Novell To Release Ximian Connector Under GPL

ashmodai9 writes "According to this article on LinuxToday.com as well as this press release directly from their site, Novell announced that its "Connector for MS Exchange Server would be integrated into Evolution 2.0 and made available as open source, beginning today with the current Connector 1.4." Apparently, downloads will be available for the current version of Evolution starting May 14th." Thanks to reader crafterm, a snippet from Novell's Connector website: "With the Connector for Microsoft Exchange installed, Evolution functions as an Exchange client, enabling users to become full participants in company-wide group scheduling and other collaborative tasks. Linux and Solaris users can access public folders, Global Address Lists, email, calendar, task lists, and group scheduling information." Update: 05/11 17:58 GMT by T : In related news, ChiralSoftware writes "Codeweavers' long-awaited sequel to Crossover 2.1 is here. Just like the old version, the new version lets you install MS Office on Linux desktops. The new version adds support for Outlook XP, Lotus Notes and Microsoft Project."

Comments

Excellent news for the FOSS community!

[biglig2]

Another reason for not switching - the need to access an Exchange server - bites the dust.

Re:Excellent news for the FOSS community!

[LostCluster]

Furthermore, this creates a OSS project that now directly challeges Outlook, which will exempt users from most of Outlook's exploit issues...

Re:Excellent news for the FOSS community!

[another_mr_lizard]

As an MCSE you should also know that Exchange 2000/2003 requires IIS before it will even install. Some dependance on the NNTP service......

Wonderful, wonderful - alll we need is a server...

[The Breeze]

Compatibility with Exchange is wonderful, seriously.

The promise of exchange - integrated email & calendaring, locks a lot of companies in to MS software.

Say what you will, the ability for a clueless end-user to click "accept" on an email and automatically schedule themselves for a meeting is a Big Deal(tm).

Now, if only we had something affordable that could do that on the Linux server side, with clients on Linux, Windows and Mac platforms...and no, webmail doesn't cut it...

Is there anyone working on this?

-Steve

Cue Irrelevant Feature Complaints In....

[the_mad_poster]

Okay, you have your connector for MS Exchange right there in the main app now. NOW what's stopping you from seriously considering OSS as a possibility? And, I'm not talking about the 1.2% of the population that needs some bizarre, esoteric feature in Outlook or Word or whatever that 98.8% of the rest of the population didn't even know exists.

Seriously, folks. Linux ain't ready for the home desktop market, but it's high time more people start considering its viability for the desktop in the workplace, especially as lightweight replacements for Wintops that don't do all that much more than word processing and scheduling.

Take most of that money you've been blowing on MCSEs and A/V software, and pay a few competent *nix admins to come in and properly set up the systems, and you just may well alleviate some, or most, of that downtime. How much TCO did YOUR company have to add to Windows from Sasser, anyway?

Re:Cue Irrelevant Feature Complaints In....

[the_mad_poster]

Uh. So fire the receptionist and hire a competent one? It's called internal training. You should have a budget for it. There's no reason your receptionist needs to "learn Linux". You give her the apps, you give her the introduction, and you give her some time to settle into it, and that's that.

I'm sick of hearing that people need to "learn Linux" to migrate in the workspace. Hello? I'm surrounded by 350 co-workers and I think maybe 2 of them, not counting our meager IT staff, actually "knows Windows" but they still manage to do their jobs. The nice thing about "knowing Linux", however, is that if you're a competent admin you can make sure that the people who don't "know Linux" can't shoot their own toes off, or, at least, can't shoot anyone else. See, with Windows, not only can you shoot your own toes off if you don't "know Windows", but you can shoot everyone else in the general vicinity, and, on occasion, it just arbitrarily decides to shoot you even if you didn't do anything wrong.

I don't want to hear any crap about migration costs. Proof. Give me proof. Give me case studies. I'm tired of excuses. Maybe they're true, but they're always just excuses. It's just people afraid of a new thing and nothing more.

Re:Cue Irrelevant Feature Complaints In....

[the_mad_poster]

So, the problem with Linux is that your company is too cheap to hire a competent receptionist who can learn the basics of very similar software packages in-house in a reasonable amount of time? For your general word processing and spreadsheeting applications, Open Office isn't really that much different. If she can learn to blindly click buttons on Office, there's no reason she can't learn to do it on Open Office. If that were really true, we'd all still be using WordPerfect.

You can even train a mouse to do rudimentary, repetitive tasks. Just how much dumber are your receptionists?

On top of that, I can't imagine that the cost difference of hiring new receptionists, especially from a temp agency, are going to offset productivity gains and cost savings for the rest of the company if Linux is a viable consideration otherwise. If it does, maybe you need to consider firing your HR group and getting people who don't just knee-jerk hire every receptionist that walks in the door...

You're just making exuses. You must be a manager.

Awesome

[ChiralSoftware]

Exchange is probably MS' best and most important product that has no Open Source equivalent. I am aware of Kolab and some other works-in-progress, but none of these are even close to Exchange yet. Exchange has more than its fair share of security problems, but what it does, it does well. Now with Connector being released GPL, that will have two consequences: The free downloadable version of Evolution will be able to use Exchange's features, and hopefully other OS tools like Koffice/Kmail will pick up those abilities, too. Also, having an open source client side might help them in getting an open source server side move faster. Now I just wish that Evolution would be properly integrated with KDE. They are doing it with OOo...

I'm a full-time desktop Linux user, and not just for coding, but for every aspect of business, so all this stuff matters to me. This week is going to be a great week in Desktop Linux: Suse 9.1 and Crossover 3 are both coming out at about the same time, and both are huge improvements over what came before.

-------
WAP news

Silliness

[Rick Zeman]

Novell has in public beta a GroupWise client for Linux and Mac OS X...and then they give away a connector to make a free client talk to the enemy's mail/calendaring system?

Makes me glad I don't have Novell stock. GroupWise earns them money. This does what?

Re:Silliness

[phoenix.bam!]

this gives companies who use exchange (The enemy) to start using Evolution (The ally) which can also use Novell's (presumably) better cheaper product (The Goal).

Re:Novell is really serious

[dmoore]

When Evolution 2.0 is released, it will have native support to connect to Novell GroupWise servers. Most likely, Novell plans to use Evolution as a vehicle for corporate adoption of GroupWise. Furthermore, since Connector is now free, corporations who currently run Outlook have an easy migration path to GroupWise because they can now install both servers, and access them freely with the same client. Once the bugs are worked out, they can discard Outlook and stick with GroupWise.

One more step, a Win32 port of Evolution

[Erik_]

Now, they only need to release a Windows port of Evolution and even more people will be able to enjoy this awesome program.

Re:Wonderful, wonderful - alll we need is a server

[Mr_Silver]

Say what you will, the ability for a clueless end-user to click "accept" on an email and automatically schedule themselves for a meeting is a Big Deal(tm).

I don't consider myself clueless and it's a Big Deal(tm) for me.

I don't get paid for managing my calendar and I don't want to waste my time managing my calendar. If someone or something will do it for me or make my life easier, then all the better.

Want to thank Novell? BUY from them!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if you really want to support Novell becuase of its very positive actions of late, here's the way:

BUY something from SuSE, Ximian or Novell!

Yast open sourced and now Ximian Connector?

[plazman30]

Is Novell turning out to be a good open source neighbor, or what? I think there is finally a large commercial corporation that "gets it!"

About time.

How long till they open source NetWare and eDirectory?

Why won't you support Linux companies?

[dennisr]

I see quite a few comments about "Now I am going to switch to Linux" or "I have been waiting for this for so long" and I got to thinking. What stopped you from using prior to this? It was available for download for ~30 dollars. I purchased it not only for its functionality but to support a Linux company.

You should still purchase it!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you work for a company that would actually spend money on it, DO IT! We should financially support F/OSS companies when we are able to.

Also, remember you'll likely be buying some support which is cheaper than going it alone.

Great -- but not fantastic -- news

[Kurt Granroth]

The Novell/Ximian Connector goes a long way towards integrating Linux into a Windows-heavy business environment. However, it doesn't go as far as many here seem to think. Just because you have Connector does not mean that you will be able to use Evolution with Exchange at work... at least, not in all cases.

Specifically, Connector only works if Outlook Web Access is enabled on Exchange. There are a few problems with this approach in the real world.

First, OWA isn't enabled by default in Exchange. That is because, secondly, OWA costs extra for each user. Third, as a result, all places I've worked that used Exchange either disallowed using OWA at all or severly limited its use.

For instance, at my current company, OWA is enabled but only has a few client licenses and is therefore blocked from all internal IPs. It's intended use is for people that are traveling that want to access their email via a web browser.

So, yeah, Connector is very slick and very useful... just not as slick and as useful as the euphoric posts here seem to indicate!

Re:Don't wait until the 14th.

[B'Trey]

Not necessarily true. You might need a client access license but you don't need to purchase a copy of Windows. Additionally, depending on how you have your server configured, multiple people can share a CAL, just not at the same time (per server vice per seat licensing.) MS is still getting a slice of the pie, but their slice is a whole lot smaller.

The biggest thing that MS won't like about this, however, isn't the loss of a few seat licenses but that it opens up an avenue for migrating to Linux. You can convert piecemeal rather than having to switch everything at once.