> >> OpenGroupware was technically very good when I reviewed it some time > >> ago, but I have not used it in production or looked at it in several > >> years. > > I'm an OpenGroupware developer, so my opinion is obvious. We are > > currently working on making sure CalDAV (Sunbird) support is working > > smoothly. And a new [commercial] Outlook connector is under > > development (pre-release soon) for any server that supports GroupDAV. > It is good to hear that the bridges into other protocols continue to > develop. I would certainly review OpenGroupware again if the issue came > up, since having something completely open would be nice. > [...] > >> [2] Commercial, sorry. > >> [3] Semi-commercial, sorry. > > Yep. It is irritating to those of us who work on reallyOpen Source > >groupwareservers to have products like Zimbra and Scalix constantly > > injected into the discussion ofOpen Sourcegroupwareservers. > Well, this discussion wasn't about "Open Source"groupwareservers, it > was about "best/easiest setup"groupwareservers, as per the original > poster.
Right, wasn't meaning that. Just that this issue comes up allot. It also depends on what someone means my "open"; often people use "open" (as in using open standards, etc...) and "Open Source" interchangebly, when they aren't. > That said, while I would not dispute your comment on Scalix, the claim > that Zimbra is any less "Open Source" than OpenGroupware seems -- to > me -- to be a pretty hard claim to support. > Both products seem to offer a selection of standard protocols, use > existingopen sourcecomponents, and provide a commercial version that > adds extra features including Outlook support. True, and Zimbra has certainly improved their openness. You still have to get features like mobile device support (a server side feature) as a commercial product. And they use the ZPL/YPL licenses which are not OSI approved. > As far as I can tell, from a licensing /open sourceperspective, both > Zimbra and OpenGroupware are equally "open" or "closed", depending on > how you count such things. > You clearly disagree with this, from that statement, and I would be very > interested to know why you feel that way. Specifically, I would be > happy to learn where I was mistaken in my assessment, and that might > well change the way I deal with recommendations in future. > (I would have described OpenGroupware as "semi-commercial" if I had been > enthusiastic enough to annotate it, you see.) The position of Zimbra-is-"Open Source" can be argued either way. I think it isn't. I certainly disgree about OGo's "semi-commercial" stature, but this seems to be a common misconception. There is nothing in the OGo server's feature list you don't get if you check out the code from the repository, every feature is there and you can setup one user or one thousand users. All the code is either GPL or LGPL (OSI approved licenses). There are commercial packages of OGo which makes sense since as a product it is aimed at the business market (not many individuals are going to be interested in a groupware server). But building such packages is certainly permitted under the GPL. You can get commercial setup of OGo from multiple sources (Skyrix, MD-Link, and Whitemice Consulting, just to name three). The [OGo] Outlook connector isn't maintained by the project or really event attached to the project, it was developed by a third-party. The new GroupDAV Outlook connector is developed by some of the same people and should work with OpenXchange, SOGo, Citadel and any other server that supports GroupDAV (as does OGo). It is just an unfortunate pragmatic fact that Outlook connectors are going to be proprietary things due to licensing, testing, and toolchain costs. Note that I'm not involved in the development of the connector in any way, I just communicate with some of the people working on it. Hopefully the fact that the Outlook connector supports multiple- servers will break the notion that OGo's open-source server is some kind of straw-man for a commercial product (it isn't). I *assume* that the notion that OGo isn't a truly Open Source project came from the existence of the ZideLook (commercial) product [the Outlook connector]. OpenGroupware provides mobile device support via a GroupDAV connector (Open Source) for Funambol (Open Source, developed by BIONIC Message). As an aside, I'll freely admit that OGo is probably not going to be most point-and-click install product; probably not by a long shot [ unless you are using OpenSUSE, the distro I test on :) ] But I think the openness of the project and its focus on open protocols and a robust API are unique features. To get the most benefit groupware shouldn't be viewed as a collection of [integrated] applications but as a platform, which is where OGo stands about. Especially with our new zOGI API <http://code.google.com/p/zogi/> so you can built your own clients and integrate with your Intranet/Extranet with whatever tool-chain you prefer. Then you get client-side app and mobile device support automatically (vs. building your own PHP, etc... apps which are essentially silos). If what you want is primarily a webmail/ addressbook/calendar suite then OGo probably isn't what you want. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
