[pkg-kolab] status of kolab in debian

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi Mathieu,

thanks for the reply.

On Thu, 10 Dec 2009, Mathieu Parent wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Gavin McCullagh <gavin.mccullagh at gcd.ie> wrote:

> Welcome in the pkg-kolab mailing list! (a quiet one)

Thanks!

> This is interresting. kolab doesn't support CalDAV but with kronolith,
> it support ical (http://wiki.horde.org/KronolithICal). more
> information about this should probably be asked on kolab-users or
> kolab-devel (see kolab.org).
>
> Why do you need CalDAV? If this is for PDA, there is a new ActiveSync
> connector for Kolab which may interrest you.

If KronolithICal means ical files shared over webdav, then personally, I
don't see that as a good way to do online calendaring.  It sounds a bit
like using mboxes shared over webdav for email.   As I understand it with
calendaring over webdav, you rewrite the calendar file every time you
change it.  You might have a 5-10MB calendar and every time you made a
small modification you'd upload the whole thing.  

CalDAV seems to me to be the emerging standard.

We'll be hoping to use a host of calendars including Thunderbird, iPhones,
Nokia Phones, Outlook, etc.  Most but not all will support CalDAV yet, so
we'll need to be careful about that.

> Also not that Kolab 2 format is not based on CalDAV but on XML.

Do you mean the Kolab 2 calendaring?

I consider Kolab a good email setup, based on cyrus, openldap and postfix
but I'll have to look in detail at the calendaring afterward.  At the
minute, my plan is to integrate davical or the apple calendar-server
myself.  Interoperability is key for us.

> > It appears kolab has been in Debian since at most 2006 but the Kolab
> > developers don't seem to suggest using it.  Are many people using it in big
> > environments?  Is it stable?  As this stuff is just in Universe on Ubuntu
> > it seems that Debian might be the smarter choice for this.  Would that be
> > right?
> The reference packaging method is OpenPKG, (see
> http://wiki.kolab.org/index.php/Kolab2_Installation_-_Source).

Understood, but (at least to me) it's preferable to have it packaged and
patched as part of Debian.  If there's a compelling reason, we can use the
OpenPKG version, but I would prefer well-maintained Debian packages.  I
presume, given the existence of this project, that I'm not alone.

> The native Debian port aims to reach the same level of features. I
> think we reached this for the server part. The ubuntu port has some
> bugs (mostly in kolab-webadmin).

Fair enough.  I appreciate your candour.

> The web client is still a long way to reach OpenPKG version, but has
> newer Horde versions. I hope this will be reached before the release
> of Horde 4.

I'm trying to solve the server end first.  We will choose a webmail client
after that.  Horde will be one of the options on the table.

> All info is here: http://wiki.kolab.org/index.php/Debian_-_natively.
> 
> I will deploy Kolab from Debian packages for 300+ mailboxes in first
> semester 2010.

That's useful to know.

Thanks,
Gavin