BTW, what sort of clients have you hooked up to this yet?  I am particularly
intersted in the collaborative calendering.

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005, Craig White wrote:

> 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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