Groupware (was: Antispam - empowering employees)

Sat Jul 19 15:45:18 PDT 2003

Quoting Chuck Yerkes (chuck+baylisa at snew.com):

> I've done this game.  If you even want to show up at the table it MUST:
> 1) work with outlook without frightening the mortals
> 2) sync to a PDA.

This assumes that one's immediate goal is deployment as corporate
infrastructure.  Not everyone might share this (immediate) goal.  For
example, some might be seeking to make a compelling open-protocol
implementation, which then either those coders or others would be
subsequently free to create MAPI-provider extended-IMAP plug-ins for
MS-Outlook and/or hotsync conduits for PalmOS.  My point was that what
primarily stands in the way of even this approach is distrust of the
IETF protocol suite for lack of a reference implementation.

> This is good.  This is all CLIENT based.

Yes, this is the part that's probably going to give open standards fits
for quite some time, I fear.  As I understand it, MS-Exchange Server is
pretty much just a generic data repository without any real knowledge of
data semantics.  (It happens to use the atrocious MS-Access database
engine.)  

We'll see what happens when/if someone implements iTIP, CAP, etc.  I
hear that Mitch Kapor's Open Source Applications Foundation plans to do
so, after getting the Chandler PIM finished or nearly so.

> Instant messaging and chat are important within companies.
> Zephyr and IRC work for me.

You might find Gale interesting; it's a rewrite of the ideas from
Zephyr.  http://www.gale.org/  Unfortunately, it remains even more
cult-ish than Zephyr; mostly, I expect we'll see IRC and on a good day
Jabber.

-- 
Cheers,        "Linux means never having to delete your love mail."
Rick Moen                                              -- Don Marti
rick at linuxmafia.com