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Novell To Release Ximian Connector Under GPL

Posted by timothy on Tue May 11, 2004 12:03 PM
from the free-software-creeping-in-and-leaping-in dept.
Software Ximian GNU is Not Unix Operating Systems Windows Apache
ashmodai9 writes "According to this article on LinuxToday.com as well as this press release directly from their site, Novell announced that its "Connector for MS Exchange Server would be integrated into Evolution 2.0 and made available as open source, beginning today with the current Connector 1.4." Apparently, downloads will be available for the current version of Evolution starting May 14th." Thanks to reader crafterm, a snippet from Novell's Connector website: "With the Connector for Microsoft Exchange installed, Evolution functions as an Exchange client, enabling users to become full participants in company-wide group scheduling and other collaborative tasks. Linux and Solaris users can access public folders, Global Address Lists, email, calendar, task lists, and group scheduling information." Update: 05/11 17:58 GMT by T : In related news, ChiralSoftware writes "Codeweavers' long-awaited sequel to Crossover 2.1 is here. Just like the old version, the new version lets you install MS Office on Linux desktops. The new version adds support for Outlook XP, Lotus Notes and Microsoft Project."
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Novell To Release Ximian Connector Under GPL 50 Comments More /

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  • Apache? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:03PM (#9118098)
    But what does this have to do with Apache?

  • Don't wait until the 14th. (Score:5, Informative)

    by ivan256 (17499) * on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:04PM (#9118106)
    Download the source [ximian.com] now!
    • Heh, download it now, because you KNOW Microsoft is going to be pissed.

        • Re:Don't wait until the 14th. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by B'Trey (111263) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @03:06PM (#9119994)
          Not necessarily true. You might need a client access license but you don't need to purchase a copy of Windows. Additionally, depending on how you have your server configured, multiple people can share a CAL, just not at the same time (per server vice per seat licensing.) MS is still getting a slice of the pie, but their slice is a whole lot smaller.

          The biggest thing that MS won't like about this, however, isn't the loss of a few seat licenses but that it opens up an avenue for migrating to Linux. You can convert piecemeal rather than having to switch everything at once.

  • Excellent news for the FOSS community! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by biglig2 (89374) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:04PM (#9118113) Homepage Journal
    Another reason for not switching - the need to access an Exchange server - bites the dust.

  • Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jargoone (166102) * on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:05PM (#9118121)
    This is great news! I put in a request a couple of months ago to have this purchased, and I just cancelled that request. It's nice to have one fewer barrier to acceptance.

    Now I just have to convince our NT admin staff to turn on Outlook Web Access...

    • You should still purchase it! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11 2004, @01:11PM (#9118900)
      If you work for a company that would actually spend money on it, DO IT! We should financially support F/OSS companies when we are able to.

      Also, remember you'll likely be buying some support which is cheaper than going it alone.

  • custom contacts form and categories? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ironhide (803) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:06PM (#9118130) Journal
    I always wondered if custom contacts forms would work.
    And what about categories? In Windows you have to add them to the registry - there is no such thing in Linux.

  • Great News (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SmilingBoy (686281) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:07PM (#9118149)
    That's great news - and for those wondering why Novell would release this open source, whereas they could sell it for cash before: Remember, Novell is not primarily selling software but services. They hope to sell more services by freeing the Connector.

  • Wonderful News (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cube_slave (765396) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:09PM (#9118184) Homepage
    This is great. A couple developers here at work are trying to get Linux for their workstations. Hooking into Exchange was always a set back. IT did not want to pay for the connector, since it already paid for Outlook.

    This is just one less hurdle to overcome. I aplaud Novel's decision.
  • Compatibility with Exchange is wonderful, seriously.

    The promise of exchange - integrated email & calendaring, locks a lot of companies in to MS software.

    Say what you will, the ability for a clueless end-user to click "accept" on an email and automatically schedule themselves for a meeting is a Big Deal(tm).

    Now, if only we had something affordable that could do that on the Linux server side, with clients on Linux, Windows and Mac platforms...and no, webmail doesn't cut it...

    Is there anyone working on this?

    -Steve

  • Okay, you have your connector for MS Exchange right there in the main app now. NOW what's stopping you from seriously considering OSS as a possibility? And, I'm not talking about the 1.2% of the population that needs some bizarre, esoteric feature in Outlook or Word or whatever that 98.8% of the rest of the population didn't even know exists.

    Seriously, folks. Linux ain't ready for the home desktop market, but it's high time more people start considering its viability for the desktop in the workplace, especially as lightweight replacements for Wintops that don't do all that much more than word processing and scheduling.

    Take most of that money you've been blowing on MCSEs and A/V software, and pay a few competent *nix admins to come in and properly set up the systems, and you just may well alleviate some, or most, of that downtime. How much TCO did YOUR company have to add to Windows from Sasser, anyway?

    • Re:Cue Irrelevant Feature Complaints In.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by macemoneta (154740) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:22PM (#9118355)
      How about one of the major features of Outlook that has been missing for three and a half years now? The notes/memos [ximian.com] feature? I, and many other use it extensively, but no matter how many times it has been requested (or who requests it; check the submitter on the listed bug), it has never made it into Evolution.

      • Uh. So fire the receptionist and hire a competent one? It's called internal training. You should have a budget for it. There's no reason your receptionist needs to "learn Linux". You give her the apps, you give her the introduction, and you give her some time to settle into it, and that's that.

        I'm sick of hearing that people need to "learn Linux" to migrate in the workspace. Hello? I'm surrounded by 350 co-workers and I think maybe 2 of them, not counting our meager IT staff, actually "knows Windows" but they still manage to do their jobs. The nice thing about "knowing Linux", however, is that if you're a competent admin you can make sure that the people who don't "know Linux" can't shoot their own toes off, or, at least, can't shoot anyone else. See, with Windows, not only can you shoot your own toes off if you don't "know Windows", but you can shoot everyone else in the general vicinity, and, on occasion, it just arbitrarily decides to shoot you even if you didn't do anything wrong.

        I don't want to hear any crap about migration costs. Proof. Give me proof. Give me case studies. I'm tired of excuses. Maybe they're true, but they're always just excuses. It's just people afraid of a new thing and nothing more.

          • So, the problem with Linux is that your company is too cheap to hire a competent receptionist who can learn the basics of very similar software packages in-house in a reasonable amount of time? For your general word processing and spreadsheeting applications, Open Office isn't really that much different. If she can learn to blindly click buttons on Office, there's no reason she can't learn to do it on Open Office. If that were really true, we'd all still be using WordPerfect.

            You can even train a mouse to do rudimentary, repetitive tasks. Just how much dumber are your receptionists?

            On top of that, I can't imagine that the cost difference of hiring new receptionists, especially from a temp agency, are going to offset productivity gains and cost savings for the rest of the company if Linux is a viable consideration otherwise. If it does, maybe you need to consider firing your HR group and getting people who don't just knee-jerk hire every receptionist that walks in the door...

            You're just making exuses. You must be a manager.

  • Paging Steve Jobs! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by toupsie (88295) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:11PM (#9118214) Homepage
    Stevie-baby, here is your chance to get Mac OS X into the Enterprise! One of the major problems with integrating Macs in most large scale companies is the Exchange Mail Systems in use. In the past, most Mac OS X users had to load up classic to use the G-d awful Outlook client. The new Office 2004 Entourage client is still not as cool as Stickies, Mail, iCal and Address Book working as a team and the best part, those are built into the OS -- as the connector should be.

  • Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ChiralSoftware (743411) <info@chiralsoftware.net> on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:13PM (#9118247) Homepage
    Exchange is probably MS' best and most important product that has no Open Source equivalent. I am aware of Kolab [kolab.org] and some other works-in-progress, but none of these are even close to Exchange yet. Exchange has more than its fair share of security problems, but what it does, it does well. Now with Connector being released GPL, that will have two consequences: The free downloadable version of Evolution will be able to use Exchange's features, and hopefully other OS tools like Koffice/Kmail will pick up those abilities, too. Also, having an open source client side might help them in getting an open source server side move faster. Now I just wish that Evolution would be properly integrated with KDE. They are doing it with OOo [openoffice.org]...

    I'm a full-time desktop Linux user, and not just for coding, but for every aspect of business, so all this stuff matters to me. This week is going to be a great week in Desktop Linux: Suse 9.1 and Crossover 3 are both coming out at about the same time, and both are huge improvements over what came before.

    -------
    WAP news [chiralsoftware.net]

  • I use KDE, so Kontact integrates better with the rest of my desktop than does Evolution. However, this is bound to be good for me, too, since the KDE folks can presumably use this to improve KMail's Exchange support. Oh, to be able to view the company calendar without booting into XP. That would be very, very nice.

    Novell, you seriously rock. I know you're doing this for business reasons, but you just bought a lood of goodwill from a bunch of folks in IT departments. Thank you!

    OT harp: Now, if KMail would just add IMAP filtering... ;-)

  • Cached Mode? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Mantrid (250133) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:15PM (#9118270) Journal
    Well we ended up with an Exchange 2003/Outlook 2003 solution here...an expensive solution, but once they spent the money - well It's actually been quite good! Active Directory seems to be a bit of a headache ;) But Exchange/Outlook really is running well! Two things stand out (well having different mail views in OL2K3 is awesome - for example having a view of "follow up" items, or "unread" items separate from the folders they are in):

    One is cached mode - no more online/offline dicking around - it really works *well*. I have not had any screwy problems as of yet. (Basically Outlook caches your email - a seamless synchronization of your folders and it automatically detects a connected state)

    The other thing is the RPC over HTTP - so I can get full exchange functionality over the internet, just as if I was using IMAP or POP standards, but with the full exchange server deal: contacts, calendars etc. It's really been handy - no opening VPN connections or using webmail to check my work mail on my laptop.

    Are these two features available with Novell's solution? Even if they aren't I'm sure they will be. And having the option is great for the future even though, we are on the MS road for the time being. But for now, Exchange 2003 has worked very well, certainly better than our Linux pilot (Debian/FetchMail/Exim etc. with Thunderbird) - but our Linux pilot was kneecapped by having to operate in a mixed environment (which these new connectors would fix), and obviously going with Exchange cost us a whole lot more money! (Like $20K or thereabouts instead of free - consulting and hardware fees would've been required in both cases - and the Linux consulting was a lot cheaper believe it or not)

    • Re:Cached Mode? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cascadefx (174894) * <morlockhq@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:27PM (#9118418) Journal
      But Exchange/Outlook really is running well! Two things stand out (well having different mail views in OL2K3 is awesome - for example having a view of "follow up" items, or "unread" items separate from the folders they are in):

      Virtual folders have been in Evolution forever. I have the same thing set up in Evolution and was shocked when I installed Outlook 2003 and they had it too. I think the interface is BUSY though. I hate the bars that break stuff out by date... it is distracting. The other stuff is interesting (but I have it in Evolution).

      I don't know everything that the connector adds, but I am glad to get it... hopefully soon.

      This isn't to say that Evolution doesn't have its rough edges. It DOES... but it is amazing for how relatively young it is. I have been using Outlook for years and it only recently got to be very usable. Evolution is a lot further in a shorter amount of time (love the RSS feed aggregator that is built in).

  • Silliness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rick Zeman (15628) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:16PM (#9118287)
    Novell has in public beta a GroupWise client for Linux and Mac OS X...and then they give away a connector to make a free client talk to the enemy's mail/calendaring system?

    Makes me glad I don't have Novell stock. GroupWise earns them money. This does what?

    • Re:Silliness (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phoenix.bam! (642635) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:30PM (#9118467)
      this gives companies who use exchange (The enemy) to start using Evolution (The ally) which can also use Novell's (presumably) better cheaper product (The Goal).

  • Thank you, Novell (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JediTrainer (314273) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:18PM (#9118302)
    I'd just like to throw that in. I've been waiting for ages and now it's actually possible.

    I can actually use my Linux box at work, without relying on my Windows box.

    In my particular company, we use Exchange. While I *have* been able to get IE working with Wine, I haven't had any luck with Outlook at all - I need it for its calendar, which everyone else uses. With Evolution plus the connector, I can now throw away my old dusty NT box for good!

    We've needed this for a long time, and I am very grateful for this.

  • Open SUSE and the new Distro scenario (Score:5, Interesting)

    by InodoroPereyra (514794) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:24PM (#9118383)
    Is it me ? I have the feeling that if Novell keeps opening up (as in GPL) the core of SUSE, then the (perhaps) most polished distro (according to reviews from people I respect) will become extremely popular.

    The big picture for commercial distros a couple years back was:

    • RedHat, open but not very user friendly.
    • Mandrake, even more open (in its development cycle), more polished and user friendly, not as stable.
    • SuSE, polished, stable, professional, user friendly, but with closed source bits preventing widespread use.

    With RedHat going Fedora (and resigning its mindshare), it wasn't clear what the new scenario sould be. Mandrake was in my mind the great candidate to be the king of the overall distro (from freelading and home users through enterprise solutions), assuming they released more stable corporate versions.

    Mandrake did its homework, and they announced a new development strategy with a community release and a later, more stable official release. They probably should add a slower (once a year) corporate option

    But now Novell buys SUSE, opens it up and kicks the hell out of the Chess board. RedHat backs up and announces their (late) return to the desktop. Things are getting hot my friends :-)

  • One more step, a Win32 port of Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Erik_ (183203) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:25PM (#9118405)
    Now, they only need to release a Windows port of Evolution and even more people will be able to enjoy this awesome program.

  • Want to thank Novell? BUY from them! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:31PM (#9118481)
    So, if you really want to support Novell becuase of its very positive actions of late, here's the way:

    BUY something from SuSE, Ximian or Novell!

  • Exchange Server alternatives or better options? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xeno (2667) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:34PM (#9118505)
    Ok, this is fantastic news. I'll be taking my work laptop and switching over to linux as my primary OS by the end of the week. (And yes, I realize I'm lucky to have an IT dept that will still support me after I do such a thing.) I'm not a zealot about such things; imho Outlook and IE genuinely suck on their own functional/security merits. The only thing I'll miss from a windows client perspective is Visio (yeah, I think MS does make/maintain some good products), but then there's always VMware.

    BUT here's the obvious question: When will there be a viable challenger to Exchange Server? Am I missing something big? Last time I looked, most of the messaging solutions were missing a decent calendaring/schedule solution. Oracle's Collaboration Server is so involved/overkill (9cds for a basic install, iirc) that it's out of reach for most small/med orgs, and makes Notes look svelte. Groupwise was pretty obtuse & closed when I last looked. Open Groupware looks interesting (especially with the knoppix-ogo distro), but feels like Openoffice build 635... i.e. not fully baked.

    When is a project going to come up with messaging, calendaring (via ical, mapi, etc etc), a repository that isn't as horrid as exchange public folders (maybe something modeled after/improving upon Opentext's Livelink), flexible event notifications (maybe simple stuff like alerts via email/SMS???). I have hopes for IBM's recent office tools announcement, but we'll see. A turnaround for Groupwise? Maybe? Options, I want options, dammit!

    -Jon

  • Yast open sourced and now Ximian Connector? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by plazman30 (531348) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:35PM (#9118517)
    Is Novell turning out to be a good open source neighbor, or what? I think there is finally a large commercial corporation that "gets it!"

    About time.

    How long till they open source NetWare and eDirectory?

  • CrossOver Office 3.0 now supports Notes 6.5.1 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Erik_ (183203) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:37PM (#9118559)
    Another good news for Linux in the Enterprise came from CodeWeaver's CrossOver Office 3.0 [codeweavers.com]. It now supports Lotus Notes 6.5.1 on Linux.

    CodeWeaver is happy to announce that today we have shipped version 3.0 of CrossOver Office.

    We've added new, official, support for Outlook XP, Microsoft Project, and Notes 6.5.1. Unofficially, we're excited by users comments that far more applications are working now. These include programs like Framemaker and Microsoft Money. You can see the full list of changes here:

    http://www.codeweavers.com/site/products/cxoffice/ change_log/ [codeweavers.com]

    Further, this version marks some fairly ubstantial changes in our CrossOver Product line. First, we have merged the CrossOver Plugin product into the CrossOver Office product offering, so now all non server versions of CrossOver automatically provide
    the Plugin functionality.

  • No excuses for IT now? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tokerat (150341) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:41PM (#9118589) Journal

    For a basic office computer, there is now no excuse for IT to not use Linux, unless there is a specific Windows-only app that is needed.

    Linux has any terminal you ever needed, OO.org, and now is fully Exchange-server compatable?

    And it's all free?

    The only thing that could possibly make your Linux TCO high now is perhaps re-training your tech staff who have undoubtedly been brought up on MS Windows if they went to college in the US, and that's not terribly expensive in the long run...
  • I see quite a few comments about "Now I am going to switch to Linux" or "I have been waiting for this for so long" and I got to thinking. What stopped you from using prior to this? It was available for download for ~30 dollars. I purchased it not only for its functionality but to support a Linux company.
  • ...a new Exchange license designed to make this unattractive.

    • Re:Macs. (Score:4, Informative)

      by chetohevia (109956) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:15PM (#9118274)
      Before this, Evolution was already available on OS X in the past (Install X11, then use Fink to get Evolution).

      To complete it, just build yourself a Connector package.

      It's been tested internally at Ximian and Novell in the past, although it was determined it wouldn't be worthwhile to release it as a product. But now that it's free, you can do it.

      a.

    • Re:Novell is really serious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dmoore (2449) <david DOT moore AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:20PM (#9118327)
      When Evolution 2.0 is released, it will have native support to connect to Novell GroupWise servers. Most likely, Novell plans to use Evolution as a vehicle for corporate adoption of GroupWise. Furthermore, since Connector is now free, corporations who currently run Outlook have an easy migration path to GroupWise because they can now install both servers, and access them freely with the same client. Once the bugs are worked out, they can discard Outlook and stick with GroupWise.

    • Indeed: havoc in redmond (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SlashDread (38969) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:23PM (#9118362)
      Wow.

      This is THE single big reason to NOT switch away from Windows in Office Automation. THE. Wow.

      I cannot believe, there are not 10.000 alarm bells ringing in redmond right now.

      Notice the tarball already avail in source?

      Notice how SOON it will be officially? This looks like a planned hit and run to me.

      Prediction: Either MS treatens them and they pull it. But the source is out so -pbbbt-. Or expect the next big free software suit to arrive. And it will be pulled, but the source is out so -pbbbt-

      If, on the other hand, MS plays nice about this, well, hell just froze over again.

      "/Dread"

      • Re:Indeed: havoc in redmond (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11 2004, @12:52PM (#9118696)
        cannot believe, there are not 10.000 alarm bells ringing in redmond right now.

        Ximian Connector has been listed on Microsoft's website for a long time as a partner product, so they have no reason be suprised. Connector uses APIs which MS built in for the explicit purpose of interoperatbility.

        Be clear on one thing (bolded for emphisis): In order to use Ximian Connector, you need to buy an Exchange CAL and a Windows CAL.

        MS gets paid whether you are using Outlook or not -- in fact they get paid more because Unix cilents aren't using a free IMAP server or something.

      • Re:I wonder what MS will think of this (Score:5, Interesting)

        by 13Echo (209846) on Tuesday May 11 2004, @01:10PM (#9118887) Homepage Journal
        Not only that, but there may be something else to consider.

        1) OpenOffice.org is available for several platforms.
        2) Ximian is working on putting Evolution integration into OpenOffice.org.
        3) Ximian is porting Evolution 2.0 to Windows.
        4) ???
        4) I think that "Profit!" fits in here somewhere.

        Nevertheless, it may be a very good strategy to begin to pull away the strict dependance upon MS Office and Outlook/Exchange. Microsoft still charges Exchange server "seat licenses", but this is just one small step that may very well make a significant impact, especially when MS Office itself is taken out of the equation, and can be replaced with OO.o and Evolution.

        Novell is getting to be pretty crafty. Maybe we need to give them a bit more credit? ;)

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