Kroupware Komplete

sorinm writes "The three companies behind the Kroupware Project (Erfrakon, Intevation and Klarälvdalens Datakonsult) announced its successful completion today. This new groupware approach using only Free Software is now available in stable versions under the Kolab brand name. Commercial support on an individual basis is already offered with further support options to come."

Comments

GNAA FROSTY

[Anonymous Coward]

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Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the GNAA Java IRC client by clicking here.

If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.

This post brought to you by Penisbird , a proud member of the GNAA

________________________________________________
| ______________________________________._a,____ |
| _______a_._______a_______aj#0s_____aWY!400.___ |
| __ad#7!!*P____a.d#0a____#!-_#0i___.#!__W#0#___ |
| _j#'_.00#,___4#dP_"#,__j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_ |
| _"#ga#9!01___"#01__40,_"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_ |
| ________"#,___*@`__-N#____`___-!^_____________ |
| _________#1__________?________________________ |
| _________j1___________________________________ |
| ____a,___jk_ GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_|
| ____!4yaa#l___________________________________ |
| ______-"!^____________________________________ |
` _______________________________________________'
-GNAA member 'penisbird'

GNAAroupware Fr0sTy P15s!

[Anonymous Coward]

Join GNAA Today! GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which
gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?

If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America. You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!

First, you have to obtain a copy of GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it.

Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA "first post" on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website

Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.

If you do not have an IRC client handy, you are free to use the GNAA Java IRC client by clicking here

If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.


-GNAA member 'JesuitX'
________________________________________________
| ______________________________________._a,____ |
| _______a_._______a_______aj#0s_____aWY!400.___ |
| __ad#7!!*P____a.d#0a____#!-_#0i___.#!__W#0#___ |
| _j#'_.00#,___4#dP_"#,__j#,__0#Wi___*00P!_"#L,_ |
| _"#ga#9!01___"#01__40,_"4Lj#!_4#g_________"01_ |
| ________"#,___*@`__-N#____`___-!^_____________ |
| _________#1__________?________________________ |
| _________j1___________________________________ |
| ____a,___jk_ GAY_NIGGER_ASSOCIATION_OF_AMERICA_|
| ____!4yaa#l___________________________________ |
| ______-"!^____________________________________ |
` _______________________________________________'

w00t !

[Anonymous Coward]

w00t!

Re:w00t !

[Anonymous Coward]

WH3R3 C4N 1 G3T 4 W4R3Z V3RZ10N 0F L1NUX?

Michael Sims is a Domain Thief

[Anonymous Coward]

Click here for article

Michael Sims, Domain Hijacking and Moral Equivalency by Jonathan Wallace jw@bway.net

How would you feel if your webmaster maliciously took your web-site offline, then, when you demanded its return, put up a site attacking your company at your old URL? It happened to a group I was involved in, the Censorware Project, currently at http://www.censorware.net. The purpose of this essay is to put the behavior on record, and to give you some impressions and inferences about it.

The Censorware Project was originally an informal collective of six people who collaborated online to fight censorware: Seth Finkelstein, Bennett Haselton, Jamie McCarthy, Mike Sims, Jim Tyre and myself. Several of us had never met or even spoken on the phone, yet for some time -- around two years as I recall -- we had a remarkably easy collaboration. There was no funding, no hierarchy, no titles, not even project managers. Someone would suggest a project and take the responsibility for a part of it, others would sign up for other elements, and proceeding this way we got a remarkable amount of work done, including reports on X-Stop, Cyberpatrol, Bess and other censorware products.

Even though two of us were attorneys -- Jim and myself -- we never incorporated the group or wrote a charter or any contracts among ourselves. Mike Sims was obliging enough to register the domain, just as other members paid for press releases and the other incidental expenses which came along. Mike also served as webmaster of the censorware.org site and did substantial work for the group, including writing contributions to several of the reports and lead authorship of at least one. Seth was the source of our decrypted censorware blacklists and managed many technical tasks, but later felt he had to leave the group because of the increasing prospects of a lawsuit, particularly under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). After Seth left the group, the remaining five continued.

Robert Frost said that "nothing gold can stay," and the Censorware Project was no exception. Over the summer of 2000, Mike Sims' reaction to a perceived slight from Jim Tyre was to take the site down for a week. He sent us mail at the time saying something like "The Censorware Project is now closed." I replied to him that, given that the group was a collective and we all had an interest in its work product, the domain, and the goodwill it had achieved, the decision was not his to make. Sims did not reply.

After Seth created a partial, text, mirror, Mike put the site back up a week later without explaining, let alone apologizing for, his actions. Given his continuing failure to answer any email from me (and I think from others) and the overall signs that Sims thought the group was exclusively his, I wrote him several emails requesting that he turn the domain over to Jamie or Bennett, as I felt we could no longer trust him to administer it. We also found out during that time that important email from people trying to contact us, including members of the press, was not being answered by Sims, nor being forwarded to other members.

I ultimately became exasperated that my name was listed as a principal on what had now become a "rogue" site I had no control over. Over about a five week period, I wrote Sims several more emails asking him to del

Re:Michael Sims is a Domain Thief

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't fight slashdot *ON* slashdot. It's pretty funny this whole thing is about censorship, since that is what they do best around here. Try adequacy.org or kuro5hin something.

HOLY FUCK LOOK AT ME!

[Anonymous Coward]

Motherfuckin' First Post© Goodness.


Brought to you by- EAT SHIT INC>

Re:HOLY FUCK LOOK AT ME!

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU KEEP FAILING IT. But it's great you eat shit. Keep doing it, it'll do good for your immune system.

Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[rowanxmas]

It seems that /. folk are constantly talking about the need for a FOSS collaboration thingy, and this seems like it should be it. So, for all you folks who are always writing in telling how "Exchange is so great...blah", it seems like this is the answer.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[afidel]

Nope, you still need a commercial connector to use Outlook with this. We have had the ability to do that for some time (things like the old HP Exchange alternative and the suite from Oracle, what most of us want is the equivilant of SAMBA, a free and FREE drop in replacement for Exchange that doesn't cost anything to implement so long as we don't need support.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[hdparm]

But I do not want to use Outlook at all. Evolution or Mozilla will do just fine for say, everybody. Plus, talking about free/FREE - why is everybody prepared to pay big bucks to Microsoft or Oracle but not to some other company for said Outlook connector, if they really want to use Outlook? That would be heaps cheaper option.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Pardon me French, but here goes:

Outlook is a shithole of bugs, incompatibilities, dangerous security flaws and second rate patches which obfuscate its vulnerabilities instead of repair them.

The quicker Evolution lives up to its name, and departs from an Outlook-style UI model, the better. There are real performance issues they need to work on as well. Big IMAP stores are slow.

Anybody really interested in moving AWAY from outlook/exchange should dig Open Groupware, forked from a stable commercial implementation that uses Cyrus, Postgres and OpenLDAP. They even have a ready-to-run Knoppix CD-ROM image, for evaluation testing:
"The OGo Knoppix is the fastest way to get a running OGo demo, as it requires no installation - just boot from it and you get a working system, including a Cyrus IMAP4 server."

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[afidel]

Mozilla's calandering SUCKS balls. Sorry but it does. I've been using it since it first got released and it isn't even stable or usefull enough for a single person yet, let alone as the frontend to a groupware package. Evolution would be nice IF it ran on windows, but it doesn't, and unfortunatly I have to run windows at my employer on at least one of my desktops because of various proprietary apps that don't run under WINE. Also it's not that we won't pay big bucks, we will, but there are tons of instances where I could save a company money and hassle by replacing Exchange with something less crash prone and which works with their current tools. Most of the time if you are going to pay for a new set of liscenses anyways it makes sense to go with a commercial package all they way because it isn't much more expensive (like say Oracle's product or the one that HP used to have). I know that the MAPI protocol can't be any more difficult than the SMB protocol so I guess I'm just hoping that one or more people stand up and start an open source project akin to SAMBA but to replace Exchange rather than windows file and print sharing.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[rowanxmas]

I guess the question is how well does the Kalender match up? There is no reason to use other programs if all the KOffice stuff works...unless you are like us and like options.
But in terms of being locked into software I would prefer Kroupware, including "Kolab" which is what this is actually called (RTFA?), over M$Office.
also why would you need to pay for licenses for a FOSS product?

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[JanneM]

But how would you use Evolution with it? As far as I can tell, it only supports the KDE tools, which is a shame, as the majority of users use Evolution today, no matter what their desktop.

It is understandable, as it is a piece of contract work specifically for use with those user-space apps, but still a shame.

I have been longing for a relatively simple server like this specifically for supporting a smallish group of people (3-10 or so) using a mix of Linux and OSX desktops. This doesn't seem to be it, though.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[Daengbo]

I intend to immediately begin testing this as a replacement for PhPGroupware in our small business. I hope that it works as well as expected. We like PhPGroupware, but a web interface is often kludgey and slow.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[Marcus Green]

I have been using the Mozilla Calendar for about 6 months and it seems fine to me, I'd go so far as to say very nice indeed.I am curious to know in what way it appears to suchk these balls for you.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[afidel]

It crashes all the time, it doesn't import large iCal files well, publishing sucks, emailed notices don't work correctly at all, it can't do colaboritive meetings, shall I go on? Just check netscape.public.mozilla.calendar archives sometime and you will see all the basic problems people have with it. It's basically a one man show and unfortunatly he doesn't have a lot of time to devote to it from what I've seen and he admit's he's not that familiar with the Mozilla framework.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[afidel]

There is no need to use another program unless you want to use say another OS like windows or OSX where KOffice won't run (at least I haven't seen an official port for either of those OS's).

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[passthecrackpipe]

While the focus for the custom client is indeed KDE, you can use this with Evolution. It uses all the common open protocols, such as WebDAV, SMTP, POP/IMAP4 etc. Hooking this up with Evolution is no problem.

This will allow you to work with a smallish group of people, however, please note that the effort in management may not be your idea of worthwhile though. However, don dismiss it out of hand.

Alternatively, you may want to check out SuSE's OpenExchange, and excellent alternative to Exchange.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[hdparm]

Evolution is able to import iCal and vCal files. KOrganizer uses iCal format, I believe, so this does not seem to be a big hurdle. Granted, I haven't tried this, so it's only in the areas of speculation.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[Obiwan Kenobi]

The quicker Evolution lives up to its name, and departs from an Outlook-style UI model, the better.

Hate to tell you, but it looks like they're going in the same direction, as far as UI goes...

I've been using Outlook 2k3 for months now, and that UI is definitely better...unfortunately, Outlook is still a buggy mess, especially in beta.

I have high hopes for this new Exchange wannabe, but like someone else said, to sell this I know dozens of users who will huff and puff and cry about "having to learn something all over again." It's not as simple as it appears...plus a converter from Exchange to an OSS solution would be a godsend, and that's something I've read very little about.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[Anonymous Coward]

a free and FREE drop in replacement for Exchange that doesn't cost anything to implement so long as we don't need support.

No, you want to keep paying for Micorosoft for windows and outlook, but refuse to pay anything for a small plugin for a OSS server connection. Talk about hypocrisy..

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[metamatic]

You could replace Exchange servers with Domino servers using iNotes Access for Microsoft Outlook.

Rather than the ~3,000 users per server max of Exchange, you can load up to 100,000 simultaneous users on an iSeries machine running Domino...

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[Anonymous Coward]

"...as the majority of users use Evolution today, no matter what their desktop..."

No, they don't. That migth be true in the USA, where you're "buying" the Gnome desktop. Here, in Europe, specially due where big fishes are taking Gnome, even those of us who used to prefer Gnome over KDE are moving *fast* to KDE, just to discover a very well balanced desktop, plenty of useful apps that, as time goes by, are integrating pretty well. Kolab clients is nothing but another step in the rigth direction.

Now: everything in the Kolab "thingie", both client and server is Open Source, so anyone can start a project of her interest. Anyway, I bet Gnome "headquarters" won't start a blessed Gnome Kolab client anytime soon.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[JanneM]

I am from Europe (Sweden, specifically) and I am seeing the opposite trend, with people more likely to use Evolution on KDE than KDE:s own offerings, and a drift toward Gnome in general.

It's difficult or impossible to assess trends based on what happens locally, but from what I've seen, it seems both are holding steady at about the same popularity on a global level.

And no matter which, I don't see a server solution for only one particular client as a particularily good thing - what if Apache supported only Mozilla, for ezxample?

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[Anonymous Coward]

Domino is a Unix program that really doesn't sit all that well on OS/400. I'd recommend running it on AIX or Linux or even Windows over iSeries.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[stilborne]

a Free (GPL'd) Outlook connector in the works. developers have been working on it for a while now and it nears completion. cf: http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/78

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[stilborne]

Kolab uses open standard protocols extensively and exclusively. it does use them creatively in some regards (e.g. using IMAP to provide addressbook syncing "for free"), but it isn't using some new-fangled proprietary protocol. it can be used with any client for IMAP mail, and any client that supports their creative uses of IMAP for calendaring (which uses standard calendaring formats) and contacts (which uses LDAP and vCard)

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[hetta]

Mozilla's calandering SUCKS balls. Sorry but it does.

Nope. The Mozilla calendar was a very happy find for me, and I use it exclusively now... instead of the Sidekick calendar, which I used on windows.

That's Moz 1.3 on linux.

Now, for something useful as an address book... the KDE address book thingy included with suse 8.1 is frankly lousy.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[rowanxmas]

Yeah,

I guess they should of thought of that. BUt then again I wouldimagine that they are aware of these problems and would release some clients at some point.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[ejdmoo]

For those people out there using Outlook 2003 beta, make sure to get the technical refresh (link only works in IE). It really really helps stability. I use it with Exchange 2003 (not beta), and I love it. The best part is the caching, which makes things a lot faster, especially over slow connections.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[Dr. Crane]

It seems that /. folk are constantly talking about the need for a FOSS collaboration thingy, and this seems like it should be it. So, for all you folks who are always writing in telling how "Exchange is so great...blah", it seems like this is the answer.

Why in [gG]od's name is this post marked as insightful??? You state nothing other than the bloody obvious!

Also, what the hell is FOSS? I've heard of GNU, free software, OSS, BSD ... I've even heard of FLOSS but never FOSS! I wish people would quit with the bloody acronyms and just say free software (or OSS if you really prefer).

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[rowanxmas]

I'll respond to you since you blasted my post, and hopefully you'll read this comment.
In order to get some meaning full discussion I stated what is essentially a thesis statement, i.e something that can be argued from both sides. I think it was a sucess since it generated a fair amount of good conversation with some informed opinions.
FOSS is Free Open Source Software, which is NOT always GNU, nor BSD and rarely used by dentists ;) I think it is a good term since it describes what I producem freely usable/modifiable software with no attemp to make money. Realize that plain old OSS could be a pay for it thing, but the source is now open to you.

Re:Hopefully this fulfills the Exchange Need

[metamatic]

Uh, there's Domino for iSeries. It works just fine on iSeries. It has been benchmarked supporting over 100,000 simultaneous users, that's why I mentioned it. AIX or Linux versions won't scale that far.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

KrautWare?

My country tis of thee
Sweet land of Germany
Of thee I sing
When I sing of sauerkraut
It makes my ears stick out
Higher than any mountain top
My ears stick out

Riddle me this, G.N.A.A.?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many Penis can a Penis Bird suck, if a Penis Bird could suck Penis?

Re:Riddle me this, G.N.A.A.?

[Anonymous Coward]

As much Penis as a Penis Bird could suck, if a Penis Bird could suck Penis.

:D

Re:Riddle me this, G.N.A.A.?

[ratfynk]

Just for your info this is a ./ about KDE will you Ksuckers go somewhere where someone kares...in short kut it out, kwit posting about kock roosters.

Has anybody tried it yet?

[Creepy Crawler]

How well does it do compared to EX-change?

IOW: is it a "Komplete" software product, or the usual 90% GNU solution?

Does anybody care to write a compairison feature and integration wise?

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[Timesprout]

You can send and recieve meeting and task requests

The spell checker is missing anyway

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah Yeah. You got the point, so shut the fuck up.
CC

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Horsey!!

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardy har har!!

But where is the period at the end of your pretentious cock-in-the-ass sentence, good sir?

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[he-sk]

Of course it's complete, it does mail after all.

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have I tried it? No. Will I ever try it? No. KDE is wrong.

No true patriot would ever use this stuff. Do you really want your kids world to be full of words like "Erfrakon" and "Klarälvdalens Datakonsult"? Its well documented that Germany actively colluded with terrorists and passively resisted our attempts to defend ourselves. For that, we can not support any of these neo-nazi movements.

Buy American!

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, vim and emacs are 90% of notepad. Mozilla and Firebird are 90% of IE. Good one.

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[arendjr]

Yes, it's complete.

It uses LDAP for company-wide addressbooks. It offers services for distributing free-busy lists. It can be used offline through disconnected IMAP. It allows for sharing folders (containing mail, calendars, contacts, whatever) between people. It has normal POP3 and SMTP support. Everything is configurable through the webinterface, in which you can set vacation messages as well. HOWTO's are available for integrating SpamAssasin and Amavis (anti-virus) with Kolab. You can install SquirrelMail on the server to allow webbased access to your mail.

What do you want more?

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

No true patriot would ever use this stuff. Do you really want your kids world to be full of words like "Erfrakon" and "Klarälvdalens Datakonsult"?

Even though the rest of your post is absolute rubbish, let's at least get our biggotry straight; "Klarälvens Datakonsult" is a Swedish company, not German.

And even though we're not exactly an ally, Sweden and the US have never been at war either. In fact Sweden's hardly been at war since the founding of the US (there's the tiff with the Russians in 1809 but that's about it).

Re:Has anybody tried it yet?

[0x0d0a]

And even though we're not exactly an ally, Sweden and the US have never been at war either. In fact Sweden's hardly been at war since the founding of the US (there's the tiff with the Russians in 1809 but that's about it).

Course not! Who wants to fight with a nation where half the populace consists of Swedish women?

I Konkur - how exactly is Kroupware pronounced

[Anonymous Coward]

anyway? When I see the word "kroup" I can't help but imagine someone saying, "Mandy just contracted a case of kroups" or "Gee, get your kroup off my side of the table."

Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[$calar]

OK, so the KDE project started Kontact, which merges KMail, KOrganizer, KNotes, and KAddressBook. I was just at the Kontact web site and it doesn't mention Kolab. My thought was that Kroupware was supposed to merge at some point with Kontact, is this true? But Kolab screenshots look different than Kontact's. Is this going into KDE?

http://kolab.kde.org/

http://kontact.kde.org/

In other words, is Kontact dead?

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[Creepy Crawler]

There's a lot of crufty stuff in the KDE app-base. There's the KDE media player, NOATUN (Not-run , that's what I always think) some ARTS stuff for sound server (like esd, and others couldnt have fit here) and other basic bitmap apps.

They could have made Gimp a KDE program and forget about all other KDE gfx programs. It already can read a crapload of gfx types, so it's just a gtk=>kde3 port away.

Noatun is a joke. I mean, a SERIOUS JOKE. The few things I'm able to run in it (like say, standard MPEG1 streams) either lags to hell, or promptly crashes. I usually go and install XINE, OGLE, and Mplayer for all my video viewing needs.

And about ARTS, other than network transparency (which is depreciated with the new SMB-UNIX extensions which allow you to mount /dev nodes over networks) it's yet another thing that eats up cpu time and does little. Yeah, it provides an archetchure but who wants to use it? It ties your app to kde only. Yuk.

The PIM group of apps seem pretty nice, but dont flow together well. Why did they create their own set of office "things" that dont work with anything else (yeah, I know writing a module is trivial). Why not plug in OO instead? It'd be easier that way.

Yeah, Kruft bothers me, but at least it works (kde3 doesnt crash as much as windows....). Still, kde3 goes down sometimes with a sig 11.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[falonaj]

OK, so the KDE project started Kontact, which merges KMail, KOrganizer, KNotes, and KAddressBook.

That's right. Kontact is currently in development, and will be released as part of KDE 3.2. Kontact is the way official KDE development has chosen.

In other words, is Kontact dead?

No, not at all. Kontact will merge all Kolab functionality that has been developed by the kroupware project.

Until the KDE project has released Kontact, you can use the KMail-based Kolab client offered by the kroupware project.

The kroupware project is sponsored by the German gouvernment. Because of the requirements of the German gouvernment offices, they chose to release a KMail-based Kolab first rather than waiting for Kontact to be finished.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[autopr0n]

OK, so the KDE project started Kontact, which merges KMail, KOrganizer, KNotes, and KAddressBook. I was just at the Kontact web site and it doesn't mention Kolab. My thought was that Kroupware was supposed to merge at some point with Kontact, is this true? But Kolab screenshots look different than Kontact's. Is this going into KDE?

Koh kmy kod!

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[twener]

All correct except that the Kroupware project was not sponsored but a normal contract work.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what's your point now about Kolab?

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[Anonymous Coward]

In case this confuses you, here is the translation for Gnome users.

OGnu, so the Gnome project started Gnontact, which merges GnuMail, GnuOrganizer, GnuNotes, and GnuAddressBook.

That's right. Gnontact is currently in development, and will be released as part of Gnome 3.2. Gnontact is the way official Gnome development has chosen. :

In other words, is Gnontact dead?

No, not at all. Gnontact will merge all Gnolab functionality that has been developed by the gnoupware project. Until the Gnome project has released Gnontact, you can use the GnuMail-based Gnolab client offered by the gnoupware project. The gnoupware project is sponsored by the Kerman gouvernment [sic]. Because of the requirements of the Kerman gouvernment [sic] offices, they chose to release a GnuMail-based Gnolab first rather than waiting for Gnontact to be finished.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[danimo]

From "http://kontact.kde.org/faq/":

Kontact, Kolab, Kroupware... I get confused. What's the deal?
Kolab is a groupware solution consisting of a server and a client part as well as an optional binding for Microsoft Exchange, Kolab was developed by a consortium of the three companies Klarälvdalens Datakonsult (Kolab Client), Erfrakon (Kolab Server) and Intevation (project management, QA) which were contracted by the german Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) after winning a formal bid for a groupware solution.
While the Kolab Server has been designed from scratch using well-known free software server components, the Kolab Client which is based on KDE 3.1's KMail, KOrganizer and other components could not be redesigned from scratch to allow a generic groupware approach due to a lack of time. While the client is pretty stable and works reliably and does what it is supposed to, the Kolab Client is too specialized to ship with KDE
Therefore its functionality will move into Kontact. It aims to replace the Kolab Client with its initial stable release. Furthermore, it aims to support other groupware servers such as Microsoft Exchange 2000, SuSE Open Exchange, OpenGroupware.org, etc.

This also points out a very important thing: There was no sponsoring. It was a very normal contract, just based on (mostly exisiting) Free Software. This is important because they want the solution in-house, rather then saying, "Do the world a favor and we pay it" (Yet it's nice that others can profit from it, but that's normal with Free Software, isn't it? :).

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Kontact is not dead. Kontact is the successor of the KDE Kolab Client.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[WindBourne]

They could have made Gimp a KDE program and forget about all other KDE gfx programs. It already can read a crapload of gfx types, so it's just a gtk=>kde3 port away.
Actually, it was ported ~ 3 years ago (kde 1 time frame) and the Gimp folks got all up in arms about it. So it was stopped. Sad really.
Noatun does need some work, But I like the sound. I find it better than xmms.
I have found that ARTS does overall a good job and has been around since before KDE2. And no, the app is not tied to just KDE. ARTS is independant of KDE
Koffice was started, IIRC, before OpenOffice ever existed. It imports and exports in various formats. Personally, I use vi, but I have used OO and Koffice. OO seems to just work with MS stuff, but Koffice is so very easy to use. Hard to knock its design.
hummmm. As to sig11, I am surprised. I have had no issue with kde3.1

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[TrancePhreak]

You didn't read the faq.

1.3. Is the German government sponsoring/supporting the project?
To be very precise the project is _not_ "supported" or "sponsored" by the German Government. Saying this would missrepresent the situation.

I guess you fit in because of this...

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[cyb97]

The problem with Arts though is that it doesn't work with a lot of binary-sounddrivers (ie. not mainstream kernel). This is not arts' fault, but it's kinda strange that there isn't any workaround possible considering apps support OSS can play using the drivers, just not arts...

(The problem has something to do with timing IIRC, never really got around to studying the problem, just accepted it)

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[big tex]

Hmm, Noatun for video? Methinks you meant KMplayer, Mplayer w/ a little KDE wrapping. Sounds exactly like what you are suggesting they do with the GIMP, but w/ video.

As far as ARTS goes - and I'd love for somebody to show me how to get this right otherwise - It seems to be the simplest way to get multiple sounds playing at the same time. Think listening to an .ogg (on noatun), beeps from window manager operations (changing desktops, new mail) and sound from a flash cartoon _at the same time_.

Otherwise, I have to pick which one gets to use /dev/dsp, one at a time. ARTS mixes.

You are right about the PIM's not working together well, at least in the stable releases. For the life of me, I can't remember what it's called, but they are working on an app for 3.2 that can run all the parts at once, as KParts. This means that they will need to work together.

As far as Koffice / OOo - according to OOo's news site, Sun's news release saying that they were going to start OOo was 17 July, 2000, but didn't release any code unil 13 October 2000. KOffice was already released w/ KDE 2.0, the release was 23 Oct. 2000. So, by the time Sun showed up saying 'hey! look at us!' the KDE folks had been hard at work on koffice.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[Ed Avis]

The trouble with the port made three years ago was that it wasn't allowed by the GPL. As you know, you're not allowed to mix GPLed code with non-GPLed code, and at that time Qt was not GPLed. It's nothing about the GIMP developers being particularly awkward; the same applies to any GPLed program. And when the copyright is held by many different people, it's not easy to get all of them together to grant an exception to the licence.

Perhaps you think the GIMP developers were being silly to use the GPL, and they should have used the LGPL instead to allow linking with non-GPLed libraries. But then the KDE developers and thousands of other projects are just the same in this regard. (For example, it would not be legal to port KWord to Motif unless you had explicit permission from all copyright holders. Not that you'd probably want to do this - it's just another example of wanting to port a program to a different widget set, and being stopped by the copying conditions.)

But now that Qt is available under the GPL, it would be legal to distribute KIMP. But the code hasn't reappeared :-(.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[WindBourne]

The trouble with the port made three years ago was that it The trouble with the port made three years ago was that it wasn't allowed by the GPL.
Yes, that was one of the reasons. I remember the outcry the attempt made. Many Gnomers were upset becuase the the battle cry back then was to fight KDE at all costs. The KDE team backed off on the port.
As to today, well hard to say what should and should not happen. KDE is much further down its path as is Gnome. Personally, I would love to see more shareing of code, but most of it seems to be one way only.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[Ed Avis]

Rantings by GNOME fanboys shouldn't be confused with real legal difficulties. As far as I can tell there's zero overlap between fanboys and developers. Besides, GIMP isn't really part of GNOME, it just got adopted in some vague way because it uses GTK. As far as I know it still doesn't use the GNOME libraries.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[WindBourne]

Rantings by GNOME fanboys shouldn't be confused with real legal difficulties.
While we both agree on the legal issue, it is total revisionist history to forget how the gnome developers acted over it. It was not just fans, but core developers who were busy ranting over it. Now a days there is a more level head at the gnome camp, but back then it was a different matter.
To the best of my knowledge, gimp is still gtk based and it does not use gnome libraries. But there was (and I would guess still is) a large intermixing of the two camps as we are talking about the core library of gnome and gimp. GTK - Gimp Tool Kit.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[0x0d0a]

ARTS is awful -- you have to be joking. It's even worse than esd, and that's saying something. They're heavyweight and high-latency, the both of them.

The current sound server situation on Linux is silly. 99.99% of people (that's probably a pretty damn accurate measurement) use sound servers only for local stuff. (Essentially nobody streams sound with their windowing system, and this is coming from someone who does lots of remote X work.) You'd want to focus on low latency and only falling back to software mixing after hardware channels are exhausted, in a design for a local-system sound server. Yet they don't do that.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[Ed Avis]

Hmm - that's not how I remember it from the time. The KDE developers encouraged users to spam the GIMP mailing list (see http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde&m=90221990129738&w=2). As if it were some particular obstructionism by the GIMP developers that prevented their code being linked with Qt. In the end the GIMP developers had to write a message (posted as a story on Slashdot, though I can't find it now) asking the KDE users to please stop spamming the list.

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[nutshell42]

I agree that software-mixing is a valid reason for a soundserver but they should focus more on low resource consumption and latency (k, you can fix that with +s on the artswrapper-binary and realtime-priority but the cpu consumption is much too high).

I prefer buying an old SBLive for a few bucks and getting multiple sound-sources in hardware instead of hunting arts-plugins and trying to get an acceptable latency with arts

Re:Kolab and Kontact, I'm confused.

[leandrod]

> better than xmms

In which aspect? Actually for playing CDs I dumped XMMS for Totem

> ARTS is independant of KDE

Doesn't it use Qt?

> Koffice was started, IIRC, before OpenOffice ever existed.

The whole of KDE was started before Gnome ever existed. Even Gnome Office was started before OpenOffice ever existed. OpenOffice isn't even a proper Gnome app, it is just a foreign port, like Mozilla; but it is the most mature office automation suite at the moment.

That said, I'd love to see it ported natively to Gnome, just as I'd love to see Gecko and Necko too going native.

Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop the insanity! 'Kroupware' sounds like a brand of German kitchen-utensils or something.

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[gtada]

I think it sounds too much like "Crapware". ;)

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[core plexus]

I suffered from a disease referred to as "the croup" when I was a kid.

Guess what the first thing I thought of when I read this? A vaporizor, hacking (the bad kind), and phelgm.

-cp-

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[munter]

No no.

Kroupware is what young babies are clothed in when they have a hacking cough.

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[MoOsEb0y]

well that makes sense considering it's being sponsored by the German government

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[Jethro]

I had the same disease, and throught the same thing.

by the way, how old were you when it finally went away?

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[10Ghz]

Yeah, they should name all their apps Gsomething, like Gnome does!

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[JanneM]

It is a pain, I agree. It's sort of cute the first five minutes, then it gets old really fast - and it doesn't matter whether it's Ksomething, Gsomething, OpenWhatever or FreeThingy.

However, Gnome has taken some pains to get away from that naming scheme; we have Evolution, Sodipodi, Anjuta, Epiphany, Gnumeric, Abiword, Xchat, Dashboard (whenever that one is ready) and so on. Not that the names necessarily are any better or more descriptive, but at least you don't get cross-eyed from an overdose of 'G':s anymore.

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[Anonymous Coward]

That's okay; When I hear GNOME, I think of some little guy pissing away in a fountain.
Likewise, when I hear MS, I think long-term crippling desease that leaves you dependant on others.
and gee what image comes to mind for apple?????
Finally, keep in mind, this is all international, rather than just english. How about KDE is no in some language? how about that MS is a venerial desease in another language. And as to gnome in another language, well, we will not go there.
Get over it.

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[leoboiko]

I hate those G-something names from Gnome and K-something from KDE. I think I'll remove these "glibc" and "kernel" thingies, I never used them anyway.

(Ok, that's an old joke, but someone had to say it).

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[technochump]

I hope they dont stop with the 'K' names. To me it distinguishes the application to be part of KDE. We use proper naming schemes with our programming variables. Why shouldnt we do the same with the application name?

I absolutely love it when you can look at an application name and tell exactly what the application is suppose to do and which windowing environment it embeds in.

In fact, I wish more projects would do this.

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[lightcycle]

:begin rant
The problem is that the naming isn't consistent all over. For example, some apps are named k*, but requires only qtlib, not kde, and one never knows if an application named g* requires gnome, gtk or gtk2. If everyone stuck 100% to a naming scheme it would work, but right now the names doesn't divulge exactly what an application requires, only what family of libs they use.
:end rant

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[core plexus]

I don't remember exactly when it went away, since suddenly I didnt get it anymore, but it seems to be about 10 or so.

Didn't that suck? And there just wasnt much to be done about it either. -cp-

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[Anonymous Coward]

The BSDs don't use that steaming pile of shit known as "glibc"

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[Jethro]

It did suck. I spent many a birthday in an oxygen tent.

I was told that it's supposed to pass by the time you're 6. I had it till I was 13. Doctors said it was because my parents smoked. Told them not to smoke near me, but they never listened!

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[mcc]

Here's what I wonder, is getting the croup better or worse than getting mono?

Because mono is what I lost most of last year to.

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[core plexus]

I only got it during the winter, and now that you mention it, it did seem to occur less frequently as I got older. And my parents smoked too. They tried everything, though-poultice packs on my chest, stuff in the humidifier. Hateful. We lived too far from the doctors for me to go more than once, and my first time the docs broke a needle off in my ass, so I really didnt want to go back anyway.

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[Anonymous Coward]

The Kompany is pleased to announce a drop-in replacement for the iLoo -- Krapper

Re:Enough with the goddam 'K' names

[arose]

Yeah, who makes up those:
Gevolution
GNautilus
Gepiphany
Geye Gof Gnome
Getacity
Gnome Ganel
Gile Goller
GYelp
Gabiword
Mr Groject
Gluefish...

And worst of all the Krap style misspeled wordslike... Galeon.

Germans clearly rock.

[inertialFrame]

But it would be cool to have a good, free Exchange client. I've tried Ximian Connector, but Evolution often crashes for me with Connector installed. I've tried the WebDAV/Exchange/IMAP thingie in Korganizer, but it never has imported schedule items properly for me.

I'm not complaining, just wishing.

K's not always funny.

[NanoGator]

I thought Killustrator was funny, but Kroupware? Ugh. Very krappy.

Re:K's not always funny.

[sulli]

It'a better if you take some Kough syrup.

Re:K's not always funny.

[dspeyer]

I think it sounds less lame in German. It is a largely German project, after all (though it clearly runs fine in English). At least, I hope it sounds less lame in German -- it can hardly sound more!

Re:K's not always funny.

[sould]

K's are always funny

The announcement really should have been:

Kolab's
Kroupware
Komplete

Re:K's not always funny.

[the idoru]

obligatory simpson's quote:

Krusty: Have you gone completely ferkakta? Hey! I got my comedy "k's" back. King Kong, cold-cock, Kato Kaelin.

Re:K's not always funny.

[G3ckoG33k]

"It is a largely German project" Why not Kruppware, then? Or Kroupier? Or Kroupie...

Re:K's not always funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kroupware's Kolab Komplete would be more Korrect.

Re:K's not always funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

if your high on too much Kough syrup make shure to post on Klashdot

Re:K's not always funny.

[dragonfly_blue]

Especially since it makes the software sound like a feverish, phlegmy child.

Any freshly graduated advertising hire could tell you why this might be a bad idea.

Re:K's not always funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is a largely German project" Why not Kruppware, then?"

Maybe Krupp industries would have something to say, then.

Re:K's not always funny.

[arose]

It's every bit as stupid in german as in kenglish.

This is a big step forward.

[James A. A. Joyce]

Now we have a proper, KDE-enhanced groupware solution for all sizes of organisations. Unfortunately, even if it is better than Exchange, those organisations are still going to stick with Exchange just because it's what they're familiar with. Hopefully we can try and get this stuff supported in the workplace, and if we contribute code and offer support to the companies we work for if they use this, we can get more widespread adoption.

Exchange answers...

[exhilaration]

A little karma whoring never hurt anyone... :)

From the FAQ:
How can I make Outlook talk to the Kolab Server?
You need a Plug-in called InsightConnector from http://bynari.com. This is proprietary software and you need to aquire a license. Demo versions are available. A second company, konsec.com, announced to make a similiar plug-in offering in Q3 2003.

Later on it states:
Is there no Free Software Outlook plugin? Will you create one?
We are not aware of an existing Free Software plug-in for Outlook. Within the Kroupware project we have not been contracted to create such a plug-in. "Kervin L. Pierre" announced to work on it and started sourceforge.net/projects/otlkcon.

Looks great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great looking interface...gonna have to give it a try.

Yes, make it stop

[Anonymous Coward]

Possibly the single worst project name ever conceived. Who can take a name like that seriously?

Re:Yes, make it stop

[Dave2 Wickham]

What about "kdontchangethehostname" - OK, so it's not a project, but still...

Re:Yes, make it stop

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not that bad as a name that suggests a disease that makes little kids sound like barking seals.

Re:Yes, make it stop

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot, seals don't bark.

Sea lions do. That's why seals are often played by sea lions in the movies.

What's with the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kroupware? There is an Open Source product whose that is going head to head against major proprietary mail server packages, and someone actually thought to call it 'Kroupware'?

Is that like 'HackingCoughWare' or, perhaps, the more subtle 'ScreamingInfantWare'? Ok, perhaps this is a troll, but I've historically had a hard enough time selling open source stuff into various enterprises. ("MySQL? Aww, what a cute name. Now go get us something that sounds professional." I've heard that. Literally. Twice.) I realize we're all smart enough to know better.

Selling a product is as much (if not more) selling an image than it is selling features, reliability, etc. At least for the PHBs I've had to sell to in the past. Trying to bring a mission critical piece of software in that's named after an anoying childhood malady will, before anything else, elicit a bunch of laughs from the powers that be, and then there's that much more of a hole to dig out of.

Re:What's with the name?

[autopr0n]

("MySQL? Aww, what a cute name. Now go get us something that sounds professional." I've heard that. Literally. Twice.

Of course, they were right. MySQL isn't 'professional' It's great for hobbyist websites, but that's about it.

Re:What's with the name?

[Grishnakh]

If they think the name "MySQL" sounds unprofessional, then why do they think MS Windows is professional when it's loaded with things like "My Documents", "My Pictures", "My Computer", "My Network Places", etc. ad nauseum? Or worse yet, that stupid Clippy? And just the name "Windows" shows a complete and utter lack of imagination. If any software product is a poster-child for unprofessional, it has to be Windows.

Re:What's with the name?

[deander2]

this is very true. i've worked for and gotten mass adoption of bugzilla where i work, but i still have to fight that image problem of it being called "bugzilla".

everyone admits it works great...but "IBM/Rational ClearQuest(tm)" sounds so much more professional.

argh.

Re:What's with the name?

[Malcontent]

"MySQL? Aww, what a cute name. Now go get us something that sounds professional." I've heard that. Literally. Twice."

Holy shit. You'd think you could anything to somebody that dumb.

Come to think about this dunce probably drives a car whose name is es450 or 750i or something like that. Just tell him it's database ab800. Thell him it's much better then the 500 series because it's faster and gets better gas milage. If he starts asking questions just tell him you have to go put the token back into the token ring network and excuse yourself.

Re:What's with the name?

[jpkunst]

Agreed on the unfortunate tendency to use cute and/or silly names for Open Source products. Another example: there is a framework for persistent PHP objects under development which is called PHP Bananas (warning: PDF link; Google HTML version here).

Hanging on to these silly 'geek inside joke' code names is not helping adoptation of OSS.

JP

Re:What's with the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are of course correct, which is why the sell for Windows has always been retail, from the ground up.

That's great when you have end user software that end users can force MIS dorkuses to buy. However it doesn't work so well for server software, where you want somethings studly like "Oracle", "WebSphere" or "Exchange" that appeals directly to the pencilnecks in the IT purchasing department.

Re:What's with the name?

[Electrum]

Of course, they were right. MySQL isn't 'professional' It's great for hobbyist websites, but that's about it.

You're right, that's why it's used by companies that make millions each month.

Re:What's with the name?

[RoLi]

Ok, perhaps this is a troll

Do people who don't read articles (including the original reporter, BTW) count as trolls?

It's named Kolab, not Kroupware. There is even a nice shiny logo for those literally less unfortunate who have problems with longer texts (like the window title)...

Jeeez.

Re:What's with the name?

[Alioth]

If people are laughing at the name "MySQL" and telling you to get something more professional, use PostgreSQL. It's a much more feature rich DB too (has many basic things that MySQL still lacks such as enforcement of referential integrity, triggers etc.)

Re:What's with the name?

[autopr0n]

The fact that a company makes money does not mean it's well run from a professional standpoint.

Re:What's with the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

So is fucking notepad, but that doesn't make it professional, you fucking twat.

Re:What's with the name?

[Master of Transhuman]

If you're making millions per month (and that is translating into profits rather than just incoming cash that immediately goes back out again at expenses), then you are professional at SOMETHING.

Neither MySQL nor PostgreSQL will EVER beat Oracle, but if they work well enough to make somebody money (and I mean a company, not somebody working on one machine on their desk), they are professional. If they only work on someone's desktop, then they're not.

That simple.

Re:What's with the name?

[Mostly a lurker]

Seriously, blame the /. editors. Kroupware was an initial working name, sure. But the current name is Kolab, which IMHO is pretty good.

On a lighter note, I think kr*pware to replace cr*pware (i.e. Exchange) would be kind of appropriate.

Re:What's with the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Holy shit. You'd think you could anything to somebody that dumb.

You don't understand. As a PHB, that probably knows much more about open source than you do, I can tell you that getting adoption from both upper management and _users_ is non trivial.

Having a project with a silly name definitely don't help. Even bugzilla have been hard to deploy due to that ("We don't have bugs, we have issues and support requests")

Often the PHB that will tell you that the project is hard to deploy due to his name is not saying "I don't want this childish named project", but "The fact we don't have a vendor backing this project make people uneasy. With a childish name, it is even harder".

Re:What's with the name?

[briqui]

Do you remember the number of comments when these first appeared? They were referred to as 'silly' and 'childish' which certainly seems to me to be unprofessional!

Since then people have got used to them - and they were certainly very suitable to the consumer market - but that doesn't mean they were not a significant marketing mistake. Half the people I know renamed them on sight when they first got a copy, but after the 10th reinstall can you really be bothered to any more?

Now if they had called Windows 3.0 'myWindows' the history of computing might have been very different...

Re:What's with the name?

[N8w8]

What about "Windows"?
I think it's a stupid name that makes it look like the product is targeted at children (mommy look! there are windows!), yet MS managed to get Windows installed on the majority of workstations.

I think Kroupware is a lot better.

Re:What's with the name?

[arendjr]

Kroupware ain't the name of the product. It's the name of the project. The name of the product is Kolab (which sounds way more decent).

Re:What's with the name?

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

I agree, but don't forget a lot of proprietary products have wierd names too... Java? Java Beans?

Well, ok, that's all i can think of, but you get my point :]

Re:What's with the name?

[gregfortune]

That's been a consistant view of yours for at least the last year and while it was basically wrong then, it is now wrong in every imaginable way.

It isn't used by just hobbyist websites. If you need a couple of examples, both NASA and Google use MySQL for various purposes. I'll let you do more googling on your own... mysql.com also has information available. A short list posted under Customers on their Fact Sheet lists Yahoo!, Cisco, NASA, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Google, Hyperion, and Sony Pictures.

It performs very well for small/medium business point of sale systems as well. I personally have several clients using an application backended by MySQL. Not only has it been stable, it's blindingly fast.

MySQL still doesn't have the power that Oracle provides on big iron, but it compares very favorably to MSSQL and even to DB2, etc.

So, please tuck the FUD away under the bed. I wouldn't even both entertaining this, but you've been a regular poster here and maybe I will have cleared up a little confusion for you.

Re:What's with the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

"that doesn't mean they were not a significant marketing mistake."

What the fucking heck!?
How the hell can be a "significant marketing mistake" a software that is sold even prior to be developed!!!???

You seem to forget that Kolab Kroupware was ASKED FOR the German Government, the contract won by whom we already know and *after that* named by a name. Even if it were to be named "PureShit v.0.0-broken-beyond-cure" it couldn't be a "marketing mistake" since there's no marketing involved: the product IS ALREADY SOLD!!!

Do you thing *YOU* would profit better from Kroupware by any other name? All well and good; take the code (you know, it is open source) and profit from it by any fucking name you see fit!!!

Isn't it soooo easy?

Re:What's with the name?

[modecx]

Well, let's not forget slashdot! I mean, /.'s not the acme of professionalism, but it sure takes a beating.

I can't think of another database that has as many access per second that the slashdot servers have to put up with, on a regular basis. And, it's been working well for a pretty long time now.

If that dosen't say something about MySQL and it's scalibility, then not much can.

Re:What's with the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think it's a stupid name that makes it look like the product is targeted at children"

It *is* targeted at children!!! Haven't you seen the Windows XP interface? Just out from Fisher-Price design tables (apropiate for children from 6 to 36 months).

Re:What's with the name?

[jpkunst]

a lot of proprietary products have wierd names too... Java? Java Beans?

I think there is a (slight, but crucial) difference in this case. 'Java' is something people are used to by now, and 'Java Beans' is a more or less expected 'extension' of the whole 'Java == coffee' thing. 'PHP Bananas', on the other hand, comes out of nowhere. And even the word 'Banana' itself has (in this context) a much more silly/unserious 'feel' to it than 'Bean'.

I wish it wasn't so, but names like 'Kroupware' or 'PHP Bananas' are a hindrance if you are trying to make a case for the adaptation of open source technology in your organization.

JP

Re:What's with the name?

[jbolden]

DB2 and Oracle are very close feature wise.
MSSQL lags in terms of engine features but it is far closer to Oracle and DB2 than it is to MySQL. MySQL's SQL can't handle many of the structues in Access. It doesn't offer live backups. It still has borrible problems with table corruption.....

I'm sure that in NASA like more large organizations there are important databases being maintained in Excel; that doesn't mean Excel's data features make it an enterprise class database.

Re:What's with the name?

[0x0d0a]

The GIMP
less (vs more, doesn't make sense to new UNIX users)
Linux (named after it's creator?)
GNU (recursive, cutsey)...and by extension, gtk-gnutella (Gimp ToolKit-GNUTELLA, Gnu image manipulation program ToolKit-GNUTELLA, Gnu's not unix image manipulation program ToolKit-GNUTELLA)
Bonobo. I love this. Ximian is a play on "simian" (monkeys). Bonobo is the GNOME system for interconnecting components. Bonobos are famously promiscuous monkeys.
bash
awk
hurd

Re:What's with the name?

[Malcontent]

Anybody who won't adapt a piece of software just because of the name is dumber then a box of rocks.

You can try to defend them all you want but ignoring price, performance, scalibility, support and all other factors and rejecting a piece of software because of the name is a decision that not even Britney Spears would make.

Oooh people we standardized on visual basic .NET because that's such a cool name but we are going to reject mysql because that name is like so icky and lame. And besides Justin would never kiss a girl that deploys a silly product like Mysql. Does this .NET make my ass look fat?

Re:What's with the name?

[Jens]

"Anybody who won't adapt a piece of software just because of the name is dumber then a box of rocks."

Sure. So? What if this dumb brick of rock could sign a $x0,000 contract if things went its way?

I demoed SuSE and Debian for a couple server installations at a company recently.

They chose SuSE. Why? Not because of performance, stability or whatever. (Both systems did everything they were configured to do, flawlessly.). No. Pointing to the Debian boot messages, I was asked

"Whats with all the error messages? That doesn't look good."
Those weren't error messages, they were normal boot messages, I told them.
"So... it's normal for this system to show so much text on startup?"
Yes.
"So... why does the other system not show them? That looks much better."
*boggle*

They finally chose SuSE. Because it had a splash screen and "built-in graphics" and was therefore 'cleaner' and 'more professional' by definition. Boy, am I glad that I'm not responsible for those systems.

(The same reason why Linux is seldomly shown on photos in non-linux-specific publications, even if several OS are talked about. Linux is not 'pretty' by default. If a photographer takes a photo of a high-end server system and needs something pretty to show on the screen, "bash#" or a mc screen just doesn't cut it. But a nice pretty Windows XP login screen will do.
I've seen this on a business presentation at a local ISP who uses 99% Linux: They toured the visitors through their datacenter - running Linux almost everywhere - but the central admin console was showing a Windows .NET login screen. This has a HIGH psychological impact on the visitors, if they see 5000 computers humming along and one Windows logo ...)

People, OSS developers, NAMES ARE IMPORTANT. At least to business people who will probably spend a fair bit of money on your product('s support or extensions). Please don't call your application kFooBar, use a name that

• people can pronounce
• gives non-hackers an idea what the application is about

That is far more important than many OSS developers think! Just think telling somebody about the program. "Hey, I've just installed kfrbzlcighw, and it's really great!" - "kWHAT?" - ...

Re:What's with the name?

[Malcontent]

"Sure. So? What if this dumb brick of rock could sign a $x0,000 contract if things went its way?"

Like I said I would think you could sell anything to somebody that stupid. You could put a dead rat on a stick and call it a lollipop and charge him $500.00.

God please tell me his name and the company he works for. I bet I can retire early selling shit to a nincompoop like that.

"Linux is not 'pretty' by default."

I disagree with this. KDE and GNOME are both prettier in their default installation then windows. Of course nobody beats MacOSX in that dept.

"NAMES ARE IMPORTANT."

If you are selling this as an ISV then you cna legally rename the product. The GPL does not say anything about that. Take Mysql and sell it "superduperdabase enterprise edition especially made to make you more attractive to Britney Spears" and the dumfuck braindead CIO will jump at it. Of course he may sue you when Britney Spears does not return his phone calls and his dreams of a blowjob from britney get dashed but that's another story altogether.

Re:What's with the name?

[z80]

As long as it isn't called "GNU/Kroupware", I'm a happy man...

Re:What's with the name?

[catenos]

DB2 and Oracle are very close feature wise.
MSSQL lags in terms of engine features but it is far closer to Oracle and DB2 than it is to MySQL. MySQL's SQL can't handle many of the structues in Access. It doesn't offer live backups.

I was with you (although one could argue about the one or other point), until this...

It still has borrible problems with table corruption.....

Huh? In which world do you live? Making such a claim without any reference is ridiculous. MySQL in known for not having any software-inflicted data losses.

In fact, it's so reliable, that at the first sign of a corruption, I would start looking for hardware problems causing it:

The two times I had corruptions (on databases, which got billions of queries in the meantime), it were, in fact, hardware problems: the one time it was a faulty memory bit, several month after the machine was into production, which only showed with memtest after running it for a day (i.e. it was not completely random, but only sometimes lost its state).

And the other time, the manufactorer put a terminator on the SCSI bus, where none belonged, which caused spurious errors. Luckily we detected the this one during running stress tests for a week before going into production.

So in order to get back to the point: Mind giving any references to those "borrible problems with table corruption"?

Re:What's with the name?

[Jens]

"God please tell me his name and the company he works for. I bet I can retire early selling shit to a nincompoop like that."

I don't remember the name of the person (and probably would get into trouble when I told you) but the company was Philips Semiconductors.

"If you are selling this as an ISV then you cna legally rename the product. The GPL does not say anything about that. "

Good. I didn't know that.

Re:What's with the name?

[jbolden]

http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Reproduceable_test_cas e.html
http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Corrupted_MyIS AM_table s.html

Anyway you see the issue all the time. Just do a google search on table corruption and mysql. We personally have experienced it on our app.

Re:What's with the name?

[gregfortune]

So the first link outlines some fairly nasty hardware based errors that can cause corruptions and mentions that bugs in the engine might cause corruption as well. Note that it doesn't mention that the reason for including this in the manual is because lots of people have problems with it.

The second link is just good support material in the event that such a corruption were to ever happen. Looks like they are doing a good job in covering all the possiblities...

A google search pulls up lots of hits, but none of them appear to be recent, relevent posts. Mostly, I was seeing links to MySQL documentation rather than angry people..

Finally, a search for "Oracle corrupted table" pulls up links to people complaining in forums and links to Oracle documentation that tells you how to deal with the problem, but I don't think either of us would claim that Oracle just sucks and has horrible table corruption.

Re:What's with the name?

[gregfortune]

DB2 and Oracle are very close feature wise.
Definitely not true. My opinion is that DB2 is a better buy for the money, but Oracle can do things that no other database does. Why do you think Oracle DBAs get paid such obscene amounts of money?

MySQL's SQL can't handle many of the structues in Access.
What! Do you mean structural issues or data type issues? With respects to being able to structure a solution to a problem in one or the other, SQL 92 support puts them on an even playing field. The performance and stability of their SQL92 engine is an entirely different story. If you mean in terms of datatypes, search mysql.com for crash-me and take a look at what mysql actually *does* support. I'm afraid you'll be hard pressed to find something MySQL can't do w/respect to Access.

It doesn't offer live backups.
That's the most valid point you've made so far and it's only partially true. Furthermore, full featured live backup support is expected in the near future.

It still has borrible problems with table corruption.....
You've already been beat down soundly over this one ;o)

I'm sure that in NASA like more large organizations there are important databases being maintained in Excel; that doesn't mean Excel's data features make it an enterprise class database.
Agreed, but my impression from an engineer who was either in charge of MySQL deployment or worked very closely with it was that they were serving huge amounts of information for several specialized projects where deploying a new database instead of using an existing one was an attractive option. I would not be suprised to hear that NASA's MySQL usage increases in the future. Google is using it for some pretty big stuff too.

Re:What's with the name?

[jbolden]

In terms of SQL the definition length speaks for themselves:

92 ~ 100 pages
93 ~ 200 pages
99 ~ 2000 pages

Oracle and DB2 have implemented well over 1/2 the 99 standard. Things like hierarchical queries are very important features missing from MySql. In terms of Access, it has implemented all of the 93 standard while MySQL has not. In particular subselects at any point in the select statement are a major feature defeciency.

Re:What's with the name?

[Malcontent]

" I don't remember the name of the person (and probably would get into trouble when I told you) but the company was Philips Semiconductors."

I will be sure to avoid buying any stock in that company. Thanks.

Re:What's with the name?

[richie2000]

Tell him the database is mauve-coloured. Mauve has more RAM.

Re:What's with the name?

[gregfortune]

hierarchical queries:
That's a pretty slick little parlor trick :) That must be an SQL99 trick?

subselects:
Highly overrated deficiency that is fixed in the 4.1 series I believe.

In my experience, Microsoft DB products have performed very poorly and Access, in particular, has an engine that I've seen fail on very small databases. By failure, I mean complete and utter meltdown of the db, incorrect results to queries, inability to insert additional records, etc. I have seen nothing in either product that would make me give up MySQL for *any* reason although I must complement Access on its GUI.

Now, I'll back up to my orignal post and try to qualify what I'm saying as you seem to have some in depth knowledge across several RDMSs. My original point was that MySQL works very well for lots of different companies and for POS systems for small/medium businesses in particular. The parent to my original post claimed it was just used for "hobbies websites" which is not true.

I also agree that Oracle and DB2 are in a class of their own, but in the small/medium business market, I feel they are too expensive to purchase and maintain when compared to MySQL.

Perhaps I've been lucky thus far as I've never experienced any table corruption in MySQL and I haven't been hurt by any of its lacking features (either by not needing them or designing around them). With several POS systems in production over the last couple years, MySQL has proven itself as a good choice in my target market.

Re:What's with the name?

[Anonymous Coward]

One other reason was maybe that they wanted to be able to buy external support if they could, and SuSE has an established support infrastructure. Debian doesn't (lots of independant contractors but no structure).

O"K"

[Anonymous Coward]

The project isn't just O"K", it's GREAT!

Seriously though, integrating the K elements is great. However, I noticed that Korganizer doesn't like a HUGE file (takes forever to load). Also, Kmail's LDAP feature is not integrated with the mail client (it's part of the address book and requires the user to start the address book instead of integrating LDAP with Kmail (as implemented in Mozilla)).

Anyone know if this project fixes those problems?

Re:O"K"

[danimo]

This is all being worked on for KDE 3.2. In fact, LDAP support for KMail is already in CVS.

Re:O"K"

[StormReaver]

"Also, Kmail's LDAP feature is not integrated with the mail client...."

KMail is my primary email client at work, but it barfs really bad on merely-non-trivial IMAP attachments. The Archives department had sent me fifteen Word Perfect documents through email that needed to be converted to PDFs and put onto the web site, and KMail worked my computer into a 5.0+ load average (and froze the whole system for nearly a minute) trying to retrieve the attachments. If I try right-clicking on the email to delete it, KMail crashes.

I love KMail, and KDE in general, but there are still a few little things scattered about that are quite painful. I'm extremely greatful to the KDE crew, despite the few remaining problems. Those guys are miracle workers.

To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[Plix]

According to the FAQ (and from ximian.com) it appears as if Evolution doesn't support Kroupware and wont be supporting it anytime soon (see this post to the evolution mailing list). This is a real shame considering that outside of the KDE camp most people aren't using K-Mail in favor of Gnome clients like Evolution and Balsa.

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[Anonymous Coward]

They store contact information in a special folder with one contact per email ? Seems a perfectly valid reason not to interact with it to me. That's gayer than Goering on surprise night inspection of the barracks.

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[Wesley Felter]

If both Kroupware and Evolution supported standards, then they wouldn't need any extra support to work together. Unfortunately, Kroupware is taking a weird approach of accessing contacts and calendar entries using IMAP instead of LDAP and CAP. Evolution doesn't support CAP either.

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[Anonymous Coward]

So, does anyone support CAP? Or iCal or whatever it's called? Anyone? Hello?

Those standards are apparently completely dead on arrival.

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried using KMail but found it was _horrible_ working with IMAP folders of significant size (2000-3000 messages). It appeared to "refresh" a _lot_. Annoying enough to make it unusable. =-(

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[afidel]

iCal doesn't solve the real problem, it basically just solves the encapsulation of the appointment information problem but leaves the central storage and colaborative scheduling problems unsolved. Almost all programs support iCal but iCal doesn't gain you a whole lot.

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[Elektroschock]

in Europe redHat and gnome are weaker than KDE. Everybody uses KDE... Evolution was the more advanced application, now it looses ground and many other projects get mature.

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[JanneM]

Not my experience - though Europe is not a homogenous market. Among the people I know, or know of, running Linux on the desktop, there have usually been about a 50-50 split between Gnome and KDE, with some of the KDE people running evolution. Lately, there seems to be a slow movement toward greater use of Gnome, and especially Evolution now that 1.4 is out and stable. It's gotten to the point where some Windows-users are starting to ask how to run Evolution on their machines.

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[IamTheRealMike]

Not in my experience, it seems to be mostly 40%/40% with the remainder using enlightenment/openbox/whatever WM. Especially since Red Hat 8 came out, there has been much greater usage of gnome around here I've noticed.....

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly 180degrees from my experience. Since last Gnome version, people here is moving to KDE and since RH8 people is moving out from Red Hat.

Both issues are intimately related.

"Here" means Spain.

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[Wesley Felter]

The Steltor, er Oracle calendar server is working on CAP support. Last I checked the RFC was about to be issued, so it's no surprise that apps are just starting to support it.

Re:To bad Evolution probably wont support it

[Anonymous Coward]

CAP is a superset of iCal. Perhaps you should read http://www.calsch.org? CAP _is a server-based Calender solution that is hopefully soon to be an internet standard. Kroupware whilst admirable is not an internet standard and is like someone writing Kttp or Kmap or Kpop, not really useful outside their Kenvironment.

Having said this, I'm not dishing the effort and will definately give Kroupware a go until a CAP server from my project or another evolves to embrace all calendar clients. I'm thinking OOGw is more likely to get there first.

Doesn't it seem a bit ludicrous that so many groupware products web-based and otherwise have developed to their own non-standard calendar stores?

StuartGuthrie
Author of JiCal.

Who came up with that name?

[Forkenhoppen]

"Kroupware"?!!? As someone who's had a few younger brothers and sisters who've had the croup as babies.. that's a pretty lame name. It makes me think of text-to-speech software being played too loudly on a pair of cheap speakers.

Re:Who came up with that name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now stop it already. You're talking about
the codename of a project that's over.

The name of the product is Kolab server and client,
respectively.

It's cute and all...

[NanoGator]

... but all those apps that begin with K become a real nuisance to find on KDE's version of the start-menu when you're a Linux newb such as myself.

Re:It's cute and all...

[__aafkqj3628]

It's also bad if you use a keyboard alot - You've got Konquerer, Kmail and now Kroupware. You want to get to Kroupware, you have to hit 'K' THREE TIMES!

Re:It's cute and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is similar to a pet peeve of mine: people who prefix every class and variable name with "C" or "my" or "the".

So what

[Rhinobird]

They aren't trying to make a drop in replacement of Exchange. They are trying to make a functional replacement of Exchange. Also I think the German's needed something for their spiffy linux desktops to do besides look pretty.

Re:So what

[Anonymous Coward]

They obviously don't have a clue - just look at the name. Give me a break - that is about the most idiotic sounding name I have ever heard for a project. Given the fact that all the KDE jackasses think it's cool to name all their projects starting with a K, I can see where these fucking morons get it from, but show some creativity - PLEASE! And to name something the same as an inllness that children get is just plain stupid. I can see it now - go to a client and say "hey, you should give Kroupware a shot" and they ask "What is it? Is it contagious? Will I get sick? Are you trying to kill me? Get out!". Yeah, right. That name will never pass from my lips to anyones ears. Jackass Germans. You people are so stupid. Kan kyou kplease kome kup kwith ka knew kname???

Re:So what

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you are stupid. In German, the K is pronounce as K, C is pronounced as C. Since only German write KDE applications, they have the right to name their applications in their own tongue.

interesting exchange article

[Anonymous Coward]

there's an interesting article on exchange from the open source perspective over at tubgirl tech archive

Looks like another near miss...

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I want this to be a viable Exchange replacement, it looks like another near miss to me. A quick review of the screenshots shows a distince seperation between client and server folders. Saddly, this alone would torpedo implementing this as a solution where I work. The cost of re-training the users would exceed the cost of Exchange client licenses.

Re:Looks like another near miss...

[hdparm]

I don't quite share your views. Having Exchange mailboxes limited in size, as is the case in a company where I work, forces you to use Personal Folders locally - people are just too lazy to save file attachments where they normally should be saved and sometimes keep all that stuff in their mailbox even if they saved attachments elsewhere. The most frequent excuse is that they 'need history of what was sent and when' but they never really look at that shit again. So, it's exactly like on that screenshot.

Re:Looks like another near miss...

[Anonymous Coward]

The most frequent excuse is that they 'need history of what was sent and when' but they never really look at that shit again.

God damn, you really fuckin do not have a clue. Email is the fucking lifeforce of modern business -- there isn't a single mothufucking application that's more important at all -- it's absolutely goddamn essential that users have a record of their business communication.

If that causes you lameassed virginal losers in the computer janitor dungeon to spend an extra 1c/MB on disk, go do it, you fucking shitass. You'll wonder when your job is outsourced to India, I bet.

Then Just Rename It...Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Source .... take the source ...
name it something else ...
profit

In an attempt to stop the FUD BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Kolab, the server :
Architecture paper :
Kontact, the KDE client
Bynari insight connector (not free)LA
Kolab server download :

best group since SCORPIANS ??

[zymano]

didn't know that.

Actually........

[eclectro]

Kolab is the sister planet to Kolob. Fellow Kolabians, let's extend a warm handshake of welcome to our brethren the Kolobians.

Maybe its not "group" with a "k"...

[fmita]

Croup - noun - a spasmodic laryngitis especially of infants marked by episodes of difficult breathing and hoarse metallic cough

Apt name for an Exchange replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly misunderstand the true purpose of Exchange, which is to transmit viruses at blinding speeds. For a full-featured replacement, you can't get a more marketable name than "kroupware".....

INCORRECT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess again, Fuckstick!

again not quite there

[scottking]

once again the open source community releases an exchange killer, and once again it is missing the most important component...

native integration with outlook.

i said this before in another post, but i am going to say it again. businesses aren't ready for desktop linux, which means server side solutions (no matter how brilliant) MUST work with the desktop apps that employees use. no one wants to relearn their e-mail client; and yes i am aware that evolution is almost identical to outlook at the interface level. but the truth of it is, the perception of any new desktop software is "now i have to learn everything all over again". it's the illusion of difficulty, so we as developers (and by we i mean you :) ) should make it our primary goal to lessen the difficulty of the intgration with newer, oss technology where ever we can

Re:again not quite there

[TheCanucklehead]

Could not agree more. That is the clientelle - to not code for them only guarantees failure.

Re:again not quite there

[Grishnakh]

If you want an Outlook connector, go write one yourself.

This product was not written by some vague "open source community" at large. It was written by two consulting companies who were contracted by the German government to provide a very specific solution using open-source components, and that's exactly what they did. The German government will not be using Outlook on their client machines, so they sure as hell are not going to fund development of anything to do this. If it's so important to you or others, you're free to write it yourself or fund development with your own money. Or you can buy an existing solution from Bynari for a lot less than an Exchange system.

Re:again not quite there

[1000101]

You may be right, but they sure as hell make it seem like it's an Outlook/Exchange killer for the masses.

Re:again not quite there

[Alien Being]

I think you're exaggerating the difficulty of learning to use a new groupware client. There are office workers out there who used to use typewriters and mechanical accounting machines. Most of them adapted just fine to ascii terminals, faxes, email and spreadsheets.

Integrating apps with proprietary sw is as difficult as the proprietor wants it to be. Look at the hoops the Samba project has had to jump through. It would appear that in some parts of the world they've reached a critical mass where compatibility with MS doesn't matter any more. If MS wants to get in this game, maybe they should write the adapter or, heaven forbid, open up their formats and protocols.

Re:again not quite there

[Derek S]

Building such a connector is clearly a monumental task. I oversaw a test deployment of Bynari Insight Connector a while ago, and I was disturbed to see how kludged together it was. Not only was it a major pain in the ass to configure on a given workstation, but the end product clearly behaved differently than regular Outlook. Needless to say, the project was a non-starter.

I've been meaning to check out Samsung Contact to see if their Outlook integration is any better. It doesn't seem like anyone in the open source world is going to do what it takes to enable such interoperability.

Re:again not quite there

[Deusy]

once again the open source community releases an exchange killer, and once again it is missing the most important component...

native integration with outlook.

What is it with these people?

"Either I'm having it for free or I'll pay lots of money to Microsoft for Exchange."

What's wrong with the middle ground? The various connector's you can buy are not expensive. Not in comparison to further Exchange licensing.

If you're so bothered about things being free, remove that OS that runs Outlook, and run one that has a free alternative - Evolution !

Expecting free connectors to propietry apps smacks of hypocracy.

Re:again not quite there

[TheCanucklehead]

What you're missing is that the various connectors don't provide full functionality.

Re:again not quite there

[Aadain2001]

And what you are missing is that all money purchases have to go through the PHB. And in this time of IT budget cuts, you have to proove to them that what you want is 1) cost effective and 2) needed. Sure the server side stuff is free which is good, so you get number 1. Then you have to convince them that it also satisfies number 2, which in this case it doesn't. If you are a large group/company, you already have paid your money to MS to buy an Exchange server and get it setup and maintained. That money is already out the door. Doesn't cost anything to replace it at the server side, but it does cost money to make the desktops work with it. That says to the PHB that it's going to cost MORE money now to get less functionality (if they understand that word that is). This is why it won't get past the PHB. Now, if you were a brand new company or you were one of the few who were getting rid of MS *cough*Munich*cough*, then this is a great solution. You will get both server and client for free, with will satisfy both number 1 and number 2.

Re:again not quite there

[scottking]

some of the replies imply that it is the cost of the software that i am concerned about.

far from it.

i see that the connectors are all very well priced, but they are still connectors.

the trouble is not the cost, the trouble is the idea that the user has another piece of software to install on their desktop. if cost was the concern, then any of the groupware packages out there would be a no brainer. transparency is the issue here. obviously the developers have done a bang up job of cloning the value adding features of exchange in their projects, but they are still neglecting the most widely implemented client software.

what the orgainzations that are willing to use oss server technology want is a drop in solution... this is not a drop in solution.

for those /.'ers who said "write one yourself", i am not going to lie, i can't... wouldn't have the first clue where to start. but what i do know is what consumers want. and i also know what business purchasing and it departments want; and that's a replacement for exchange, that installs and functions like exchange.

Re:again not quite there

[Anonymous Coward]

It is, it kills both Outlook and Exchange.

Re:again not quite there

[shnarez]

If more people stopped using Outlook, we'd all have many fewer problems with viruses sending out viruses, spam, and other crap.

The fact is that people who don't know what's going on well enough won't notice if the first machine they get (say, in the office) is running Evolution and OpenOffice and not Outlook with MSOffice.

Unless they expect the functionality that is deeply ingrained into Outlook and is nowhere else. Which, naturally, makes them more of a power-user. The sheep know how to read and respond to email. Sometimes even that requires "training".

Re:again not quite there

[Oestergaard]

native integration with outlook

Which is handled by several commercial companies - didn't quite read the articles did we?

businesses aren't ready for desktop linux

Bullshit.

It completely depends on the type of company, the company age, management style, and culture. I will agree with you as far as "not all companies are ready for desktop linux", and "most companies are not ready for 100% desktop linux". But that's as far as it goes.

What do companies do? Well, if a company is 100% focused on creating windows desktop software, I agree that it will most likely not need a lot of Linux desktop systems in it's production environment. Still, for a secretary handling e-mail, why the heck not? Such a company may still have a culture that just says "no" - but do remember that the majority of companies out there are not 100% windows desktop software ISVs (and most who are, are in direct competition with MS anyway - good luck folks!).

Don't tell me that a secretary cannot learn to use KMail or Kontact instead of Outlook. I've heard that kind of arguments often enough - it is simply not true for people with an IQ just slightly larger than their shoe size. In general, people may be stupid, but very very few people are *that* stupid (and those who are, can't use Outlook either - you find these people in your MTA logs, when they put street names in the "To:" field).

So everyone needs Outlook on the desktop why? Because you need office there too, and Outlook is the only mail app for windows which again is the only OS which runs office? Come on - I'm in management and I get a word document about once a month - either abiword can read it, or I can make the sucker send me a PDF instead. If I got more documents like that, I might invest in staroffice, but really I don't see it as an issue.

now i have to learn everything all over again

You are fooling yourself. The hard part about e-mail is knowing what an address is, knowing the concept of "CC", "reply", "forward", "attachments", etc. Repeat after me: this stuff doesn't change between MUAs.

it's the illusion of difficulty

Maybe I am just lucky, but I have never met people with that kind of mind-set. If you have a job and your employer tells you "this is your desktop", then that is in fact your desktop. If the "mail" icon happens to pop up "kontact", well then that is the MUA you will be using 8 hours a day, and certainly a four hour investment in getting to know it, will pay itself off quite well (if you expect to keep the job for more than a few days).

Re:again not quite there

[scottking]

i didn't say they couldn't learn a new sustem, i said they wouldn't want to.

last time i checked there was no option to connect to any other groupware product other than exchange in the default install of linux. thus there is no "native" support for kolab. if they developed the server to accept connections from outlook by simply selecting "Microsoft Exchange" in the account setup wizard, that would be native support. yeah, i did read the articles.

Re:again not quite there

[scottking]

the learning curve is not difficult, i never said it was... getting users to believe that is another thing entirely.

Re:again not quite there

[Alien Being]

Moron.

Re:again not quite there

[scottking]

ouch.

Re:again not quite there

[scottking]

thanks man. glad someone sees it from a non-linux elitist point of view.

Re:again not quite there

[TheCanucklehead]

No prob. Like you I actually want to see Linux succeed on the desktop :)

Re:again not quite there

[scottking]

yeah, i do think that we'll see a day where linux is a serious contender in the desktop market, but from using it myself, there is a long way to go with regards to usability and design for novice users.

Fahrvegnugen ......Kroupware. Stop the madness!!!!

[zymano]

Germans . Change the name now!

Call it NiggerWare.

Khat?

[Feztaa]

Kon't Kou Kust Kate Kt Khen Kll Khe Ktupid Kords Ktart Kith K?

Re:Khat?

[Gleng]

Ghat goud gou grefer?

Re:Khat?

[Yokaze]

iThink iFlashy iColourful iApps.

Re:Khat?

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Gou gispelled "gould."

Re:Khat?

[Gleng]

Guck!

KENOUGH KWITH KHE KKAY KNAMING!

[autopr0n]

Seriously, what is the deal with starting every KDE based app, and lots that aren't with a K? I mean, first of all what does a groupware app have to do with KDE? And secondly, it's just an idiotic name!

Re:KENOUGH KWITH KHE KKAY KNAMING!

[ocelotbob]

STFU already. You made the same goddamn point several times on this fucking thread. Give it a rest. Are you critical of apple's use of i-everything, or of MS's overuse of -XP? Or are you just bitching for the sake of bitching?

Re:KENOUGH KWITH KHE KKAY KNAMING!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not more stupid than the letter 'G'

Re:KENOUGH KWITH KHE KKAY KNAMING!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me try to be subtle, Mr. autopr0n, at some point, you need to decide whether you want to enter "Scott Lockwood" territory or not.

If so, you will suffer like-consequences.

Re:KENOUGH KWITH KHE KKAY KNAMING!

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new.. autopr0n posts on tons of forums for no real reason.. slashdot, fark, etc.. it's so he can spam his site.. good thing its a porn site, and a good one, else i might actually get mad =)

Re:KENOUGH KWITH KHE KKAY KNAMING!

[10Ghz]

Why aren't you flaming Gnome for having programs that all start with G? Seriously, why? Why is ot OK for Gnome to call their apps Gaim, Gnumeric, Gimp, Galeon etc. etc.

Re:KENOUGH KWITH KHE KKAY KNAMING!

[JanneM]

Because, perhaps, that actually many (if not most) gnome apps don't start with G: Evolution, Epiphany, Sodipodi, Dia, Anjuta, Pan, MrProject, Abiword and so on. Yes, too many still use that old overworked scheme, but not nearly as many as in some other projects.

Re:KENOUGH KWITH KHE KKAY KNAMING!

[10Ghz]

Let's see... Arts, CDBakeOven, Noatun, Aethera, Psi etc. There are plenty of KDE-apps that don't start with K. Yes, it's propably more common in KDE to start with KD than it is in Gnome to start with G. But what are you going to do? Tell the people who write the apps that "you must name your app the way I want!"? If they want to name it Ksomething, don't they have that right?

Whining about the name is completely pointless. It's the software that matters, not the name

Re:KENOUGH KWITH KHE KKAY KNAMING!

[JanneM]

Well, an authors of course have every right to name the apps whatever they want. I could write a suite of vastly different apps and call the App01, App02 ... in chronological (or source code size) order, and nobody would have a right stop me.

If I did suffer from temprary insanity, though, and decided to use that scheme, I hope I would be wise enough to listen if numerous people argue that it may not be the best possible naming scheme for various reasons.

I see this sort of like bug reporting. There is a world of difference between useless and mean bitching about some perceived fault on one hand, and constructive criticism on the other. Saying "The name GNU/OpenKGKGKGKGKGKG sucks. You stink." is mean-spirited and unhelpful. Saying "Good app. I have a suggestion, though: wouldn't 'Docfilter' or 'Textconvert' be a better name? It would probably help a lot of people find the app." is, on the other hand constructive and helpful.

Pointing out that having a largish collections of applications all starting with the same latter can couse problems for the users is certainly valid criticism - as long as its not along the lines of "you are dumb" as discussed above.

And there _are_ general naming problems today. To take one axample from my favourite desktop: Galeon. Nice name. Starts with G and everything. But - what is it? Sit a new Linux user down on a Gnome desktop and ask them to run the web browser - they will not associate an app named "Galeon" with anything web-related. They may think it's something nautical, or perhaps some kind of fonance program, but not a browser. For all its faults, "Internet Explorer" does have an excellent name. "Netscape" works only because it's such a well-established term. "Mozilla" may in time achieve the same status. But the smaller browsers really have a problem here - and it goes for Galeon, Epiphany, Konqueror and Opera.

Now, for one app, the problem isn't all that great - you find it once, and you know what it is. Gnome and KDE has a special problem, though - one that isn't shared by most other projects. That is that they are collections of many applications. If all - or most - of those applications have the same naming issues, learning the desktop will be an excercize in frustration. Not all apps have this problem, of course; 'gedit', 'kword' 'AbiWord' are fairly clear, for instance, signalling their general task area in the name. Having a convention like "start all app names with G/K" increases the problem - frequently you see names that are very convoluted or artificial, simply so they can fit that mold, which of course does not help the user one bit. KDE arguably has a small additional problem, as the template there specifies to replace 'C' with 'K'. A user remembers that it was named "Conqueror", and tries it on the command line, with no success. Another small, but needless, moment of frustration ensues. There is _very_ good reason why, for instance, redhat elected to replace the actual app names in the menus with descriptive entries.

Another reason to be wary about cute naming schemes is that it easily grates on people. I would be very happy if I never needed to feast my eyes on another app starting with 'G' or 'K' ever again. Especially those that does a nifty sound-alike replacement ("Konqueror", "gnumeric") is a source of low-level irritation - I know how it's supposed to be spelled and get the same mild annoyance I get from misspelled words in other places where people are supposed to know better. Again, not a big thing at all, but these kind of minor issues pile up and do determine the general impression of quality, often on a subconsious level.

So yes, call the app whatever you want, but please do so knowing why the name may be a problem.

Bug report #1 on final version:

[Anonymous Coward]

Check this shot out.

I pose a thread to my neighbors when I keep the window shades open. heh heh.

BPAA Is Good for What Ails Ya!

[Anonymous Coward]

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bpaa representative #648437

Re:BPAA Is Good for What Ails Ya!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, are you a different AC, or do you just have too much time on your hands?

HEY DUMBASS

[Anonymous Coward]

The letter K is no sillier than the infamous red-hat or my personal hero, Geeko (SuSE). Mandrake, Debian, and every other project in the OS that got off the ground and into code has a mascot. Its half the fun and joy of this OS. Heck, is K any sillier than E?

otlkcon status

[kervin]

http://otlkcon.sf.net is mine.

I've been working on it from about Nov'02, and was pretty much trying to keep things on the down-low until I had a proof-of-concept to show. You see, ironically, I did this to not have yet-another-vapor-project out there :)

The a simple connector plugin would not have taken this long. But I've decided to take a solid stab at solving the root problem, that is, an extendable MAPI message service, and the tools needed to program for/with this set of MAPI providers.

First part of the Message service, is the message store. That's the DLL in MAPI responsible for actually saving your mail to the filesystem, amongst other things. The second most important service provider, the transport service provider, is responsible for sending the mail off, basically.

I've been focusing on a sub-project at http://sapimapi.sf.net. Don't let the stats put you off, I've been putting a decent amount of hours on this one ( sf.net CVS stats are broken right now ). This testing utility has a built in scripting language, and common MAPI routines, to make it easy to configure the behavior of MAPI clients for testing the service providers. I also intend to fit in TNEF routines and info on much of the undocumented MAPI properties I've collected from/at various places. The testing utilitly is early, early alpha; I have the language lexer/parser done, and I'm working on the built in MAPI library calls. Extended MAPI from C# is a bitch. Funny they forget to mention stuff like that in the brochure.

Open source connector will get done soon. I've heard of at least one other group working on the problem. I suspect it's only a matter of time till one of the unprofitable companies, selling a MAPI connector, releases it as open source. There are a lot of them.

The important thing, I believe, is that we get a complete extendable toolkit, that would spark the continued development of extensions. Eg. address book, chat, voicemail, etc.

Re:otlkcon status

[Anonymous Coward]

+5, very nice.

Keep up the good work and all the best.

Re:otlkcon status

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another programmer with delusions of grandeur. Inventing a new scripting language for your application is a sure sign you have gone off the deep end and will never, ever produce more than a lot of grand designs. Try setting achievable goals, and standing on the shoulders of giants whenever possible. You may actually be able to produce something of value that way.

Great...

[TheCanucklehead]

An Exchange tie-in that functions like all the rest - requiring the Byntari Connector which provides limited service at best.

Only project name!

[RPoet]

"Kroupware" was only a working title for the project. The completed product is called Kolab. I don't know why Slashdot went with Kroupware in the title (I think someone mentioned "kroup" is similary to the Dutch word for throwing up).

Re:Only project name!

[stefanvt]

Actually no, it's more similar to the Dutch word "kroep" which is a nasty disease (as someone mentioned here before)

kroep is a folkname for diphtheria (sp?) of the upper airways.

I imagine since Dutch and German are, very, close relatives it has exactly the same meaning.

An unfortenate working title to say the least

Re:Only project name!

[Speare]

The 'croup' is a serious larynx condition for young children, creating a harsh cough that sounds like it's going to rip something apart inside.

Yeah, telling your boss that Linux is quality software is one thing, but telling her that she should pitch a strategy on adopting "Kroupware" and "Killustrator" doesn't go over as well.

I don't see the problem

[Kunta Kinte]

The special 'contact' folder approach is very common. It is what outlook uses, or at least use to use.

Evolution could have a simple 'contact-folder-is-special' switch, or a 'kroupware-support' switch to toggle behavior.

Re:I don't see the problem

[JanneM]

As the link above says, though, it is a pretty ugly hack, considering that it could have supported LDAP for contacts. I'm actually a bit mystified as to why they didn't use LDAP - I mean, surely the KDE tools support it?

Re:Fahrvegnugen ......Kroupware. Stop the madness!

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be representing the GNAA. I think they should form a KNAA as an alternative of GNAA.

Achtung, der namentrollz...

[heironymouscoward]

Ja, das namen "Kroupware" ist untercompatible mit der "marketing" und "salez". Ve haf zehr lang geflamed unt gechat mit keine success. in Deutsch, "kroup" en "group" ist blinkindentic.
Ja, Slashdot namentrollz, genough mit dem "kind und kroup" joken. Ve asken zie einen gutten namen te finden. We zen unterserious. Das winner mit deze bestes namen ist kandidate fur ein Freiexemplar gewinnen. Achtung, frei als in "freies Bier"! Ja, ja. Ist Kool, nein?

Re:Achtung, der namentrollz...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak english, you dork. nobody understands you. nobody likes you. everybody hates you. go away and leave the rest of the geeks. Step outside. that bright thing out there in the ceiling is called the sun. It's good for you.

Re:Achtung, der namentrollz...

[Anonymous Coward]

that was basically english made to look like german, you schmuck.

Re:Achtung, der namentrollz...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak english, you dork.

Is there any English speaker (outside of America, of course) that DIDN'T understand that?!

Canadians, chime in here, plesase!

Re:Achtung, der namentrollz...

[Veles]

Just like that, what kind of German is it?

Es sieht nicht so gut aus.

(Ve, wir, zie, sie, deze, den und andere)

Re:Achtung, der namentrollz...

[Anonymous Coward]

Es ist verboten Clown zu spielen

Re:Achtung, der namentrollz...

[heironymouscoward]

Ja, ja, mein trollz nach "interesting" gemoderaten, mein grosse humor ist nach "insightful" gemoderaten, und mein klassiek filosofy ist nach "-1 troll" gemoderaten... Ich gesnapt nicht!! :(
Und ve zegen "Klown", nicht "clown". Danke.

Namecalling

[skurken]

It's interesting to find that most comments thus far has been about the name of the app. Is there really no more to say or are people just looking for cheap Funny-karma?

I'll chip in for the ante then:
This seems to be an intreresting product for hybrid companies (like I've worked with) where the engineering part is using Linux and the manager part is using Windows/Outlook. This way there is a serious player for interconnecting the two of them that (unlike Evolution) doesn't rely on an Exchange server. If now Evolution just could start working with this as well and we'll have real interconnectivity. Good.

Re:Namecalling

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting to find that most comments thus far has been about the name of the app. Is there really no more to say or are people just looking for cheap Funny-karma?

1. Since karma isn't specific to KDE, the correct spelling is carma.

2. You do not receive carma for funny moderations, please consult the FAQ.

Re:Namecalling

[mrpuffypants]

At 3am all that happens around here IS funny karma whoring. Let us play our games and use the letter "K" in every word...please?

Re:Namecalling

[Overly Critical Guy]

It's interesting to find that most comments thus far has been about the name of the app. Is there really no more to say or are people just looking for cheap Funny-karma?

No, people are wanting open source products to be taken seriously and to compete head-on with popular proprietary solutions, and it's just frustrating when you have to tell your boss about something called "Kroupware" as opposed to "Microsoft Exchange."

Seriously, the K-prefix thing is quite unprofessional. Even KDE is a horrible name for a desktop environment (in the name recognition department, GNOME has it beat, though that's still a bad name).

You underestimate the importance of a friendly and accessible name when it comes to gaining new users. You set the whole tone of the project by your name. Dislike that fact, but it's still true. I can't talk to people about things like "xlf," "bash," or "XFree86," without sounding like I'm spewing gibberish, which of course turns away newbies. Even shareware and freeware projects for Windows choose reasonable names. I don't know why there is the obsession with naming everything all lower-case, abbreviating, or adding Gs and Ks at the front.

Mod me down if you want, but if you truly disagreed, you'll reply instead.

Re:Namecalling

[Some Bitch]

Is there really no more to say or are people just looking for cheap Funny-karma?

You're obviously new here, based on the empirical evidence available my conclusion is that slashdot exists purely to enable bored geeks to make unfunny jokes that only another geek would laugh at.

Looking back over my recent posts this applies to me as much as anyone else :(

Re:What's with the name?-The "K" server.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well lets be kute; how about:

The server.

Say what?

The server.

So what does it serve?

K's

K's?

Yes K's.

What kind of K's?

Krunchy K's.

Krunchy K's?

Krunchy Krispy Krackly K's

On a Kaiser bun.

OK now that's just Krazy.

Not at all. It's much better than anyone elses Krap, and it will not Krash.

Uh Huh. You stay there while I kall someone to kome and karry your krazy ass out of my kondo. Kapish?

Support CALSCH, CAP, and James

[kervin]

Kroupware and the others are nice. But what we really need is for CALSCH http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/calsch-charter.h tml to finish with CAP http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-cal sch-cap-10.txt . As you can see CAP is on it's tenth public revision.

We need a standard that specifies the transport of the calendar protocol, badly. We need CAP finished.

The special folder in IMAP scheme will work. But is a little on the hackish side, and incompartibility between servers is a serious problem, even with standard formats, like iCal based schemes.

Next we need a cross platform messaging server. Although, it does not support IMAP as yet, Apache James is my favorite, at http://james.apache.org. First of all it has a strong group endorsing it, the Apache group. That's going to be important for selling this thing to risk-adverse corporate types. Second, it's Java, so I trust it a little more in the buffer-overflow department. Also it would probably integrate nicely in current J2EE setups. I've heard people are doing this.

James needs IMAP and CAP support. And then we will have a decent shot at the less entrenched sector of the exchanges market.

KOMMANDER TACO KOULDNT KUM IN KATE FENTS KSNATCH

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a Mystery!

[Anonymous Coward]

The beauty of anonymous posting is that no one will ever know (excepting CowboiKneel)!

Join the Net Scouts today!

Support CALSCH, CAP, and James-Suspenders.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Kroupware and the others are nice. But what we really need is for CALSCH to finish with CAP . As you can see CAP is on it's tenth public revision."

What I see is you're way behind. February 2003 and here we are four month's later. Hopefully this "standard" is XML based.

"James needs IMAP and CAP support. And then we will have a decent shot at the less entrenched sector of the exchanges market."

I'm certain there's java code floating around on the net, that can be integrated to give IMAP. CAP is a maybe, I don't know enough about it, but it shouldn't be an onerous burdon to put this in as well. And is there really any such thing as a "less entrenched" exchange market?

Yeah but

[Anonymous Coward]

who'd want to? You don't know what sort of niggers have jismed in that sewer hole. Although she's only one of how many women in north america?

Spelling mistakes as usual

[arvindn]

Did anyone else notice that the /. story blurb is full of spelling mistakes? Anyway, here's the fixed version:

"The three kompanies behind the Kroupware Project (Erfrakon, Intevation and Klarälvdalens Datakonsult) announced its successful kompletion today. This new groupware approach using only Free Software is now available in stable versions under the Kolab brand name. Kommercial support on an individual basis is already offered with further support options to kome."

Kolab is the name

[twener]

You only proved that you didn't read the announcement. The server is called Kolab, the project name was Kroupware.

Re:Kolab is the name

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you can't read funktoid, it's only the associated server that's called "kolab"

Hey come back here with that!

[Graymalkin]

An aspect of Kroupware project I find really interesting is the "indirect funding" by the German government. The government said "we need features X, Y, and Z and be compatible with Outlook and Linux". The developers responded to those requests and won the contract to develop the software. I've thought for a long time this would be a really intelligent way for government agencies of any size to get the features they want out of software for a reasonable price.

It'd be cool to see a larger group commercial group offer themselves as contract coders for government projects. They can offer a product with X features to the agency, get the money to fund the development, then distribute that software back into the wild under a Free license for everyone else to benefit.

It seems a major issue with many government agencies and corporations adopting Free Software alternatives to commercial offerings is with support. No matter how good a coder a particular OS contributor is, they are not likely available 24/7 to fix a major problem or to add a particular feature. If there is a warm body at the end of a telephone who is paid to fix bugs or add features I think more institutions would adopt Free software solutions.

In particular to Krappynameware's case, the German government is pretty gung ho about Free software to begin with. Their requirements actually included Linux support and interoperability. It'd nice to see a government agency apt to use non-proprietary solutions to their software needs. Such solutions only leed to vendor lock-in and wasting of taxpayer dollars or euros.

What groups besides maybe the major Linux distributions like SuSE and RedHat and maybe Ximian provide the sort of support government agencies contract out? I obviously haven't seen many because I can only list three off the top of my head. Are there any vendors that provide those sort of services as a regular business plan?

Re:Hey come back here with that!

[wfberg]

An aspect of Kroupware project I find really interesting is the "indirect funding" by the German government. The government said "we need features X, Y, and Z and be compatible with Outlook and Linux". The developers responded to those requests and won the contract to develop the software. I've thought for a long time this would be a really intelligent way for government agencies of any size to get the features they want out of software for a reasonable price.

Amazingly, this process, called a public tender, or even a "European tender" is mandatory for EU government agencies for any purchase over 100,000 euros.

The trick is to cut up your purchases in smaller amount (software for department A, maximum 99,999.99, software for department B, maximum 99,999.99) or to overspecify the requirements such that only a specific vendor's offering complies.

This vendor also may or may not, completely by coincidence, offer whoever is in charge of making up the specifications huge discounts on construction of his porch, or demonstrations at the vendor's "head quarters" on Honolulu. Which is really quite inconvenient seeing as the 5 star Hotel requires a minimum 14 day stay, which coincides with the dates on the plane tickets. Strange, that.

Re:Hey come back here with that!

[frostman]

Part of the problem, at least in the USA, is that many companies do very extensive lobbying to get government contracts.

This gets built into the price of course, and includes the normal range of influence-buying activities.

It's very hard for Free Software groups to compete with that, since it's a capital-intensive game and the proprietary camp has a big head start in terms of relationships, legacy ware, etc.

I think it would be interesting to specifically focus on individual elected officials responsible for specific government contracts. When, for example, California is essentially bankrupt, we Californians should be able to make a political issue out of how much even some obscure agency pays for its software, and what residual good it does the state's citizens.

Anybody know of a coordinated effort to do this?

Dumbasses.

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the geek circle-jerk started?

What do you call 50,000 30-year-old virgins?

Slashdot.

Re:Dumbasses.

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad you could join us. I got a spot for you right under CmdrTaco's anus warmed up for ya.

All _I_ want

[Jethro]

I fon't care if Corporate decided to use Exchange. I'm not in charge of keeping it up, it's not my ass if it gets hacked, and I don't get paged at 4am when it goes down again.

What I want is not to have to use Outlook.

I _hate_ Outlook. I actually don't use it on a regular basis - I use fetchmail to grab Email and then read it with Pine.

The problem is calendars.

I figured out that Outlooks/Exchange have a nice little signature on Calendar items. They looks like regular Emails except they have a *~*~*~*~*~ pattern in them. So I can get Pine (or procmail or whatever) to grab them and stick them in whatever the hell I decided I want to use for calendaring.

But I can't actually send out an "Accept" or "Reject", not can I maintain my calendar on the server. I need to run Outlook for those.

I've found no software that'll let me do that. And no, Ximian and Bynari software don't work as they all require Outlook Web Services to be enabled.

Anyone know of software that can do that?

Re:All _I_ want

[mrpuffypants]

I hear ya! The university that I work for uses Exchange like it was coded by Jesus Christ himself. I'd use pine but I have to access a shared mailbox and can't do that through pine.

Outlook is slow, bloated, insecure, and 70% unused. I don't know about in big corporations but around here we NEVER use calendars and tasks are just for everyday things like "Patch Exchange server," "Reboot domain controller," or "patch 6,000 windows desktops from weekly killer bug"

Anger problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mental illness alert! Anger problem.

The letter "K"

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf?! why does every damn KDE app have to start with "K"?

Re:The letter "K"

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it is the K desktop environment. Did you ever ask yourself why every Microsoft application starts with "Microsoft" or "MS"?

Re:The letter "K"

[Anonymous Coward]

So if Microsoft does it, it's okay? Interesting reasoning.

Naming choice

[WheelDweller]

Great name!

Does this come installed with Teething 1.0? How about Thrush 1.0? Are there any other baby-disease names we could offer the KDE people? :)

Re:Naming choice

[mummers]

Klap. A pre-baby disease.

Some more info

[thorsen]

There are quite a lot of posts here that asks some ligitimate questions, and I'll try to answer a bunch of them here.

First of all: The "Kroupware" name. Don't worry, it doesn't exist at all anymore. Kroupware was the name of the contract development, and will not be used for anything else. The server is called Kolab, and the client is KMail, Korganizer, KAddressbook and KPilot. In KDE 3.2 these will come together in one bunch under the name Kontact. We are now porting the features to KDE cvs HEAD.

Second: There are a bunch of people asking about features. For this project we had a list of requirements from BSI that we would implement. We implemented exactly this and not much more. When people say the word groupware, they immediatelly expect three thousand different functionalities, and if you in version 1.0 try to implement all of them, you will break your neck trying.

The functionality is:

Calendaring with iCalendar - send invitations between KMail and Outlook for example

Addressbook - a global one by LDAP and a local one in vCard contacts

Tasks - not groupware tasks though (only KMail to KMail or Outlook to Outlook, since OL doesn't understand iCalendar tasks scheduling :-( )

Vacation mail setup - for vacation nag mails

MDN

Disconnected IMAP support

Roaming support by storing the calendar/contacts... stuff in IMAP folders

Resource scheduling (book cars, rooms...)

I probably forgot a bunch of features. Clientwise, the most important are definately that you can invite between KMail and Outlook. On the server side, the interesting thing here is that this is the only truly free groupware server available, and will allow the Outlook people to continue working with it.

In case you visit the Linux Developers Conference in Edinburgh next week, you can see a presentation/demonstration by me.

Bo Thorsen,
Klaralvdalens Datakonsult AB
Project leader on the client.

Re:Some more info

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the immature comments posted here - that's sadly to be expected.

Its good to see some governments thinking about the medium and long term implications of being tied to commercial closed source software and actively funding alternatives.

I hope there are efforts being made to make binaries available for major platforms ASAP, and are there any plans to have official ISOs for Kolab available - maybe some find of lightweight Kolab distro built around Knoppix?

Re:Some more info

[JanneM]

With iCalendar and LDAP addressbooks, does it mean Evolution will work as a client as well? Have you tested it, and if so, what problems are there? And how about Apple's mail proggie?

Re:Some more info

[Anonymous Coward]

Resource scheduling (book cars, rooms...)

Exchange doesn't have that does it? Most buisnesses I know just make a user called [room name] and set its schedule.

Re:Some more info

[Overly Critical Guy]

The server is called Kolab, and the client is KMail, Korganizer, KAddressbook and KPilot. In KDE 3.2 these will come together in one bunch under the name Kontact. We are now porting the features to KDE cvs HEAD.

I'm sorry, but that is still a ridiculously amusing mish-mash of K-prefix names. I actually laughed as I read that paragraph. My boss would too. "Kmail, Korganizer, Kaddressbook, all under the name Kontact."

I'm happy to hear Kroupware won't be in use like that, but still. The naming thing needs a serious reconsideration by everyone writing KDE applications.

I may be modded redundant for this, but I'm okay with that. It's a more serious issue than people seem to realize. I've gotten laughed at before when talking about certain open source apps to get the job done, just from the goofy names.

Re:Some more info

[chill]

Resource scheduling (book cars, rooms...)

Exchange doesn't have that does it? Most buisnesses I know just make a user called [room name] and set its schedule.

After creating various users called "Conference Room 1", etc. you delegate authority for handling responses for those rooms to one user (real or not).

Set a real cheap PC running Outlook up and leave it on as the one user. It will automatically respond for the rooms and provide up-to-date scheduling for those resources.

Re:Some more info

[bluGill]

Right, and the last place I worked the secritaries made it a daily task to go in under the user of each confrence room and make sure meetings were properly accepted. Too many people messed up and selected a confrence room, but didn't invite it properly. Saddly, Exchange replaced a unix and windows schedular program that handled confrence rooms better, and nobody screwed it up. (The windows client sucked, but at least there was one)

I don't recall the exact details, but I think it had something to do with inviting a room as a person. A room is a resource, but there is nothing to prevent you from calling it a person.

Re:Some more info

[catenos]

The server is called Kolab, and the client is KMail, Korganizer, KAddressbook and KPilot. In KDE 3.2 these will come together in one bunch under the name Kontact. We are now porting the features to KDE cvs HEAD.

I'm sorry, but that is still a ridiculously amusing mish-mash of K-prefix names. I actually laughed as I read that paragraph. My boss would too. "Kmail, Korganizer, Kaddressbook, all under the name Kontact."

I really don't see how KMail (when pronounced K-Mail) is any worse, as for example, "MS Word". Would your boss laugh the first time he hears any new of such brand names from Microsoft?

I agree that names like "Kontact" are problematic, but I simply started pronouncing them as "K-contact". Or you could simply stick with "contact". People neither have a problem when talking about "word", "windows", "office", "exchange" and so on.

Sure, what I am doing here is comparing an unknown brand with an one known world-wide. But then, your argument shouldn't be that the name is bad (which you do seem to by calling it "ridiculous"), but that such a name is not good for a product that is not marketed appropriately.

www.bynari.net does this

[pjc50]

They have a client plug-in (not free) that lets you use entirely free software on the server to implement all the shared calendaring etc. functions. It works pretty well, and it's about 1/10 the cost of Exchange.

Looks great? Surely you're joking

[DrJay]

Go back and look at the screen shot here. What exactly do you see?

I see an interface design that isn't happy with including everything but the kitchen sink, so it grabbed that, the bathroom sink, tub, and anything else in the apartment that could actually hold water, and threw that in too. Too many menus with uniformative titles, too many buttons with uninformative icons, too many content panes to possible figure out which one you're actually working in. Plus the cheap knockoff of the hierachial view of Windows, which i've always thought was poorly designed from a UI standpoint (and ugly, too!).

This illustrates the worst tendencies of open source software. The first instinct is to do whatever Microsoft does, and it's a bad one. Microsoft's got more employees than it really knows what to do with, so when it comes down to deciding which features to implement, they implement them all. Everything winds up bloated and confusing.

It'll be nice that Linux users have the option of using this, but by shamelessly trying to mimic Exchange/Outlook, these guys have taken away any chance they had of being better than Microsoft.

Use a real man's groupware.

[davidsturnbull]

ircII EPIC4-1.0 :P

Kall it "OK" -- Outlook for KDE.

[anon mouse-cow-aard]

and be done with it.

MySQL has a vendor

[yerricde]

"The fact we don't have a vendor backing this project make people uneasy. With a childish name, it is even harder"

If they "don't have a vendor," then who is MySQL AB?

Czech this out

[yerricde]

How about KDE is no in some language?

Possibly... Go here, select "czech - english", and enter 'kde'.

Re:Looks great? Surely you're joking

[tzanger]

Actually if you've ever used Korganizer or KMail (Kontact is just the mashing of those together), you would know that it's actually pretty straightforward to use. The icons are no worse than MS' icons, and many concepts are difficult to get across in a 24x24 bitmap.

As someone once said: the only truly intuitive interface is the nipple; everything else is learned. All this talk of intuitive interfaces and crap icons is bullshit. Tooltips and context-sensitive help are available, and better icons come with time and inspiration. There simply is no such thing as a truly intuitive application, especially one as complex as a groupware application.

FWIW, Kmail and KOrganizer can be run separately and still maintain their connectedness via the data. you don't have to run Kontact if you don't want to. That is an important difference between MS' implementation and KDE's.

Whats the deal with KDE naming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, KDE, meaning "Kool Desktop Environment" was kinda innovative. "Konqueror" was also a neat name. But now... Things are getting out of hand. When I first heard about the KDE version of The Gimp: "Kimp" I was almost falling off my chair, and now this!

What's next? A new version of Tux Racer: "Kux Kacer"? How about a 3D modelling toolkit: "3D Kudio"? I also can't wait for the next KDE news site: "Klashdot".

For the love of Linus PLEASE find better names!

GPL Outlook Kolab Connector is being worked on...

[twener]

... and expected to be released in September according to this blog entry.

developers don't need to market . . .

[Idou]

and a lot of developers write Open Source code because it allows them to do what they want WITHOUT having to deal with the "marketing types."

We all should learn to respect and appreciate these individuals as they are, because they have earned it.

Now, you seem more "marketing concious." Good news! There is nothing stopping you from completely changing the name when you sell, say, kroupware. You might need to pay someone a couple of bucks to change all references to the orginal name, but that really isn't a big deal (or, perhaps you could do it yourself). And . . . wallah, you have a product you can sell to incompetent PHB's.

Just remember to:
1. Release the source
2. Let people know what it is "based" on
3. Pass down some of those big bucks from good marketing to the orginal project (that is the best way to let them know they should change their name)

And before people scream at this method, remember that Mandrake use to be a COMPLETE knockoff of RedHat (not sure if it was motivated by an unmarketable name . . .). However, over time, they have made very tangible contributions to the Open Source community and earned a lot of people's respect (the most valuable thing in the community), all of which would not have been possible if they had not originally be complete "copycats".

Try to remember how large Open Source projects are (every single one should be considered "global") and how many cultures are involved. Kroupware may suck for marketing in the U.S., but it may also be great in Germany. If the name bothers you then DO something about it, yourself. Follow the rules, and you should be okay.

*K*

[ecote]

why would anyone use ANY software starting with K, how unprofessional and cliché can you get. Maybe its just me, but i don't have faith in any piece of software that begins with K, Kate, KCdWrite, whatever is it... I guarentee that its crap

Try Lindows

[Idou]

They've changed most the names, I thought, for newbies, just like you.

Proven! Germans are Klan members!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fakt 1: The German government provided funding for this projekt.

Fakt 2: In Georgia, small businesses are fronts for the Klan: Kathy's Kountry Kitcen, for example.

Fakt 3: Koincidence?

I think knot.

It contains stolen code. Pay up your $$$$$.

[timlewis_atlanta]

The development of Kroupware would not have been possible without the wholesale theft of hundreds of lines of code, complete with programmer comments, bugs, and spelling mistakes from the code of "Mighty$oft Office". It is illegal to use this software, and we will shortly be suing you for ONE MILLION DOLLARS (holds pinky finger to corner of mouth). We cannot identify the sections of code in question as they are trade secrets. Additionally all versions of any groupware software developed by any entity at any point in space-time are OWN3D by us. Pay up now, or else.

Huh, I'm lucky

[sebol]

The university that I work for uses Exchange like it was coded by Jesus Christ himself.

Luckyly, I'm a muslim, i dont have to use Exchange

Re:Looks great? Surely you're joking

[Anonymous Coward]

Still, it has some incredible UI mistakes that make no sense. I mean... the number of the day in the calendar is aligned to the center, instead of to the right. Why?! It's just painful to sight.

Add to that the lack of spacing in the menu options, the crowded toolbar and the weird alignment of the main window. It clearly needs an UI review if it wants to get near a professional look.

Seems trivial, but...

[Overly Critical Guy]

God, another crappy name. Kroupware? Does absolutely everything have to begin with a "K"?

If my boss asks me the software I recommend, will he be more keen to something called Exchange or to something called Kroupware?

Why are so many projects so lazy with their names? Believe it or not, there is a bit of brand recognition that comes into play, and even if it is something trivial and meaningless when it comes to technical merits, it's a lot more friendly and accessible to actually come up with a nice project name. Kroupware sounds...stupid.

Maybe I'm alone in this opinion. But the whole K-something schtick has run quite thin with me.

Re:Seems trivial, but...

[rainer_d]

If my boss asks me the software I recommend, will he be more keen to something called Exchange or to something called Kroupware?

Hey - it's your boss, not ours. Is that question rethorical ?

And besides: you're free to use sed(1) on the sources to remove all references to "Kroupware" and change them into something that Jimm Buzzz from marketing has thought out for you.

Rainer

Re:Seems trivial, but...

[SEWilco]

Kroupware as a name doesn't sound too good too me.

I hope it is compatible with the contrast tuner BlaKPlaKue, the personal contact restrictor Klamidia, and the compact presentation tool SmallPoK.

LDAP servers are large and complicated

[Cid Highwind]

They don't use LDAP for the same reason (most) people don't use SQL databases to organize their MP3 collection. It's like killing mosquitos with a tactical nuke!

Re:LDAP servers are large and complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

I like killing mosquitos with strategic nukes, myself. That way my friends can call me up from a different continent and I can take care of their mosquito problems, too.

Oh. Yeah. I do keep my MP3s and OGGs organized via MySQL, with a php4 app pushing them to one of 3 different boxes with speakers. It may be a bit of overengineering, but considering I run MySQL for other reasons (centralized PDF reposatory using Librarian 1.1), it took less ground breaking to get it to work.

windows

[jbolden]

I think you may be looking at these products too strongly. Kroupware offers companies that would otherwise choose Linux the ability to have a non Microsoft groupware solution. I don't think anybody is claiming that for a company already committed to Microsoft for the OS level, and not requiring KDE integration that Kroupware is the right choice.

Re:Looks great? Surely you're joking

[DrJay]

"The icons are no worse than MS' icons, and many concepts are difficult to get across in a 24x24 bitmap."

That is more or less the point i was trying to make. Yes, MS's icons are nearly equally useless, and yes it's an inherent limitation of small images. They just can't convey much information.

That's why Microsoft shouldn't be emulated - there shouldn't be 40 small, similar looking images across the toolbar. Pick the 10 most important functions, make readily distinguishable images for them, and put them there. People will be able to use and remember them instead of staring mutely at all the indistinguishable choices.

I'm sorry if i sound unduly harsh - the K folks have put a lot of hard work into this - but i've spent the last few days writing and editing a paper in Word v.X, and i'm about ready to take an Uzi up to Redmond.

LOOK I AM A STAR

[luekj]

I am the Star of Slashdot! Woo! Look at me dance! The Slasdot Dance! Yayayayayayya! *ahem* Kroupware is a great concept, but I really doubt it will catch on in business use. However it would make sense for personal use. I'm glad there's a solution, but this won't be viable until some big 'Sun' takes it and makes it all spiffy and technically supported. But it's out there, so that's good.

german nazis!!!

[BigBadDude]

this KKK thing is getting out of hand, someone should stop them before they Keplace every Ketter of the Klphabeth with 'K'...

Re:german nazis!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

well, if they replaced every other letter with the letter K, then all three-letter-agencies would be remaned to KKK.

coincidence?? think not

Very tired of K

[0x0d0a]

The GNOME project grew up and started moving away from "g*" on new projects as it went mainstream. KDE is still shoving Ks in front of everything.

What does www.autopr0n.com use?

[0x0d0a]

MySQL? Postgres?

Thank you!

[SaDan]

It has to be said.

big minus

[josepha48]

no windows interoperability. There is no free plugin that works with Outlook. This is a problem is you want to get ride of exchange / msmail server and replace it with this, cause then you have to PAY for a connector to this. So then is it really worth it to management when they already have a licensed peice of software that works? Not in my company. yes there is a web frontend to it, but that is NOT a solution. This is close and if you can pull off an entirely linux / unix installbase then you are okay, but when your flagship product runs windows and management wont let the dev team rewrite it, your glued to windows.

Re:big minus

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/78

Now for the real question.

[FreeLinux]

This is great news as I have eagerly awaited the 1.0 version of Kolab since its announcement last October. But in the months that have transpired others have also toiled to produce similar Exchange "killers". Today, we have three relatively new candidates that all claim to be Exchange killers. They are Kolab, SuSE OpenExchange, and the recently announced OpenGroupware.

So, the Open Source world has gone from a complete derth of groupware servers to a seeming abundance of groupware servers and all in just six to nine months. Or has it? How do these different groupware systems compare with each other with respect to features, performance, scalability, ease of use and ease of integration? More importantly, how do these same packages compare with Exchange itself with respect to the same metrics? It would be very nice to see an article that thoroughly reviews and benchmarks these for groupware systems. One final note, to those that may take on the challenge of doing such a review, Exchange is now at version 2003. A review that compares these systems with Exchange 5.5 will be worthless.

Urban Legend

[nurb432]

K doesn't stand for Kool, it stands for K.. nothing more nothing less ( this is documented on the KDE pages ).

And while K-this and K-that may sound silly sometimes, at least its a standard of sorts.. you can pretty much bet a K-app is built to operate within the KDE framework..

Helps with the concept of consistency, something that DOES have some value.

Re:Urban Legend

[jo42]

Where is the KDE User Network Tool?

install difficulty

[Anonymous Coward]

ah still using the cli to install it. give me a simple gui install. Let me double click on one setup file and have it setup everything for me. And make it simple to remove it as well. Until then, no matter how simple a program is to use, if its not easy to install, then its not ready for the masses. A good example is the install mozilla uses. Now that one works. Just not easy to remove, but it sure is easy to install.