via the email server also.

EMail as based on IMAP, SMTP, and IMSP and came from a company then known as Esys, later ExecMail, not sure if they even exist anymore). Their server was basically the same as the cyrus code. The calendar was CorporateTime (later Steltor and now Oracle). We used Palm Pilot handhelds that sync'ed with the calendars just fine. And later even added support for Windows CE (I left there before it was renamed PocketPC but I am sure that it worked as well).

We had about 3500 email users (all the full time employees of the organization) and close to 1000 calendar users (most of the professional and management type employees). We had about 90% of the users actually using the systems. Everyone was given a training class on proper usage of the systems by our in-house training staff and everyone was confident that they knew how to use the systems.

I attribute the usage of the systems to three things. First was training the users to use the systems (not every bell and whistle, but what they needed). Second was the fact that we didn't look for everything in one package, but got the best of class for each individual area. Third was that the packages would actually loosely integrate together.

That is what I would look for today, if I were assigned to get a groupware system together for a company. Unfortunately, with too many people interested in getting everything under one hood, it is getting difficult to get best of class applications. This is true in everything including office suites, office automation (otherwise known as groupware), etc. I have, to this day, never found an email client that I liked as well as the client from ExecMail. It had features that I have never found anywhere else. WordPerfect still tries to fall under my fingers occassionally for WordProcessing (however, I never really liked the rest of their suite.