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After 19 Years CMU Discontinues Cyrus IMAP In Favor Of Microsoft Exchange And Gmail (cmu.edu)
Long-time Slashdot reader Hobart writes: The Cyrus IMAP server, created by and for Carnegie Mellon University, has lost support of its founding institution. As of last fall, they announced that student and faculty email will be run on Microsoft Exchange, or Google's Gmail suite of apps. The company FastMail seems to be the primary driver of Cyrus IMAPd software now, per their December blog post. Are any Slashdot readers migrating their Cyrus-based services, or are there compelling reasons to chose it over the competition?
I migrated off Cyrus years ago (to Dovecot) because for my small installation needs, Cyrus was obscenely overcomplicated. I also hate Cyrus SASL with the heat of a thousand suns.
no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft
RIP
IMAP server support continues. The sole remaining developer, Darrin, recently attempted to escape - but he was quickly apprehended by UW Police and returned to his closet.
#DeleteChrome
if you are thinking exclusively about money and nothing else. -_-
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
There are compelling reasons to not use cyrusimap, and they are legion.
Incomplete or wrong documentation.
Incomplete and inconsistent, if not poorly behaving, management tools.
Archaic understanding of storage.
Prone to corruption and loss of mail.
Everything it does, dovecot does better.
N.S.A.!
N.S.A.!
N.S.A.!
Which administrator is getting the kickback from Microsoft for this particular choice?
Are any Slashdot readers migrating their Cyrus-based services, or are there compelling reasons to chose it over the competition?
I must admit: I do not know much about Cyrus-based services, so can't speak to that.
So the rest of your post is going to be off-topic. Got it.
I will however talk about GMail and my frustration(s) with it.
1: It's ugly and cumbersome to use by default. An Outlook-like interface has proven itself. To make GMail look like Outlook, one must install and enable some 3rd party add-on.
*cough*
1: It's ugly and cumbersome to use by default. An Outlook-like interface has proven itself. To make GMail look like Outlook, one must install and enable some 3rd party add-on.
Please do not mix subjective terms like "ugly" with objective terms like "proven". You're confusing yourself when you do.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Everybody loves public domain abandonware like qmail.
Today people need more than email and calendar, Skype, and meeting options.
Unfortunately, the community defined the imap standard IEEE but no calendar and meeting and freebusy functionality so MS defined the standard instead.
Email might be fine for student uses but is incompatible for the needs of staff.
http://saveie6.com/
It was painful setting up cyrus, but it has been solid once past that initial barrier. Already 13 years. I hope it is easy to migrate to dovecot.
I've been running Courier IMAPd since 2003 for just my personal email. I think I picked it because it was simple to configure. It's been running just fine ever since. If I were providing email service to a large group of users, I would want to evaluate different options, but it's been rock solid for my use.
1: It's ugly and cumbersome to use by default. An Outlook-like interface has proven itself. To make GMail look like Outlook, one must install and enable some 3rd party add-on.
Please do not mix subjective terms like "ugly" with objective terms like "proven". You're confusing yourself when you do.
So in other words you have no substantive objection to OP's criticism of Gmail.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
With many institutions moving to MS and Google cloud mail service, it seems we head toward a dangerous monoculture, or duoculture, at least.
It's important to remember that CMU's Cyrus also develops a SASL library which provides an authentication framework/layer. This is used heavily throughout major open-source projects, particularly those which are SMTP-related. Examples below are taken from the FreeBSD ports repository:
* exim -- for SMTP AUTH support (probably both server and client (unsure, I don't use exim))
* mutt -- for SMTP AUTH support (if mutt is configured to speak SMTP natively (uncommon), rather than using an MDA (common))
* postfix -- for SMTP AUTH support (both server and client)
* sendmail -- for SMTP AUTH support (both server and client)
* mongodb 3.x -- as an authentication mechanism
* memcached -- as an authentication mechanism (optional, but often default)
* squid -- as an authentication back-end (optional)
* mod_authn_sasl (3rd-party Apache module) - as an authentication back-end
* mod_webauth (3rd-party Apache module) -- as an authentication back-end
I really can't argue with something that is his subjective opinion. I have a different opinion, but I'm surprised you're interested in that.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
And for most people, it means either GMail or Exchange. They both have their trade-offs, but they both get the job done. Open source e-mail software still has a place on the back-end, but it's incapable of providing the sort of collaboration platform people expect (for good reasons) in 2017.
ERROR: Null
While FastMail is based on Cyrus IMAP, and is providing resources for its development and documentation, I think it is to early to declare Cyrus completely finished. In terms of collaboration features, the addition of CardDAV and CalDAV support a few years ago helped somewhat. Lack of its own file sharing tools is a serious limitation, but FastMail has managed a degree of integration with Dropbox.
Hold off on a variation of the dead parrot sketch for the time being!!
He pointed out pretty clearly a number of reasons why Gmail, objectively sucks. You didn't point out anything, why even bother posting?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
my achy breaky client
I just don't think he'd understand
Have you always been retarded, or is your MAGA hat too tight? The poster complaining about Gmail listed a bunch of stuff he doesn't like. None of them are objectively bad.
Exchange IMAP performance is atrocious, not to mention completely broken from a standards point of view.
No, he pointed out a number of reasons why people might not prefer GMail's interface. The fact that it's an extraordinarily popular service would seem to indicate that there are plenty of people who _do_ like it. There's no objective points to argue about.
I use Gmail. I never use Gmail's web interface.
Just connect via IMAP and your mail client can supply the wonderful interface.
Mine is supplied by Sylpheed.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but GMAIL supports IMAP for email, works great with Thunderbird, and provides a secure encrypted connection.
It can be extraordinarily popular and stick suck, which it is and it does. Another example of that is Windows. It is not extraordinarily popular because it doesn't suck, it is extraordinarily popular for other reasons, some of which are nothing to be proud of.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
He pointed out pretty clearly a number of reasons why Gmail, objectively sucks. You didn't point out anything, why even bother posting?
You still haven't pointed out anything. I will point out something: Gmail does suck. It is only Google's network effect monopoly control that keeps people using it. They will come to regret it, as Google's increasingly high handed business model of privacy invasion starts to bite hard.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Email is dead!!!
If someone want to compete with Exchange have to invent something else, something like "buletinboard" with Calendar and Tasks...