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SUSE Openexchange Under GPL
Gustavo writes "'Netline Internet Service announced today that it would contribute its OPEN-XCHANGE Server, the core technology underlying the industry's top-selling Linux-based groupware, collaboration, and messaging application, under the GNU General Public License (GPL).' How does it compare to OpenGroupware.org which was open sourced a year ago?"
It probably has quite a bit to do with the Linux World Expo that is going on this week -- A venue for companies to make announcements about their Linux products.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
OpenGroupware sucks, eGroupware has many more features. I have had a difficult time with angel mail (egroupware mail component) handling courier imap CORRECTLY though. The integration of the fud forum, and ticketing agent is especially nice. Opengroupware would be nice, but if you compare other open groupware offerings it is lacking (i.e. phpGroupware/ eGroupware). Opengroupware also depends on the postgreSQl db backend, if you already have mysql running, tough. Although Opengroupware handles courier IMAP better, it seems to muck up the dates so sorting your mail sucks. Opengroupware also has limited functionality. It does like 5 things well. To be honest, openexchange will be a welcome suite to evaluate.
ymmv
Opengroupware actually was a big hype, but they failed to deliver what everyone was hoping for: a complete open-source and free groupware server and client, with all popular features such as folder sharing, ACLs, free/busy, etc...
The problem with OpenGroupware, is that except for the web interface, there is no client. You can pay for an Outlook connector, yes, but it is rather expensive (no trial version available), and, more importantly, it did not prove very reliable in my testing. The web client, is not very impressive either. The community around OpenGroupware seems rather limited, I have the impression that all work is still done by one developer of Skyrix.
SuSE OpenExchange on the other hand, does have a very nice user interface. The Outlook connector works fine, and with KDE 3.3 coming out in a few weeks, we will have a free client under Linux. I have heard a connector for Evolution is currently in development. AFAIK Suse OpenExchange lacks ACL based folder sharing, hopefully this feature will be added soon.
And then there's Kolab, another competitor for this market. Currently, Kolab 2 is in development. It seems that it will offer a lot of features that people missed in Kolab 1, such as ACL based folder sharing, and server side generated free/busy. Problem with Kolab is currently also the lack of a native Linux client. Kontact 3.3 will finally have support for Kolab 1, but that's not very impressive, knowing that Kolab 2 will already be out at the end of this year.
Anyway, interesting times are coming!