On Fri, 2005-02-18 at 07:36 -0700, Kevin wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-02-17 at 23:15 -0700, Craig White wrote:
> > from time to time people ask about free source alternatives to Exchange
> > server.
> > 
> > I thought I would post up my impressions of the new versions of
> > Horde/IMP and some of the other packages
> > 
> > <http://www.horde.org>
> 
> Nice review.  Thanks for the extra effort.  It's good to see progress in
> the Open Source enterprise messaging arena.  Reading your review reminds
> me how complex and thorny enterprise messaging really is.  It's
> difficult enough with commercial packages that can force proprietary
> schemes on us.  It's an order of magnitude MORE difficult when trying to
> operate completely within open standards (the "Right Way" IMHO).  As
> this area of Open Source software continues to evolve, the benefits of
> interoperability will be worth the pain.  At least I hope!  ;-)
----
I think that I tried to make the point of the 'pluses of knowledge' for
things like sql, ldap, imap server as sql backend and imap server are
pretty much required and ldap in my opinion required for full featured
operations.

I guess that the problem has always been my lack of knowledge in most of
those arena's and I have significantly 'upped' my understanding of each
of them which greatly simplifies the entire setup process.

If you don't understand setting up say a postgresql or mysql and cannot
interact with it from command line, you cannot troubleshoot
connection/usage problems and you have to just be lucky or persistent to
make it work. Likewise, if you can't work through ldap with
ldapadd/ldapmodify/ldapsearch, you are gonna be sucking wind to make it
work through tools that you don't understand. Of course then, the issue
of making something as diverse as apache, php, imap c-client stuff
integrate with stuff that you don't fully understand is likely to be a
painful process.

I see the same thing on the samba message list - where people are trying
to integrate samba with ldap and they haven't the first bit of
understanding ldap and somehow samba is supposed to magically make it
work for them.

In reality though - this really doesn't change much if you opt for the
proprietary versions for things like groupwise or exchange server since
the infrastructure for those servers has to be dealt with too. For
example, exchange server integrates into the sam accounts of the domain
controller and the ldap, kerberos, dns, IIS services as well. Groupwise
has to integrate into NDS and similar services. The difference being
that since the other services are single source, the wizards are
designed towards the single provider of these sources.

Then of course, with those proprietary versions, you have vendor lock-in
to the point that if you wish to extend with things like spam control or
virus control over the mail queue and mail store, you either implement
prior to delivering mail to the mail store or purchase certified 3rd
party programs that are compatible - clearly making a stronger argument
for open source alternatives.

Horde/IMP etc. can be set up to use an Exchange Server or GWIA backend -
I actually once set up turba (the horde address book module) to use
NDS's LDAP server for addresses and IMP to use GWIA's IMAP server. This
is really testimony to the greatest reason to use the open source
software than the proprietary products since it allows the user the
flexibility to change their backend implementation rather than further
lock them in.

When it comes down to it, lack of knowledge is always the problem
whether it is open source or proprietary. Open source encourages us to
try to do things that we don't understand and vent when we get
frustrated because we don't. Proprietary software gives us wizards to
skate us through stuff we don't understand and typically give the user a
partial implementation and the semblance of it working but rarely do
users make enough enough effort to understand the implications of what
isn't working until we are forced to do something about it.

I just don't think the gulf is as wide between open source and
proprietary apps as many people profess it to be.

Craig

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