Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 11:04:03 -0400 From: Stuart Krivis <ipswitch@apk.net> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Exchange substitute Message-ID: <108260000.994345443@kleenex> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0105181218380.16636-100000@pilchuck.reedmedia.net>
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So I'm late... :-) --On Friday, May 18, 2001 12:32:59 -0700 "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed@reedmedia.net> wrote: > I also am curious about this. On Tuesday, I gave a presentation about BSD, > open source, and Linux; and some of the audience asked me about > alternatives for MS Exchange/Outlook -- in particular they were interested > in providing shared calendars. (I guess this is called "groupware".) > I have only heard about evolution, so it was my only answer. There are a lot of calendaring solutions. Some are free and some aren't. Freshmeat is a good place to start looking. For free solutions, phpgroupware is worthwhile. There is also one for a Zope server that's called Worldpilot (I think). > > But then later, I remembered reading about HP's OpenMail. It is available > for Linux -- maybe it runs under FreeBSD. My Agilent-working father > believes that OpenMail is mostly compatible with MS Exchange's > features (and since he is a former-HP employee, he believes it is a lot > better). But, I believe that OpenMail isn't being supported anymore, and > in the next few years it will be phased out. HP licensed MAPI from MS, so they were actually able to provide a server that Outlook can talk to via RPC. Openmail is a pig. :-) I've never seen anything slam a server so hard. But, it did work pretty well, and was much more stable than NT/Win2K/Exchange. HP decided not to keep Openmail alive any longer. There was talk of trying to get them to release the source, but it isn't much good without the MS code in the client for MAPI. I really doubt that they will be able to open-source that part. :-) > > As for evolution, I don't know much about it. I hear that it uses some > iCalendar protocol and will work with other calendaring systems. iCal, LDAP, and vCard are the things to look for. iCal provides a standard way to exchange calendar events between clients (although it works for the client to server interface too). vCard does the same for contact info. LDAP is LDAP. :-) (You could certainly use LDAP to communicate calendar and contact info, plus a lot more.) There was some talk in this thread about web-based solutions and how people don't like them. This is certainly a problem, but isn't limited to just groupware. I don't have any answer for people, other than to just look around and try things out. Notes/Domino isn't really the answer because it has a very steep learning curve to administer. The client isn't so bad if the admin sets things up properly beforehand. However, this is also true for groupware in general, as well as the currently popular CRM software. Most places buy into the groupware idea and think they're going to have all these nifty things that the vendors talk about. When it comes down to actually implementing it, the ball is dropped. Exchange/Notes/Groupwise/whatever just get dropped in with a default install and the advanced features never show up. (You have to fight to get the users to use the features, even assuming they're made available.) Groupwise needs Netware, so it's not going to be an Exchange-killer. Notes/Domino freaks people out when they start trying to run it. You can easily make a career out of learning Notes. (You can do some extremely neat things with it, but you need skilled admins and programmers.) Exchange is probably the easiest to plug n' play. It will run, if not particularly well, even installed by the clueless. The only advantage to Exchange/Outlook is that it is integrated. The client has access to all the features. A lot of these are integrated into the OS too. You can use the address book for other applications, for instance. It would be much harder to do this with a unix machine as a server using standards-based software. LDAP is going to have to be a central point IMO. It's an interesting topic. It also shows how MS ties your data up into their system so that you're forced to use more MS software. There is nothing open about MS's messaging and collaboration software. Once you buy into one part of the MS world view, it becomes the path of least resistance to keep going. It is very hard to pull your data back out of MS's clutches, and they don't make it easy to put it back in either. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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