Groupware Server

Registered by Khaine

Currently a need exists for groupware servers, most are not easy to setup, update or maintain. I suggest that we simplify the installation, updating and administration of groupware suites in ubuntu.

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
None
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
None
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
None
Definition:
New
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Not started
Milestone target:
None

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2006-12+21 khaeru: might this be handled by the ubuntu-server-tasks spec?
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21/12/2006 - I think we should pick an existing suite, i.e. hula and then create the ubiquitous middleware to achieve what we want

13/07/2007 (stephan-impilinux) - We have recently evaluated a load of these solutions and have some professional experience in it.

2008-06-07 (pixelpapst) - Just a quick reminder that the hula project ist effectively dead since late 2006, and the community created a fork called "bongo project". However, by now they ripped out all of Hula's LDAP connectivity, which makes this a very pretty but useless solution for SmallBusinessServer.

2008-06-08 (Guy Van Sanden) Citadel seems a very good choice. IT offers many features (including a Jabber server) and is completely GPL'ed.
The only caveat is that it does not have LDAP support (yet)

2008-06-19 (Art Cancro) -- yes, definitely go with Citadel. Ubuntu packages are already being maintained, and the project would be delighted to cooperate with the Ubuntu team on integration issues.

2008-06-19 (Todd Hanna) I would also like to give a big +1 to Citadel. They already have the .debs and there is even a connector to use it as an "Exchange" replacement if you have clients using Outlook. I have run it without issue on Ubuntu server since version 6.06. It's head and shoulders above the rest at the moment.. and it is easy to setup, update, and maintain.

2008-07-08 (Stuart Cianos) - I'll also give major points to Citadel, and have been a longtime user of it. It is the only open-source groupware package that is self maintaining and straightforward to configure.

2008-07-09 (Stephan Buys) - Please also dont forget Kolab (Citadel implements the Kolab v1 format). Kolab has 3 plugins for Outlook, support Horde Webmail, Thunderbird/Lightning and Kontact.

2008-07-09 (Guy Van Sanden) RE Kolab - Kolab is not a full groupware AFAIK, it does not have a web interface. Correct me if I'm wrong.

2008-07-09 (Christian Merlin) Remember also SOGo (http://sogo.opengroupware.org/) it use LDAP for users and PostgreSQL for database. So It could be easy to integrate with Ebox (http://ebox-platform.com/). So Ubuntu can became an'easy and powerfull groupware server like the commercial one.

2008-07-10 (Stephan Buys) Kolab does have a web interface (for admin and email) through Horde (www.horde.org). Calendars, Contacts and Tasks can be shared between Outlook/Kontact/Horde/Thunderbird

2008-07-10 - Personally I prefer bongo, however it is still in its infancy. It has a great UI, and is targeted at being simple to install and use

2008-11-14 - (Guy Van Sanden) Zarafa is becoming an option too. It was AGPL'd recently and offers many features including CalDAV in the upcoming 6.30 release.

2008-11-14 - (Stuart Cianos) Only the server-side components of Zarafa were opened up... There are still numerous proprietary functions that are unavailable in the AGPL version. There are plenty of completely open solutions out there (Horde, Citadel, Kolab, etc.) Personally, I use Citadel (with Funambol for push e-mail) due to its funtionality, reliability, speed and flexibility... They also have a fantastic developer/user community that is supportive and communicative.

2008-11-15 - (Guy Van Sanden) @Stuart Cianos Actually most of it seems to be in the AGPL version except for the client license required for Outlook usage. Which is logical, if you are paying for closed source outlook you should also pay for the connector...
I know about citadel, have been running it for 2 years but it does have some issues and lacks certain features like LDAP integration.

2008-11-16 (Stuart Cianos) @Guy Van Sanden: Citadel will allow you to authenticate against any service which support the underlying authentication of the operating system (in this case, PAM). I have used this to authenticate users against PAM using modules such as pam_ldap; additionally, it can automatically populate an LDAP directory with information from its global address book for use with external clients.

2008-11-29 (Giorgio Zarrelli) I do not see eGroupware, what about it?

2008-12-01 (Guy Van Sanden) @Stuart: I tried PAM based authentication on Ubuntu, but it only works with pam_unix and not pam_krb5 or pam_ldap for me. Though I really like Citadel in many ways, it has too many limitations to use it as a full-blown groupware server like Zimbra or Zarafa. Zimbra is nice, but it really needs a dedicated server to run properly.
@Giorgio: eGroupWare is not a groupware server but rather a Web frontend to other servers.

2008-12-01 (Giorgio Zarrelli) @Guy. I agree on Zimbra. It's too "expensive", not all people can afford a dedicated server just for a groupware. Zarafa looks nice, but never tried it

Zimbra or potentially bongo are the prettiest of the groupware products available which would make them great marketing tools for ubuntu. However Zimbra has too many unofficial patches to be implementable and bongo is in such an alpha stage and is not being targeted properly that neither of these are good choices. Its quite frustrating really. We have the best technology and some good looking UIs but nobody has truly managed to integrate the two well

2008-12-27 (perspectoff) eGroupware bought by Stylite, but still has GPL community edition (it is full solution, not just frontend). Excellent configuration GUI, multiple languages. Kolab has GPL, exists on OpenPKG platform (OS independent). Zarafa is now GPL except for trademarks and is very nice. Citadel has GPL but has design unfamiliar to most existing groupware users. OpenGroupware seems to be withering. OpenXchange excellent but proprietary. Zimbra is completely proprietary since bought by Yahoo and therefore is not good candidate.

Of these, Kolab uses most number of integrated components similar to Ubuntu Server (except it uses Cyrus IMAP instead of Dovecot). Also has Horde web access, native integration with Kontact (for KDE users), established outlook connectors (Toltec, proprietary), connectors for Mozilla products. Kolab therefore is fastest route to full implementation into Business Server. Because KDE4 is multiple platform (including Apple and Windows), and Kontact is therefore multi-platform, this is accessible to MS-exchange converts (which is target audience). Kolab has a .deb package already, but package is not supported by Kolab developers, who prefer OpenPKG framework since it is platform independent. Ubuntu server goal should be integration of Kolab package.

2009-04-23 Has anyone done anything on this project yet? I'm currently working on a project using Turnkey Linux (which uses Ubuntu 8.04.2 LTS) and Citadel for a groupware suite. CItadel is the simplest to get up and running and in the 7.60 release it will have native support for LDAP and MS AD as well. If you are interested please go here: "https://blueprints.launchpad.net/turnkeylinux/+spec/create-groupware-appliance". I could use help in getting CItadel to auth via Likewise (solution until 7.60 release).
For all those wondering why CItadel, well here it is:
Native support for Ubuntu both from Ubuntu repos and Citadels own repos.
Super simple to get up and running. If you dont need LDAP auth you can have a working mail server in under 10 mins.
Only one that is stable. OBM, eGroupware, Kolab are difficult to deal with and are still unstable. Kolab was a huge headache to get working.
Please for once consider the needs of the community. I say that because it seems as if no one is working on this.....
Anyways happy hacking.
-- Patrick (pcantu[at]virtualdisaster.net)

2009-04-23 @previousposter: Zarafa includes debs for both Ubuntu LTS releases. Setup involves little more than dpkg -i *.deb and loading the database schema...

2009-04-23 UPDATE - i've managed to sucessfully have CItadel authenticate to AD via likewise. So now there isn't anything really holding this back. CItadel supports most email clients and is Ubuntu friendly, considering they maintain a repo for both debian and ubuntu. So the question now is "why not".
-- Patrick (pcantu[at]virtualdisaster.net)

2009-04-27 (Art Cancro) Citadel will natively support LDAP authentication as of version 7.60. If the team working on this project wants to theme it to match the rest of the system, upstream will accept the theme in order to eliminate the need to maintain local diffs.

2010-09-15 Any one seen the deepofix e-mail server, could that be a good starting point for the Groupware server?
1) Simplified installation system. 2) Integrated server management system. 3) Built-in LDAP support. 4) Intelligent & flexible account management. 5) SMTP / POP3 / IMAP Services. 6) Web-based email. 7) Pre-integrated anti-virus and anti-spam tools. 8) Centralised LDAP-based address books. 9) Groups and Distribution Lists. 10) Email fetch with multidrop support. 11. Extensive customisation options. http://deeproot.in/deepofix
-- Frans van Berckel (fberckel[at]xs4all.nl)

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