Ian Reinhart Geiser on Fri, 11 Jul 2003 11:02:09 -0400


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Re: [PLUG] Kolab ( was no august presenter)


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On Friday 11 July 2003 10:44 am, JP Toto wrote:
> Ian... How was you say Kolab differs from a server like Open Groupware
> or MS Exchange - aside from the fact that Exchange only runs on Windows...
>
> Ian Reinhart Geiser wrote:
[snip]

Well both MS Exchange and Open Groupware use a database as a back end.  
Exchange has a propriatery connector that is reasonably fast.  Both Open 
Groupware and MS Exchange have webdav interfaces that allow you to access 
information via webdav.  While this is portable this comes at a speed hit.  
So if you are looking at mixing remote windows clients and things like 
evolution, mozilla calender and apples iCal, they may be best for you.

Now where Kolab is different is we use IMAP as the main transport.  This kinda 
limits us to need connectors.  the Horde+IMP guys are adding kolab support 
along with our (www.sourcextreme.com) is doing a native outlook connector.

Also someone with reasonable python knowledge or even perl could write a 
webdav interface since i know the webdav library for python rocks along with 
its imap support.

The advantage over all other systems IMHO is that we basicly store everything 
as  a mime encoded vCard (for addresses) or iCal (for journals, meetings and 
todos) attachments.   Imap can dish up files fast, everything on the plannet 
can read these file formats, and it makes shareing calenders and filtering 
them trivial.    In IMAP you have the ability to have public folders, and 
shared folders.  This allows more filesystem like sharing of contents.

Lastly one thing that I think kolab really has over opengroupware, and 
exchange4linux is that since we use LDAP to store all properties and configs 
in the server, you can just point the kolab server at your Novell server, 
your NT Active directory or your OpenLDAP server, populate it with the kolab 
schema information and bang (okay you have to know ldap here and its a bang) 
you now integrated and configured your server.   Visversa, got a linux based 
PDC that has ldap auth ability, with minor schema changes kolab can act as a 
central logon point.

Its exciting stuff.

Cheers
	-ian reinhart geiser
- -- 
- --:Ian Reinhart Geiser <geiseri@yahoo.com>
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- --:Be an optimist -- at least until they start moving animals in 
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