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Open Source-Friendly Smartphones For the Small Office?
Thunderstruck writes "I work in a small office with just two computers. Both machines run long-term-service releases of Ubuntu, with Gnome, and Evolution for scheduling, contact management and electronic mail. We plan to stick with Linux long-term. For telephone service, we're using smartphones. In order to keep everything straight, we need phones that can synchronize easily with the calendars and contact data on each owner's desktop machine. We cannot use cloud based services for this function due to ethics rules, and for security reasons. Right now, we do all of this with older Palm phones, but these are a dying breed. What options are out there right now for phones that will sync with Evolution (or another good Linux PIM suite) which do not require data to go through the cloud first?"
Consider, though, the following.
Android, in its current state, can talk to an Exchange server. If you have an option that will do this (Evo server, maybe?), use it.
Blackberry and Windows Mobile are both syncable on Linux in general. Do searches in the Ubuntu package manager.
Nokia Symbian, I believe, will function similarly.
This sig no verb.
http://syncevolution.org/ Looks fairly promising using your current setup. A brief look give the assumption it's compatible with evolution, and will connect up to anything that talks syncml, and there's a syncml client for nearly any smartphone out there. And some dated info found at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=398113 gives info on someone setting up evolution to talk activesync, which would allow for windows-based phones to sync up...
As much as I like Android the most open source friendly current smartphone I know of is the Nokia N900. I would poke around some of the N900 focused forums, they may already be capable of what you're looking for and if not someone may have figured out how to add it already.
I recommend using Zimbra. It's free, is an excellent mail server similar in functionality to Exchange, and will easily install on either Debian 5.0 or any version of Ubuntu. You can use any mail client, and they even have their own client, as well as a feature-rich ajax-based web client. I sync it to my Android phone via MAPI, and it works very seamlessly.
I've never used it, but if you set up a zimbra server, then you can use the connectors available for the 'droids. That should give you the services you need on a box that you control.
- doug
Multisync appears to be dead. The same people are working on Opensync which does seem to have current activity.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
Most of the mobile world I know of is slowly moving away from direct synchronisation with the desktop. Instead, the desktop and the mobile device sync with the mail/groupware server.
I suggest taking a look at Zimbra as it supports most devices out there. You can go at it both ways too, with either a server sync or a desktop sync.
We are using Exchange right now with the Evolution MAPI conduit. We are moving away from this solution in favor of Zimbra which will work across desktop and mobile platforms.
I guess I'll take the bullet.
My iPhone works wonderfully in Ubuntu nowadays. Not jailbroken, just works.
That's not to say the iPhone is OSS friendly, just that Ubuntu has... overcome.
As pointed out by Harald Welte (he's as good an authority on the subject as any), the Samsung Galaxy S is a good candidate. Samsung makes all of its source open and there probably isn't firmware locking, AFAIK.
If you have employee information in your phone contacts, you are bound (in the UK) by the Data Protection Act to protect that data. If it's being sent to some cloudy server that might be hosted in a foreign country, then you are breaking the law.
Not to mention that the N900 has a PalmOS Garnet emulator available, so you might still be able to run some of your other legacy palm apps:
http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/index.html
I myself recently made the move from a Palm TX to an Android phone (purely because I'm a Google Maps Mobile addict), but still find myself carrying the Palm TX around for a lot of legacy apps that I haven't been able to find "modern" equivalents for...
Anyway, I too am quite interested in where all the hardcore Palm users have migrated to (evidently it wasn't WebOS, if only for the lack of SD storage :P )
I believe the N900 is soon to be discontinued. Maemo is depreciated in favour of Meego. AFAIK Meego will not be officially supported on the N900. Finally the N900 has been plagued with USB failures. There are claims that a design flaw makes the USB port weak and prone to falling off.
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=37107
UNIX/Linux Consulting
For something that actually works right now, take a look at Syncevolution. The development has been extremely active in the past years and the project seems to be significantly ahead of the "competition" at this point.
syncevolution can work as a SyncML client: e.g. PC --- service --- device
or as a SyncML server: PC --- device
SyncML implemantations are notoriously non-standard (as is the SyncML standard itself) but e.g. Nokia S60 phones should nowadays sync pretty nicely with syncevolution + Evolution.
I use SyncEvolution with my Nokia E71. Works flawlessly. Will also work with the Nokia N900 and I'm guessing any Symbian S60 phone. http://syncevolution.org/
While it's true that Nokia isn't providing much support for the N900, it shouldn't require much "hacking" to get a working sync solution because it's already been done. The Maemo community has really impressed me with their ability to provide functionality well beyond what's available on a stock N900.
Knowledge Brings Fear
Actually, much as it pains me, I think they want iPhones.
If they run Zimbra (open source groupware) as their mail server and use iPhone 4s they can sync email over imap, calendars over caldav and contacts over carddav.
Zimbra has an open sourced evolution connector too, if they don't want to change their desktop software.
Agreed that N900 is excellent depending on what you want. I have used many PIMs, and allow me to give you this golden advice: FUNAMBOL. My current is N900, Ubuntu desktop/laptop, and then a speckling of many other systems. I use a cloud, BUT it's easy enough to setup your own funambol server and synchronize to that. Before the N900, I easily synced to several win mobile PDAs using funambol as well. If you want details on setup, feel free to pm. tarek : )
For a long time Palm has worked incredibly well over the wire with Linux and Linux sync tools. I cannot speak about the latest and greatest of this. but if they use the same backend protocol then it should be the same. In a newer sense there have been no tools to do a over the wire sync with android yet. which is ironic as it is a Linux smartphone OS. However there are a number of over the air solutions that exist. one of which is actually provided by Ubuntu in the Ubuntu one service. this is based off of funambol's technology which works very much like RIM's technology. However some things allready exist. If you have a mailserver that is compatible with activesync then you can connect that way directly to your mailserver (i do not know off the top of my head about this) but in a simpler way you can get email and connect it via IMAP directly so email synchronization with email on the server is easy. contacts and appointments are now the harder issue. however if your company is willing to go that direction zimbra appears to work with windows mobile active sync, and may be an option for you. this it would seem is your best option to keep it all in house. http://wiki.zimbra.com/wiki/Mobile_Device_Setup the only other option is to find out how much data is on their servers with funambol
http://www.mysimplemobile.com/index.aspx
It's a T-Mobile MVNO
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
It's likely a firewalling issue. I used to work at a web hosting company that mostly used Courier on shared/dedicated/and vps machines, although a few (like my personal vps) ran Dovecot. It was necessary to tweak the firewall rules on a few of the shared machines to get BlackBerry phones to work with their push-pop mail. Not having an Android phone, I don't know if they support push pop from a secondary location like BB does, or not. However, I don't think that the issue is Courier itself, assuming all your authdaemon settings are correct.
As long as we're on the topic, anyone have any success connecting the Android 2.2 Mail app to a courier-imapd server? ...
No, but I am successfully connecting against a dovecot imap server over SSL. Works like a champ.
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If your answer is Microsoft, you obviously didn't understand the question.
"as the only one of the platforms with open code access,"
Maemo. N900.
If you are ethically solf on GPL/FOSS then it si about the best option (that actually works) right now. If you're hardcore then you can find a second hand Openmoko, but I'd advise against it.
The N900 is also an awesome phone and open by design, root access is granted with an installable app and not by a hack, the packing system and graphical software installer are apt based... it's a full linux. It rocks.
I don't mean to be rude, but this was in fact, Nokia's strategy. The N900 can sync with evolution because all the good software for it is open-source.
In the new release of the firmware, even the stock N900 comes with the maemo.org production repository already activated - so, even the stock N900 has a whole bunch of working applications - open source.
The strategy with Meego is that even when the N900 is defunct the reason will be something better is there to fill its place, even if it isn't made by Nokia - they'd be mad not to continue with its niche success.
for Meego on N900, see Harri Hakulinen's recent blog post in which he declares his views for a bright future for Meego on N900.
The n900 has syncevolution, that can supposedly sync with lots of stuff: http://syncevolution.org/documentation/compatibility
However, I'm not sure how reliable it is on the n900 at the moment.
I've been using syncevolution on the N900 for over six months now, and it's been working like charm, no problems whatsoever.
You can assume they will, but there will also be a semi-official Meego build for the N900, the next firmware update is actually adding official dual-boot support to make running Meego easier.
Not that "official" support from Nokia counts for shit anyways, the community support is much more helpful.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Sounds like you are using GNUmed where the patient schedule is done in your standard calendar app.
In this case I'm afraid you need to shift paradigms. Most modern smartphone OS's actually have no native PIM applications that you can sync to - unlike the older Palm and WinCE devices. Everything is designed to talk to and display information stored in the cloud or on a server.
In this case for the short term I'd get a large screened device like a DroidX or even a Dell Streak and either use web browser based display (via SSL of course) or setup a VPN (built into Android) and use VNC to view your desktop.
Long term - develop an Android app to do the above in a pleasing / useful way.
Also - Google's cloud recently won security certification for government use. I'm sure HIPPA isn't far behind. Maybe just hang on to the Palm devices a little longer and then a move to standard Android will become feasible.
BTW Kudos for being careful and doing your Due Diligence. I happen to work in health care IT and see jaw dropping breaches of confidentiality - especially by small offices - all the time.
"Smile, listen, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you wanted to do anyway." ~Robert Downey Jr.
Palm Pre is a solution too.
- it features a classic emulator too
- it can sync to servers speaking the Exchage protocol (like evolution)
So although it's not really synching directly over a USB/Serial cable like the question author wanted, the "cloud" in question could very well be their very own exchange-compatible evolution server, accessed over their own secured WiFi network. So i think most ethical problems won't be problematic anymore.
and if someone in the team is less ethically concerned and decides to use other cloud source, Synergy takes care to show contact which are the same person as merged.
also, the device it self is open-source friendly.
runs on linux
uses lots of free software components
lots of the rest has accessible javascript too.
has a simple (although sadly proprietary) interface based entirely on HTML+Javascript.
can run homebrew out of the box without any jailbreaking/rooting nonsense.
supports SDL and opengl based applications.
has also recently an alpha X11 server (it's not as complete as N900's - it just run a X11 server as an app card, if you need it - for example to quickly do some remote administration with a SSH X tunnel)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]