Zentyal Server 3.4 and Zarafa

[peterpugh]

Going back to the original subject title.

Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander October 2013

Do we have any news on Zarafa as I am presuming if Zarafa is only going to provide LTS releases its one of those "Euston we have a problem" moments.

I have the release date of Saucy above and I haven't checked on the state of Zarafa but if things are lagging such then this will have an effect on the tiered Zentyal development cycle.

Personally I don't care what email backend I use as long as there is support for Imap and SMTP. Also I am more inclined to employ a full opensource product with commercial support offerings than half a product with commercial licensed offerings. I also believe Ubuntu are more likely to prefer such an offering.

Also Ical and multiple domain support is important to me but I am slightly confused on the state of play and exact layout of the OpenChange / SoGo offering.

My personal opinion is that dropping Zarafa is no skin off my nose and I guess the only ones affected are the subscribers to the commercial offering. I guess that might be sooner than later if the disparity between Zarafa and Zentyal releases continues.

I haven't tried 3.4 or any version of Zentyal with OpenChange / Sogo and just wondered if it would be possible to create a blog on the fundamentals of the Zentyal implementation. What protocols it offers and the underlying pieces of software it comprises of?

If it has the usual suspects of Imap, POP, SMTP, Ical, WebDav, CardDav.... then I can't see any problems and MAPI aswell is a superb addition for us poor M$ maligned sufferers But I would like a little more information as I am getting ready to take the plunge.


 

[robb]

Yesterday evening I installed 3.4 and the Zarafa packages are not included with 3.4 (as Zarafa is (still?) not compatible with Ubuntu 13.10)

[half_life]

I installed 3.4 (daily build ISO)  on a virtual machine locally.  My intent is to evaluate moving up to 3.4 in light of the Zarafa question.  I am agnostic except that I need/want a web based Groupware solution.  Zarafa fits the bill but won't likely be included in current Zentyal distros for the next few months until the next Ubuntu LTS version.  Following that, it might not (read probably not) work in interim Zentyal releases.  This in my opinion will reduce the likelihood  of Zarafa continuing to be an option with Zentyal. 

I have a few choices to make.  I could stay with my current Groupware choice and skip this upgrade cycle while I wait for the next LTS, or go with a not quite ready for prime time exchange replacement.

Staying with what works right now will surely keep meeting my home network needs through the whole LTS cycle I am sure.  It doesn't cover the other purpose that I run Zentyal at home for.  Running Zentyal at home lets me keep track of what works  and what doesn't.  It lets me evaluate what will work for whom, and when it makes sense to recommend it to customers. New and desirable features might be out of reach because of need to stay on the Zarafa product.

The business user who currently has a Zentyal install is more than likely in a similar position.  Will there be feature backports to the LTS version?

[peterpugh]

The only thing that Zarafa missed in terms of groupware for me was the ability to assign tasks for a user (delegate).
You could assign then to yourself and tasks where there and it was tantalizing close to being perfect for use.

I am quite excited by the partnership between OpenChange and Zentyal. That should pay dividends for Zentyal users as this is more than Zentyal employing a product such as Zarafa.

I can't imagine long term Zentyal will continue the support of Zarafa irrespective of fitting release patterns.

I am stuffed at the moment as the storms in the UK have caused delays and I can't get broadband for a month! . Home is also where I do all my test and evaluating and I am itching to have a look at 3.4.

 

[Torsten73]

I thing openchange is with the new webmailer a good way, but in the moment and maybe furthermore no replacement for zarafa. There are minimum 2 reasons which i know:

• active sync is missing and also with zeg sogo i couldn´t get it working. sogo only supports ical and carddav. So we have on mobil devices no mails and native support for Android. Thats very bad...
• Like someone in the bugtracker found out, for multimail domians its not working, because the sogo mail can only use one domain and the old webmailer doesn´t work together.

I also noticed a problem in using outlook 2010. I used the settings guide from sogo, the exchange Mail assistant is working and finished sucsessfully, but its impossible to connect to openchange when starting outlook. But thats maybe a bug.
My hope is, that activesync will work till release, but i have no real hope of that.

[peterpugh]

I am not really sure whats happening with http://www.inverse.ca/contributions/funambol.html in terms of zentyal.

I am presuming its left out at the moment to cut dev complexity and will eventually be added.

I guess you could try manually with 3.4.

Is funabol going to come on line or is syncml going to be a thing of the past?

[Torsten73]

like i remember, funambol is not really a coice, because its for symbian and blackberry. For IOS and Android its not really suiteable. And it needs java virtual machine ... http://forum.zentyal.org/index.php?action=post;quote=78208;topic=20265.0;last_msg=78208
Syncml is nearly the same. Like sogo says, its still beta and it also needs funambol.

My oppinion is that there will be no way without active sync. Nearly every mobil device today is capable for this and it works without plugins. And its a solution for all PIM, email, cantacts, calendar, todo ...

So i hope that some of the zentyal gurus will find a way to make it work for 3.4, otherwise its (for me) just a playground and technical showroom.
But till now i have no clear answer found, if it is planed with 3.4 to be released. And the time is just to short to think about a wonder  .

Edit: oh there has been an answer ... http://forum.zentyal.org/index.php?action=post;quote=79688;topic=20630.0;last_msg=79688
When my english is right, this means there will be a way with 3.4 but it´s not clear what, because it´s in work state.

[peterpugh]

Apols its been a while since I looked at the Sogo Openchange stuff.

I thought there was an activesync connector, don't know where I got that one from.

Caldav and Webdav it might have to be for now.