Hello,
I'm currently sending out the following press release.
If you or your colleagues are interested in ICTs (user, developer,
documentation, website developement etc) and have not yet joined or
contributed to an open-source project, consider this one. An open-source
groupware server - yay!
All the best
Jacqueline McNally
www.decisions-and-designs.com.au/jacqueline
Community Contact, Australia/New Zealand
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
(www.openoffice.org)
Are you a computer angel? (www.computerangels.org.au)
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MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW PROJECT FORMED: OpenGroupware.org,
AS SKYRiX OPEN SOURCES ITS GROUPWARE SERVER
July 10, 2003 - OpenGroupware.org ('OGo') project announces its
formation and the release today to the worldwide open source development
community of its groupware server software. The software provides the
server components necessary for full office collaboration with the
OpenOffice.org suite and various other Linux and Windows groupware
clients. OGo software runs on Linux and Solaris (www.OpenGroupware.org)
The OGo project is a fully independent open-source project, but will
inter-operate with the OpenOffice.org software and other similarly open
clients via open standards.
The OGo software is based initially on the contribution of the code of
SKYRiX 4.1 Groupware Server, a mature product that has been in
development for 7 years, and one of the earliest groupware products for
the Linux operating system. The contributor, SKYRIX Software AG, is well
known in Germany as a leader in Linux groupware (www.SKYRiX.com).
"We are extremely excited to form OpenGroupware.org and to collaborate
with OpenOffice.org to serve the open source community worldwide," said
Jens Enders, president and CEO of SKYRIX Software AG. "By configuring
the OpenGroupware.org server together [after install] with the
OpenOffice.org office suite and other leading groupware clients, our
customers will be able to implement a comprehensive and integrated
collaboration environment wholly composed of free software."
The OGo software provides document sharing capabilities for
OpenOffice.org documents and will enable users of MS Outlook
(97/2000/XP), Ximian Evolution, Mozilla Calendar, OOo Glow
(OpenOffice.org Groupware Project's client product), Apple's iCal and
other standards-based groupware clients to collaborate.
OGo software will enable users to share calendar, address book and
e-mail information; they can communicate via instant messaging, share
folders, exchange documents, track changes, share a whiteboard, and
browse the Web all at the same time -- all upon open Internet standards
and without paying or managing cumbersome licensing fees.
Says Gary Frederick, Leader of the OpenOffice.org Groupware Project:
"Just to be perfectly clear, this is an MS Exchange replacement. OGo is
important because it's the missing link in the open source software
stack. It's the end of a decade-long effort to 'map' all the key
infrastructure and standard desktop applications to free software. OGo
offers users a free solution for collaboration and document management
that, despite being free of charge, will far surpass the quality and
level of collaboration found on Windows (through integration of MS
Office, Exchange Server and SharePoint). Today marks the completion of
'OpenStack'."
Adds Stu Green, Managing Director of Open Source Professional Services,
"The release of OGo means the OpenOffice.org suite is ready for the
enterprise complete with full-featured and mature groupware solutions.
These capabilities once and for all show how free software betters
proprietary solutions that require licensing payments on both the client
and server sides. Also, OGo provides multiple file format filters for
creating, storing and sharing data in an open and flexible fashion. It's
possible now to completely avoid proprietary file formats and
non-standard XML throughout the desktop stack and infrastructure.
Licensing fees and license management are gone. And with OOo + OGo, no
remote activation is required." (www.OSPSnet.com)
OGo has extensive and broad support for XML based APIs:an XML-RPC
'Webservice' API, support for SunONE XML based WCAP, support for
HTTPMail/MS Exchange-based WebDAV, and finally for iCalendar files in
XML notation (according to the xCal drafts). Given the XML based storage
format of OpenOffice.org the OGo document storage will be able to
perform feature rich team based collaboration and content management.
OGo uses a WebDAV-accessible relational database management system to
make document storage accessible from the OpenOffice.org office suite.
OGo is licensed under the open source dual licenses, Lesser General
Public License (LGPL) and the General Public License (GPL). Libraries
and components are licensed under the terms of the LGPL and applications
are licensed under the GPL. For users, this means in part that the OGo
software can be used, improved and redistributed at no cost. For
developers, the licensing implications vary depending on the type of
code contribution that is contemplated.
If you would like to join OpenGroupware.org to contribute code,
development or marketing resources to the project, please contact
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
About OpenGroupware.org
Mission: To create, as a community, the leading open source groupware
server to integrate with the leading open source office suite products
and all the leading groupware clients running across all major
platforms, and to provide access to all functionality and data through
open XML-based interfaces and APIs (www.OpenGroupware.org).
About SKYRiX
SKYRIX Software AG, the contributor of the OGo code, is a leading
developer of Linux based groupware solutions in Germany. The product OGo
is based on, SKYRiX 4.1 Groupware Server, is a mature solution being in
development for about seven years. OGo consists of about 600,000 lines
of object oriented C code and about 100,000 lines of reusable Web
components (www.SKYRiX.com).
The original author of the OpenGroupware.org reference server software
was MDlink GmbH, founded as an Internet service provider (ISP) in
Germany in 1994. The company started development on the LSOffice
application server in about 1996 to extend it's Internet offerings with
a powerful collaboration platform usable over the Internet. Some years
later LSOffice was renamed to SKYRiX 3 and finally in 2000 a separate
company, SKYRIX Software AG, was formed to concentrate on the further
development of the product.
About OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org is the home of the open source project and its community
of developers, users and marketers responsible for the on-going
development of the OpenOffice.org product. The mission of OpenOffice.org
is to create, as a community, the leading international office suite
that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all
functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an
XML-based file format. OpenOffice.org 1.1 runs on FreeBDS, Windows
(98/2000/XP), Linux (x86 & PowerPC), Mac OS X and Solaris; while ports
for other operating systems and hardware platforms, including IRIX,
HP-UX, Tru64, Linux (Alpha), Linux (ARM), Linux (Itanium2) and others,
are in various stages of development. OpenOffice.org 1.1, soon available
in over 60 native languages, is written in C++ and has documented API's
licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and Sun
Industry Standards Source License (SISSL) open source licenses. The
founder and sponsor of the OpenOffice.org project is Sun Microsystems,
Inc. Sun markets an office suite based on the OpenOffice.org code called
StarOffice. Download OpenOffice.org 1.1 at http://www.openoffice.org.
About OpenOffice.org Glow Project
Glow is an innovative OpenOffice.org project to create a rich
full-featured and integrated groupware client for communication and
collaboration to complement the OpenOffice.org office suite. Glow is
written using Java which has enabled the rapid development and release
of the first internal milestone supporting core calendaring functions,
both online and offline. Contacts, mail, instant messaging; P2P and web
whiteboard features are planned. Glow is designed to integrate with and
complement OpenOffice.org but can also be used as a standalone
cross-platform application running everywhere that J2SE does
(http://groupware.openoffice.org/glow/).
Links:
Evolution http://ximian.com/products/evolution/
OpenGroupware.org http://www.opengroupware.org
OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice.org Groupware Project http://groupware.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice.org Glow http://groupware.openoffice.org/glow/
OSPS http://www.OSPSnet.com
Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/
MS Outlook http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/outannoy/
SKYRiX http://www.skyrix.com/en/products/index.xhtml
StarOffice http://www.sun.com/staroffice
Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://www.sun.com
MEDIA RELEASE CONTACTS:
Helge Hess
SKYRIX Software AG
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Gary Frederick
OpenOffice.org Groupware Project
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sam Hiser
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
PUBLICITY CONTACT:
Jacqueline McNally
Community Contact, Australia/New Zealand
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
Tel: +61 8 9474 3021 (GMT +0800)
Fax: +61 8 9474 3405
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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