Slashdot Mirror
Campaign to Open Source IBM's Notes/Domino
Ian Tree, an IT consultant from the Netherlands, has started a campaign to convince IBM to open source the code for Notes/Domino. Hoping for results similar to the push for Sun to open source Solaris, which finally saw success in 2005, Tree makes the simple point that it won't happen until someone asks. "By being an open source product, Tree is also hoping that Domino becomes something schools use to teach groupware and application development concepts, which is the holy grail for future market adoption. This is how various Unixes, relational databases, Linux, and a raft of other products eventually became commercialized. While the idea of open sourcing any proprietary program is appealing, in as much as it sets a program free to live beyond the commitment (or lack thereof) of its originator, it is hard to see why open Notes/Domino would have any more impact than OpenSolaris."
Speaking on behalf of the poor bastards that have played with Notes: Please don't put him on our team. Really, Notes is like the last kid to get picked when we're making teams. He drops the ball lots and he cries even when we play tag only. We only let him play at all because the teacher makes us.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The perfect storm of horrible interface design. If only we could get the geniuses behind Band-in-a-Box on board.
CouchDB, which has been generating some hype lately (especially among Rails fans), is by Damien Katz, who did work on LotusNotes and Domino, and claims CouchDB is inspired by that.
According to him, Lotus got a lot of things wrong, but it got the database right.
I don't know if there would be anything to gain from the original (even just to read through it), or if we should all be focused on CouchDB now, but it would be interesting to find out.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I would actually welcome this. Groupware and databases are the aspects of office packages that were never gone through in general Tech Ed. courses when I was in school, yet they're the portion of said packages that I use the most.
If some groupware were to be introduced to people along with traditional email when they first learn an office package, you could actually have people creating calendar events and sharing them out the door, instead of constantly sending emails to eachother, ignoring the actual capabilities of the software suite they have.
I have to imagine a F/OSS implementation of what I understand to be very solid groupware would only help to facilitate this.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Hi, can I talk to the product manager of Outlook? Thanks, I'll hold.
Hello? Hi, I think it would be spiffy if you would consider open-sourcing Outlook. No, the whole shebang, not just the client. Yeah, server side components and everything.
I think it would prolong the life of the product since it would allow it to exist beyond your commitment to it. And you know, as the saying goes, more eyes lead to shallower bugs.
So what I'm proposing is that you open up the source and give it away for free. Then you could...
Hello? Hello?
Dumb idea. Whether you love Notes or hate it, open sourcing it would just be dumb when there's already 800 engineers working on it inside IBM. The number of developers that would contribute to it would drop dramatically.
If you want to develop open source applications ON TOP of Notes/Domino -- you can just look to http://www.openntf.org/
...the horrors that must lie waiting within the source code for Lotus Notes.
Schools could use the Notes source to teach the basics of how to build slow, confusing, fragile applications with utterly non-standard user interfaces. Notes is by far the worst piece of software I use regularly. On the other hand, opening its source would let me fix that bug that keeps reminding me I missed the same meeting reminders over and over again.
/...
I contracted with IBM for about a year. Using Notes/Domino was the worst experience ever. Why would anyone care whether it was open source or not. I wish it would just die already.
Haven't we been asking for an exchange replacement for years? One that connects to outlook and does all that exchange does? Isn't this (and a sharepoint replacement) what's needed in the "linux portfolio" of office apps?
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
The Domino server is one of the most reliable server systems ever built, particularly considering the complexity of the services it provides.
Try upgrading to a version released in the last decade.
As I state in the title, companies only open-source unprofitable products. As I understand it, Sun was willing to open-source Solaris because it was no longer profitable by itself - instead, it was just driving sales of Sun hardware. Until I see some similar evidence regarding Notes (showing that its unprofitable on its own and only drives sales of other IBM products), call me a skeptic of this effort.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
We don't want to make the open source community look bad by associating it with this level of quality.
In the event that Notes is open sourced, I doubt this will greatly impact the reach of the product further into the enterprise.
Notes is such a horrid development platform who only seen the Web as a medium a few ages ago. The last major release closed some of the gap but it has a far, far way to go.
There's a difference between open sourcing OpenSolaris, and open sourcing Notes which the article fails to mention. Sun has something to gain by open sourcing OpenSolaris: to sell more Sun hardware. Notes can run on a multitude of platforms and doesn't require specialised hardware (like z/OS) to take advantage of the system.
Anyway if I was running a serious Notes environment, I'd be running it on IBM hardware anyway. For small deployments it won't matter that much.
Please, let Notes remain closed source forever! After having been forced to work with Notes by an employer, I have become convinced it is an evil piece of software, designed to corrupt the minds of its users. Give it to schools, and whole generations could be lost, forever doomed to believe that software cannot be user-friendly. In fact, let's start counter-movement to convince IBM that Notes is a dead product, and should be removed from the market ASAP. For the children!
(And don't give me that crap about how I must have used an old version, and the new version is LOTS better. As an example, Notes' proprietary IM client Sametime was up to version 6 when I used it, and offered only the most basic functionality compared to other IM systems).
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
Seriously, I don't know why people have this loathing of Notes/Domino. It's proven to be secure, the mass mailing worms never worked, had a tabbed interface long before any browser, had a document library way before sharepoint, you can customize the crap out of your application / email, and build in a work flow to meet your business needs.
Not to mention that in the years I administered a Domino server (6.5 on Linux) not once did the server crash, go flakey, or some other problem.
Granted, I've been out of the Notes / Domino world for quite a while now and haven't really seen R7 or R8, but R6.5 was pretty damn good, especially if you'd seen R4.
So, seriously, why such hatred?
Supplies!
Ah yes, Netscape. I was never a fan of Netscape. I thought MSIE was better and faster for the longest while. Netscape was, at one time, very closed. But once things got going, Firefox came out of it. Perhaps the same might happen with this? People WANT an open source groupware server and the ones that exist now seem to lack in one way or another. But perhaps a project that starts with working code, just as Firefox started out, could turn into something a lot better... something that could kick Exchange and MS Office to the curb.
You not only want to expose the source code of Bloated Goats to the world but intentionally expose young people to it? Good Lord, man, have you no mercy in soul at all?
How's the campaign going to wrest control of Linux from Torvalds? Any progress there?
Unlike Sun, IBM doesn't believe in OSS one tiny bit.
IBM believes in a future monopoly and the money could bring.
The only things that IBM has made open source are complete crap, like SWT, Xerces, Axis and the likes.
Hell, Eclipse wasn't even half useful until years after it became open source.
IBM has only open sourced things to kill competition, ever. As Notes Domino doesn't have competition, if you look form it as more than an E-mail system, it will never happen.
Fuck IBM and their hidden agendas. Fuck WebSphere, DB/2, ZSeries and all the rest of their crap.
I can't really say anything bad about iSeries though, which bugs me, as it's really cool stuff. Maybe because they're made in Norway, of all damn places.
"open source Solaris which finally saw success in 2005"
What? WHAT?? How? When?? By whom?
Why didn't I get the memo??
The UI was created while Blender was still a commercial (non OSS) app
Acknowledging you're joking, 3D design is hardly a perfect fit for a standard interface - so there are not really conventions to be broken. Some 2D conventions are sacrificed to reach into the third dimension. Other 3D apps also differ significantly from Word or OpenOffice ;-)
I know, no one mentioned SAP. They just seem to go hand in hand... I hate both with a passion.
Someone who hated people came up with the user interface of Notes. How does any company put things like, "change password", in a more obscure place in a UI?
SAP which is about as useful as a hammer. Sure you can do just about anything with it but is it really the best tool to change a tire and perform an appendectomy with?
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
It's been a while since I've done Notes but I seem to recall that the database was the central problem with Notes. I seem to remember best describing it as a slightly multiuser filemaker pro flat format with a lot of hype to rip off IBM for a few billion dollars. Notes is infamous for its email client being terrible but if it had had a good database to begin with, then, 3rd parties could have salvaged a good groupware database product with add on tools or even clients. That few have emerged speaks volumes about the data in notes.
This is my sig.
If IBM open-sources a piece of crap like Notes and doesn't open-source a masterpiece like Workplace Shell, that's it. I'm out.
Oh wait, I'm not really an IBM customer in the first place....
So there's a point to be made here. And while IBM makes mad loot from Notes, the latest version, Notes 8 has sufficient problems that they could use more eyes on it
The code you want doesn't belong to you. It belongs to IBM's shareholders. If you want it, make an offer.
Sincerely,
IBM.
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
As a former Notes Sys Administrator, it had its benefits, and its problems. The fact of the matter was that the email and scheduling part of it were never its strengths. The databases, and the applications that it built were by far superior groupware than anything I have seen. Oh to be able to replicate something like Access databases at the click of a button for users who do need to work on data offline. As an earlier commenter said, they got the database right. Everyone just assumed they 'tacked on' the email and calendar as an afterthought to facilitate workflow solutions. Notes Replication was simply the best (when it was configured properly). But having previously installed Notes clients and managed it, I can tell you that setup of the client was a breeze compared to setting up and configuring Exchange/Outlook. From an end user perspective, there were some things they got very right, and still as many they got wrong. But comparing it to Outlook (apart from the few scheduler limitations), it was far cleaner and quicker in so many ways.
I've been saying for the last year (since I learned how much of corporate America works) that IBM is sitting on a goldmine if only they'd have the vision to open-source Notes/Domino. Thousands of small startups could start using it for free, and buy support contracts as they got bigger. Larger companies who want the flexibility of the system as compared to Exchange, but don't want to be locked-in with the underdog's product, could rest assured that as long as there are users, development will continue. And of course, the marketplace for apps that run on Domino would skyrocket, and IBM would be at the center of it all. A goldmine, I tell you! To address an earlier comment, this could succeed where OpenSolaris failed because OpenSolaris had to compete with multiple established open-source operating systems. IBM wouldn't have to deal with anything like that. (And I'm not sure that OpenSolaris _has_ failed, anyway... give it time!)
Lets go ahead and open source the absolute worst groupware platform out there. That should convince people that Open Source Software rules!! I'd rather use Groupwise than Notes.
This is a very good idea. I like Notes/Domino as a collaboration and messaging platform. I especially like the message encryption features and the ability to prevent an email from being forwarded or otherwise manipulated. The only downside to Domino is that it can be unfriendly to administer. The good news is that, if it becomes open sourced, it will be more economical to learn and deploy in small labs and use and become competent. The author of the article makes an excellent case for it by citing Solaris as the example. Sun's decision to open source Solaris did breathe some new life into it. If IBM does start to do this, they will be well positioned to do some damage to the M$ Outlook/Exchange market share. They can also recapture market share from some of the open source exchange alternatives like Zimbra and OX. IMHO, both Zimbra and OX are weak. Plus, Notes/Domino will just continue to improve by leaps and bounds with community input. We have seen vast improvements in Solaris since Sun made its decision to open source.
Being stuck in an environment where opensource projects are rejected out of hand, and stuck in an environment where notes is the standard for "collaboration" (which is a funny way to spell "e-mail system that no one, anywhere within the company, can stand. Especially the people who implement and support it.") , I'm in a win-win. We either start looking at open source projects, or we ditch Notes.
If this actually happens (which it won't, but a girl can dream right?), I'll be the guy dancing in the streets.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
What does Notes offer the Open Source community?
Please, please, please IBM, open source Lotus SmartSuite.
Especially WordPro and 1-2-3. Specifically the InfoBox.
That way the developers of OpenOffice maybe throw away their bloated, badly designed imitation of MS Office.
You know... because you can't expect them to do anything creative by themselves, because of the childr... eehem... I mean... those who are used to MS Office.
Replace one of them by me (including the income at Sun), and I'll give you an UI that's so great, geeks and Joe Sixpacks can jack off to it. ;))
I am Navid Zamani, and I approve this statement. ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I see you've never actually used exchange/outlook, and were just looking to troll about something.
The "decline" button is there for a reason.
Terrible? Huh? I use it daily, and I actually like it. It's not the best I have seen but it beats at least all the open source email clients hands down.
I wouldn't use it if it was free!
I had to use that POS back in my days working for a DoD contractor.
Who cares if the underlying db is sound, the client exposed way too much of the db and as a result was a user interface clusternightfuckmare. Yes, it was so bad I had to make up a word for it.
Even Outlook with it's Russian Nesting Doll configuration options*, is a way ahead of Lotus.
*If you're not sure what I mean, follow these instructions for an extreme example from Outlook 2003:
Tools->Options->Mail Setup->Send/Receive...->Edit->Account Properties->Advanced->Remote Mail->Retrieve items->Filter->Advanced.
You'll now be six modal dialogs deep in it's options, past two Advanced buttons!
Further, did you know it's possible to change your domain password from within Outlook's nesting dolls? I'm not kidding! But good luck finding it.
Question everything
I have been forced to use Lotus Notes at work for 10 years now. If you don't understand why people hate Notes just Google "Lotus Notes sucks" and you'll find plenty of detailed explanations of the several million things that are wrong with Notes.
Notes must die.
From memory:
The Artist (ZX Spectrum)
Masterfile (ZX Spectrum)
Several game designing tools (from text adventure to invaders, passing to pimball machines)
Tons of games
Exact dates faded away...
I'm sure that loads of more nice programs could be dig up from the great bin of forgetfulness... ;)
Is there a person named tree? "Tree wants to get laid...."
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
Its open source. You can extend it it's functionality with zimlets and it's already quite popular with universities.
http://www.zimbra.com/
I'm on Notes 8 ... and it's really not better in any way. But now it's too late to go back to 7 (until the inevitable upgrade).
I have noticed exactly *one* fixed bug, but have already reported several new ones. And just like with 5/6 and 6/7, most of the UI overhaul is just more shininess, wider borders, and less useable screen real estate. Oh, and a less useful status bar. Oh yeah, and more centralized bloatware: you can't chat on Sametime while you're waiting for a db to open, or have a dialog open... great.
I'm not bashing Notes just for the sake of bashing it. I use it every day; none of this is unfounded. I would *love* to see IBM open this thing up; there would be a lot of issues to straighten out. But, as somebody else up there's already said: it ain't ever gonna happen, there's just too many proprietary strings and shackles.
"Good news, everyone!"
I've worked with Notes. It's not software, it's a punishment.
But then again, so is FOSS. A match made in hell, maybe?
How about a link to the campaign in this article? Since ScuttleMonkey didn't put it, here it is: http://www.hmnl.nl/HMNL/web.nsf/vwWebFeatures/CODMain
My signature is in the cloud.
Lotus Notes/Domino are commercialized. This is just more FLOSS zealots screaming "gimme gimme gimme" at proprietary software.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I had to use this bloated crapware the last place I worked. Notes is among the most antisocial products I've ever used. If the source code is as awful as the user interface it would serve as an example of bad programming. The interface hall of shame once stated that if they had seen Lotus Notes they wouldn't have needed to look at any other products for all of the examples of bad user interface design they had cited elsewhere. I want them to open source cc:Mail. A nice user friendly mostly text based office email product that was borged by Lotus and killed while they pimped Bloated Notes.
And no comments about bowing down to Tree's demands or him storming Isengard.
There is a guy that used to work at Lotus: Mitch Kapor
He and is team developed a much better groupware server/client than Notes/Domino from 2001 on. It's name is Chandler and it is already Open Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(PIM)
Why Lotus Notes?
May God have mercy on his soul. The only reason Notes should go open source is so its users can download the code and have the pleasure of deleting one file at a time.
What, as an example of how not to implement those concepts?
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
as title
What ever this guy is smoking, he needs to give it to everyone. Must be some powerful mind bending stuff. Having suffered through Notes, i have to say it is a complete piece of junk. With the amount of money IBM put into it, you'd think it would be more user friendly and better. I wouldn't wish Notes on my worse enemy. Not that outlook is perfect or anything, but compared to Notes Outlook looks golden.
I think you don't have much luck getting them to open source notes/domino. What I wouldn't mind is for the network communication protocol to be opened up. Enable the community to at least build a client or support for Domino mail servers instead of Notes. I don't think Notes itself is a big revenue generator, but rather is there to enable Domino and domino client fees to be sold. Of course, some of the 'features' of notes require it to be a pain in the ass (preventing recipient from forwarding, copying and pasting). I think those features are misguided (a la DRM), but IBM uses them as marketing points and an open ecosystem would handily defeat those.
Selfish reason: I'm forced to use notes and want someone to build a better client for email/calendar aspect of it. When I was in charge of a Domino install, the first thing I did was enable IMAP for 99% of the email and kept Notes/Designer around for agent development and other such things. People were ecstatic to have the choice. I would suspect greater interoperability would make the Domino pill easier to swallow for organizations who have had bad experiences with notes. I had no significant gripes about Domino, just Notes.
Notes' calendar and email is horrible, but I will say a competent domino server can provide a development platform for internal applications akin to web applications that even morons can create. Web applications I whole-heartedly prefer when done well, but the skill and effort to create them is still leaps and bounds more than doing the same stuff in a notes database.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
We are talking here about code that ranges up to 30 years old, which has been edited by hundreds, if not thousands, of Lotus/IBM employees. It has gone through not just multiple user interface changes, but even major changes in the nature of the user interface technology. Whatever conceptual integrity the code may have had when Ray Ozzie and his team created it is long gone.
I seriously doubt that there is anyone on the planet who understands the current Notes code. As we have seen in the recent Slashdot discussion about OpenOffice.org, it's very difficult for an outsider to come into such a project and be able to make any meaningful contributions.
When Sun decided to open up Solaris, it took them several years to do so. They had to clean up the code (and comments), then make sure that they actually owned all of the code. I'm quite sure that CA had to go through a similar lengthy process with Ingres.
If IBM were to open source Notes, they would have to follow a similar process. During that time, it would be difficult for the Notes engineering team to make any significant changes to the code base, such as new functionality. The end result would be an open source product that could probably still be understood, enhanced, and maintained only by the same IBM engineering team that is working on it now.
Even though I strongly encourages adoption and use of open source software, I am hard pressed to see the value in open sourcing this antiquated and complex piece of code. I find it difficult to imagine that open source developers would flock to work on this project when there are so many other more attractive options. I think that we should leave things as they stand as long as IBM is willing to pay people to support and maintain Notes.
Or lack thereof.
When you talk about Windows 7, you stress the importance of core OS functionality and the irrelevance of the UI.
When you talk about Notes and Domino, it's all about the UI.
Make up your minds, you lemurs.
Because it sucks both from a UI point of view and other the covers? -- IV
http://www.LinuxMedNews.com Revolutionizing Medical Education and Practice.
My problem with Notes was that a lack of a relational structure made it awkward to do something like a document management system in it, where you would want to have a table of authors recipients and other persons associated with documents in a relational sense. The hope was that you could use a notes database to represent the rich document stuff, which it could kinda do, but also, have some sort of a relational, at least more strongly typed nested collection representation with it and you simply couldn't.
You would want a nested list of authors to be well, authors, of a first name and a last name and other useful information on them, and the same with recipients, cc's, and so on. From there you could build a timeline of who saw what and wrote what correspondence about what topic and that would give you the facts of the case as a simple select. But you couldn't do that, and, at the time, Notes even had problems with just nesting tuples, period. So yeah, Notes database sucked.
And the Notes idea wasn't even novel. The idea of a Notes database being a packed record, indeed, the whole JSON concept of rich data stuffed into a database, was tried before Notes, before XML, way long ago using a system IBM developed called "PICK". PICK was an interesting hybrid in that you could stuff rich data into a field but you could also use a forerunner of a SELECT command, called LIST, to fish stuff out of it.
This is my sig.
And, of course, Notes ran best on the OS/2 server platform. :)
I should know. I WAS a Lotus Notes admin/developer/E-mail admin until '03. Boy, did I pick the wrong horse! The malfunctioning Domino Web server, which would render only some of the Native Notes elements requiring me to create parallel HTML/XML code for every single database form, the bloated Web Mail Java Applets that refuse to download/upload, and a total mess of the Email/database system.
I still cringe when hearing references to programing in Lotus Notes. The native language to Lotus Notes is the Lotus Formula language, where no looping allowed and certain functions could not be put before others for no good reason (or unpredictable side effects will occur).
Then the dreaded DbLookup function. That one function alone caused so many intradatabase dependencies that I could not remove out-of-date documents in fear of causing problems in other seemly unrelated documents in bloated Databases.
Please, somebody kill Lotus Notes with FIRE!
Some of us would like to see IBM "open source" other stuff, like OS, VSE, VM. Heck, they can keep the source, just give us a hobby, or a "not for profit" license...
And they can keep the current stuff, the stuff they make money on today - like z and ESA. I'ld be more than happy if I could run something like the 20+ year old VSE/SP on my PC at home, under Hercules...
But no, we're stuck with 40 year old "public domain" software, stuff like DOS 26.2 from the System/360 days. Hey, it was fun, I was the "Sysgen Kid" back then. But it only remotely relates to what an, even 20 year old mainframe, is all about today, stuff like CICS...
CICS is a perfect example. Back in the 1.x days, you had 100% of the CICS source code, as long as you had a license. Today "transactiuon server" is a big secret...
Sorry for the OT rant, but it ticks me off. IBM has dumped billions into Linux, but us old greybeards, those of us that wrote those countless lines of Assembly and COBOL and RPG, and yes, CICS code, custom code, without which IBM would have a great OS and nothing else. Those of us that worked shift after shift of unpaid OT, tweaking that demo, making it perfect for the guy that will be spending the IT budget. Those of us that helped make IBM what it is. Those of us that truly enjoy what we do, as a job and hobby...
We can't play with our toys at home, legally that is...
I'm going to retire in a few years. I won't be a licensed user any longer. And I surely can't afford the 4 figure monthly "commercial" software license fee, let alone the 6 figures to "buy" it...
Come on IBM, great "open source" promoter that you have become lately. Do it for us original geeks, we need something to do in our old age...
Open source this - VSE/SP 3.1
Another fine example of open source advocates putting a lot of effort and energy all in the wrong places.
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler they shouldn't make it open source.. they should send the sourcecode with a rocket to the moon and then wipe out all evidence of existence here on earth...
I have now been exposed to Lotus Notes for about 6 months now, after using M$ Exchange for 6 years at work. To be a bit diplomatic about it - I have finally found something I like less than many M$ products. Why ? Well I had no major problems getting to grips with Exchange. But Notes UI stinks, it is counter intuitive to work with and is generally so slooooooooooooow. 5 cents worth from a Linux fanatic, Mac enthusiast and Windoze@work user
> Please, somebody kill Lotus Notes with FIRE!
FIRE? is that a new open source project? I can't for the life of me find it....
the bloated Web Mail Java Applets that refuse to download/upload, and a total mess of the Email/database system.
The Domino Web Access client was one of the very first commercial AJAX implementations and didn't use any Java whatsoever. It came out in 2001 with release 5.0.8, and could be implemented by applying a new template to your mail -- a process that could be performed by a competent administrator in about 15 seconds across an entire server.
I still cringe when hearing references to programing in Lotus Notes. The native language to Lotus Notes is the Lotus Formula language, where no looping allowed and certain functions could not be put before others for no good reason (or unpredictable side effects will occur).
False. The native language to Lotus Notes is C, and there is a comprehensive C API that has been made available since version 1. The original end-user programming language was @formulas, and was styled after the 1-2-3 formula language back in 1989. In 2002, IBM released Notes/Domino version 6, which included a comprehensive rewrite of the @formula engine to dramatically improve performance and flexibility. It also added looping constructs.
However, it's not like you couldn't do loops before. Notes 4 came out in 1994, and included Lotusscript -- a VB-like scripting language, which provided a sophisticated class model and extensive OOP capabilities. Lotusscript remains the dominant language in Notes/Domino development worldwide (though many devs on the platform are moving to Java & Javascript with the latest versions.)
Then the dreaded DbLookup function. That one function alone caused so many intradatabase dependencies that I could not remove out-of-date documents in fear of causing problems in other seemly unrelated documents in bloated Databases.
Wow. Sounds like you kept top-notch entity relationship diagrams.
If you were running a MySQL database on the backend, would you know every single application in your environment that queried every table? Would that be MySQL's fault?
Please, somebody kill Lotus Notes with FIRE!
Yeah, let's kill a platform because zildgulf doesn't know how to write and document a computer program. So it must be bad!
You've been away from the party too long. Check out Release 8 (the newest 8.5 will be out in January). Sure there are still some quirky things, but a lot of new stuff under the hood and much has changed for the better.
I wouldn't bet on IBM opening up Lotus Notes and Domino. As someone already said, it makes money for IBM. Plus, other products are now integrated into the platform -- Lotus Sametime, Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, WebSphere, DB2, etc.
You know... open sourcing a product (especially a huge, enterprise-critical software product) is not always a good idea.
... Riiight. Who wins here?
First of all, many governments, big banks, multinational corporations, and medium-sized businesses rely on Notes/Domino to orchestrate their mission-critical internal email and messaging systems, as well as to control millions of dollars of their sales and revenue as it courses through databases and web apps. Open sourcing that infrastructure would make it a very, VERY appealing target for hackers and security exploits. Especially since one of the recognized benefits of N/D is that it is generally considered a mature, secure, enterprise-quality product (albeit somewhat finicky in the UI). It is, after all, much harder to hack a complicated, obscure black box than a complicated transparent one.
So now imagine you're a government or a big bank and you just shelled out all this money for Notes and Domino to control your company, and now some guy comes along and says -- "Hey! Our user experience could be somewhat better if we just gave everyone in the world the source code this mission critical database, email, and workflow system we all use! Lets do this guys!"
Second... Notes/Domino does all it does on even low-end hardware because its source is written in carefully orchestrated C, C++, and assembler (along with some Java). It is highly optimized and complex code crafted by some of the best minds in the early IT industry. Once you've seen it, you'll realize what a really REALLY bad idea it would be to allow neophytes (that don't have the brain trust of the rest of the Lotus organization to leverage) to modify the code. This is not written overnight Java or VB code we're talking about. N/D code can border in complexity to OS code. Do you REALLY want your sysadmin getting bold one day, taking out his wrench and hacksaw, and saying... "awww, heck, I can fix this one MYSELF!" and now you have a broken IBM support contract and very likely subtle timing and data corruption errors in your enterprise databases and workflow.
Again... who really wins? Is it really the customer? After all, they're really the ones that matter. There are those of us that keep that in mind.
I actually worked at Lotus, back in the day. While I never warmed up to Notes, we had an excellent workflow, very little to no paper. It really worked well. The database replication was super.
Unfortunately, being a closed environment, the product shot itself in the foot. The scripting language, the UI... a big mess. And I sure as heck wasn't going to dedicate my time learning such a proprietary environment, that would do little to get me into other jobs.
So, my point... I believe Notes could have a second life if given to Open Source. It could be vastly improved and made to be very useful. I would consider adopting it, if this measure was taken.
IBM has a lot to gain from doing this; if they follow the business model that Sun has, open source product with optional commercial support. They may even gain a customer base... who knows.
While they're at it, Open Source OS/2 for crissakes.
I say go for it!
Runs fine at my company with half a gig and a celeron.
Of course, we HAVE to run Basic because Standard was shipped without roaming support.
We have a clustered 8.0 setup running on SUSE. Two suse versions are always supported so we were able to transition from Domino 6.5 to 7 to 8 and SUSE 8 to 9 to 10 without leaving a supported config.
Now, in order to get the most out of a document management system, we're looking at Exchange. 2007, fair enough, looks better than its predecessors, but it sure as hell doesn't run on SUSE. Domino, of course, runs on Windows.
I don't want this to get into a domino vs the world thread, but I feel compelled to post. I don't think open-sourcing this is viable, or a good idea, but I want to chime-in, as I have experience on both sides.
Ahh, I've been in and out of Domino for about 10 years, and in and out of asp.net/C# for about the same. As a development tool, Notes is un-paralleled as a RAD tool, and that's also the main drawback.
Untrained employees can make some horrible databases and UIs, and then out come the 'Notes sucks' replies. Yet I've seen some horrendous FrontPage/VB sites used in corporations, and I rarely hear people say "IIS must die".
Notes gives you the tools, and it's an incredibly robust platform (I do a good bit of Java development in Domino, but you can use formula (proprietary), Lotusscript (VB-esque), or C if you like. The problem is that most people don't buy it for the application potential, and as an afterthought, the resident geek will download the designer client and go to town.
R8 of Domino is quite nice, speedy, and customizable, even if you're just using it for mail. What I'd rather see is IBM allow the client to be used at home for free, and host free Notes mail and application teasers on their site. That would show people what Notes 8 is, instead of relying on a site with 10 year old quotes and images from the 4.6 client (which admittedely, was pretty awful).
Until 2003? What were you using back then? Notes & Domino 4? Man, you're tale is like a documentary on history channel. Things have changed!
Btw, @-formulae are not _the_ native language but _ONE_ of many. Even in your day there were Lotusscript (=Basic), Java and Javascript. d'oh!
Not to mention the C-API which let you get deep under the product's skin and COM/OLE if you really needed to control Notes / Domino from within M$-Office or with Delphi.
...isn't the technology, the UI, or anything else.
Granted, it loads slower than Vista from a cold boot, looks fuglier than outlook using 8-bit colors, and has usability problems up the wazoo (try explaining to a vp wtf replication is).
It's that execs don't get it. Is it email, a shared spreadsheet, a bunch of discussion databases... why spend millions on it?
This is why I got out of the notes game years ago. Sure, I could monitor a 10K user system distributed world-wide from home over a modem. But I sure couldn't sit at the boardroom table and get them to understand the value prop.
Now the SAP folks, they know how to market to the c-level folks.
"You disturb me to the point of insanity. There. I am insane now." - The Sprockets
"While the idea of open sourcing any proprietary program is appealing"
No it isn't. I want the proprietary apps I use to stay proprietary. It's why I continue to trust and use them. You FOSS-heads must not assume that everyone hates all for-pay software. Some of us have experienced that we get what we pay for.