I'm in complete agreement with your assessment of LookOut. I love evolution, but we use and deploy Scalix as our groupware system of choice, and the Scalix connector for Outlook development is stale as week old bread, with no signs of getting any better. To further complicate things, the Evolution folks are horrible at anything resembling backwards compatibility with APIs, and the Scalix folks don't have the bandwidth to keep up with the constantly evolving (ha ha) calls and API changes that break the connector with each (minor) release.
It's eternally frustrating that Outlook continues to be the killer app (along with Quickbooks sorry Josh) that keeps the desktop experience chained to the world of Windows. It's even more frustrating for me, because as much as I prefer Linux on my desktop from both a functional and philosophical perspective, I keep having to use Windows on my work systems because of my need for integrated calendaring, contacts, and e-mail. I would also dearly love for Thunderbird to take up that slack, but I also really like Evolution, and wish that someone could prevail upon the Evolution developers to stop breaking backward compatibility with things. Of course (puts conspiracy theorist hat on) since Novell owns the rights to Evolution, and Novell also sells Groupwise (YUCK), they have a bit of a disincentive to stay compatible with a competing product. So, in addition to the bitch session about the various apps that drive users away from Linux (or prevent adoption of Linux for some), maybe this could be a topic of a future meeting - FOSS equivalents of common business applications. I'd love to hear about the evolution of GNUCash - I've looked at it a couple times in the past, but would love to hear more if it's getting closer to being usable for a small business (if that's even part of the roadmap). Or what other folks are using for groupware servers and clients. Personally I hate QB, but need something for the bookkeeper to do billing and payroll. And QB, while proprietary as hell and written in .net (*cough* lock-in *cough*), is well supported by accountants and bookkeepers both. R Rubin Bennett rbTechnologies, LLC 1970 VT Route 14 South East Montpelier, VT 05651 (802)223-4448 http://thatitguy.com "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too." Voltaire, Essay on Tolerance French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778) -----Original Message----- From: Harris, Anthony J [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 3:31 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OpenOffice =~ s/Open/Libre/, and s/Oracle// Outlook is the biggest integration headache for the Linux user, frankly. I use Linux for my primary desktop, but have had to use the Windows machine in my office for email because there just isn't a good Linux option for connecting to an Exchange server. I can fake it using an open source product called Mulberry Mail, which supports NTLM authentication to an IMAPS server even under Linux (which I've never gotten Thunderbird to do under Linux), but Mulberry is a bit old, and it still leaves me without calendar access. I've tried Evolution several times, but I find it slower than death and extremely crash-prone, at least the distro repository versions. And it's a bear to build it yourself from the latest sources, and still doesn't seem to work any better. If the Mozilla project could include Exchange connectivity somehow, in such a way that it could also link with a provider for Lightening, that would be a huge leap forward for Linux desktop use in the office. > -----Original Message----- > From: Vermont Area Group of Unix Enthusiasts > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rubin Bennett > Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 1:42 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: OpenOffice =~ s/Open/Libre/, and s/Oracle// > > I've used it on commercial sites several times, and everyone has been > perfectly satisfied with it. The companies who have switched away were > all wooed away by the charms of Outlook, which brings in the rest of > it's friends. Outlook is a little like the gateway drug of the > Microsoft office suite ;) > > R > > Rubin Bennett > rbTechnologies, LLC > 1970 VT Route 14 South > East Montpelier, VT 05651 > > (802)223-4448 > http://thatitguy.com > > "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too." > Voltaire, Essay on Tolerance > French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778) > > -----Original Message----- > From: Paul Flint [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 7:12 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: OpenOffice =~ s/Open/Libre/, and s/Oracle// > > Dear Josh, > > Nice editing. > > I do not believe "Oracle" is a regular expression. > > Try "Anucle"... > > :^) > > Regards, > > Flint > > On Tue, 28 Sep 2010, Josh Sled wrote: > > > Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:24:46 -0400 > > From: Josh Sled <[email protected]> > > Reply-To: Vermont Area Group of Unix Enthusiasts <[email protected]> > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: OpenOffice =~ s/Open/Libre/, and s/Oracle// > > > > http://www.metafilter.com/96121/OpenOffice-ousts-Oracle > > > > Is anyone "deploying" OpenOffice in a government or > commercial/support > > setting? > > > > -- > > ...jsled > > http://asynchronous.org/ - a=jsled; b=asynchronous.org; echo > $...@${b} > > > > Kindest Regards, > > > > Paul Flint > (802) 479-2360 > > > /************************************ > Based upon email reliability concerns, > please send an acknowledgment in response to this note. > > Paul Flint > Barre Open Systems Institute > 17 Averill Street > Barre, VT > 05641 > > http://www.bosivt.org > http://www.flint.com/home > skype: flintinfotech > Work: (202) 537-0480 > > Consilium _ > gratuitum .~. ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) > valet /V\ against HTML e-mail X > quanti /( )\ www.asciiribbon.org / \ > numerantur ^^-^^
