Spotlight on open source for business: Adam Williams on OpenGroupware.org

By Howard Wen, LinuxWorld.com, 03/27/08

A developer from the OpenGroupware.org community explains that this Open Source groupware project is more than the sum of its parts.

OpenGroupware.org is relatively unknown outside the Open Source developer scene, yet it's one of the oldest projects around: This groupware has origins dating back to 1996.

OpenGroupware.org is also one of the most expansive communities in Open Source. It serves as an umbrella organization for several inter-related projects. The major ones include:

The OpenGroupware.org groupware server ("OGo") is a feature-rich groupware server designed for Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs). OGo has the features required to satisfy power users and the extensibility for developers to create applications, such as CRM and workflow, using OGo as a groupware platform.

Scalable OGo ("SOGo") focuses on delivering basic groupware functionality and applications, like simple calendars and address books, for up to 20,000 users. SOGo supports Mozilla Thunderbird and Calendar.

SOPE is an Objective-C application framework and Web application server. JOPE is a re-implementation of many of the ideas of SOPE in Java. Both OGo and SOGo are built on SOPE.

There are about 30 core members actively involved in the overall OpenGroupware.org community. Some of these individuals who work on OGo -- and most on SOGo -- do so as full-time developers. (An enterprise distribution of OGo is sold under the name SKYRiX.)

We spoke with Adam Williams to enlighten us on this scene. Williams contributes to several OpenGroupware.org projects, and he works as a groupware consultant through his own business, Whitemice Consulting.

Microsoft: More Open, More Barriers

In my presentation (PDF, ODF, PPT) to an audience of open source ISVs contemplating relationships with Microsoft - the long time standards bearer for proprietary software - I likened the relationship between the firm and the movement to the Odd Couple. Though I declined to cast the respective parties.

After the past few days at NXT and OSBC, if anything, I’m more aligned with that viewpoint than I was when I put the deck together.

As some of the attendees of the Microsoft Technology Summit have noted, Microsoft is making some genuine, good faith efforts to evolve its attitude about and work more effectively with open source. From Apache to Eclipse to Mozilla, Microsoft is working - and working effectively, by most accounts - with some of the more important open source projects on the planet. Projects, notably, that in every case compete directly with Microsoft products.

Personally, I consider this evidence that Sam Ramji and his team, like Jason Matusow and his team before him, are fighting the good fight with some success. While opinions remain divided within Microsoft, those working towards better relationships with open source appear to be winning over fearful executives who’ve managed to convince themselves that open source was everything from communisitic to cancerous. Which can’t be, I think we’d all agree, an easy job.

Windows XP vs. Vista vs. Linux

Mike Ricciuti of CNET says Windows XP is "doomed" and that "most of us will likely be using Vista sometime in the near future" (see Microsoft: All roads lead to Vista). In contrast, Ina Fried of CNET writes that Windows XP may get another reprieve, the title referring to the fact that major computer manufacturers are slated to stop selling Windows XP in June. Who's right?

One reason Mike cites for the Vista assimilation is that "Dell launched a Vista migration program to nudge big companies toward the OS. The PC maker's 'client migration solution' will cut migration costs..." I see this as evidence of Vista resistance. If there was value to Vista, the cost of migrating would not be an issue.

Mike also writes that "Microsoft is greasing the skids for Vista acceptance by offering free telephone support for Vista Service Pack 1 through March 2009".* Microsoft never did this with XP service packs, so why are they doing it for Vista? They are trying to get people to go where they don't want to go.

Let's not forget the price cuts to shrink-wrapped versions of Vista which were to take effect at the same time Service Pack 1 was released. As Don Reisinger wrote (see Vista price cuts show how much trouble Microsoft is in), those price cuts were really a publicity stunt.

I don't think Don's article went far enough though. To me, the price cuts were intended to break out of computer industry news vehicles (like CNET and ComputerWorld) and be reported to the general public. No techie is going to decide to go with Vista because its a few dollars cheaper today than yesterday. No, the audience for the price cut announcement was non-techies.

Aaron Seigo, KDE project lead speaks out

Aaron Seigo joined the KDE project, which produces a free software desktop system for Linux and Unix platforms, in 2000 and is sponsored by Trolltech. Based in Calgary, Canada, Aaron spends his time thinking about KDE project and its client-side software.

Here he describes how porting KDE4 to Windows and MacOS will enable Kontact, the Open Source groupware application, to challenge the dominance of Microsoft Outlook in the enterprise.

How long have you been working on KDE how has the project developed in that time?

I started contributing patches during the 2.0 development time frame and slowly became more involved with each release after that.

In that time, the project has grown along three avenues: technology, community and organisation.

The code base has grown in complexity as well as capability. Today we have far more applications than we did when I first got involved and they are capable of so much more. While 2.0 was a capable desktop, it was really the promise of it that drew me to it: it was obvious that one day KDE would be a very complete set of products, and we've mostly arrived there by now.

Community-wise, there are not only more people involved but more kinds of involvement. When I first got involved we had relatively few non-coders involved on a regular basis, and if you weren't a coder you were certainly something of a second class citizen.

These days not only do non-coders get treated much more equitably, but we have impressive numbers of artists, translators, writers, communicators/marketeers, coordinators, etc. The user community has also grown substantially, to say the least, and has resulted in many thriving user-centric resources on the web such as kde-look.org, kde-apps.org and dot.kde.org. The growth in diversity and numbers in the community has been nothing short of phenominal.

Sun outlines its open source strategy and MySQL integration

SearchEnterpriseLinux.com sat down with Barton George, the group manager for Sun Microsystems Inc.'s GNU/Linux strategy, about the company's open source strategy, Sun's acquisition of MySQL and the impact on customers.

How long has Sun been involved with open source software and why? What's its vision?
Barton George: Open source is inevitable, and we are choosing to lead. Open source is a part of Sun's heritage and the idea of sharing. Right from its work on the NFS [Network File System] file server, Sun has made open standards a part of its strategy going back to the GNOME project. Now open source has moved from a side effort to become Sun's main software strategy, the way we develop and distribute our software. And one way is to contribute to existing projects.

The other way is to turn your projects over to others in the software ecosystem. We bought NetBeans in 1999, then bought StarOffice and made it OpenOffice. Then, in 2005, we stepped up the pace with development of the GlassFish application server. The message is that if something at Sun currently isn't open source, it will be pretty quickly. It's the central focus of our software strategy.

How does the recently finalized MySQL fit into your strategy?
Barton George: It was six weeks in closing. We had lots of pieces up and down the stack -- the chip, operating system, the application layer -- but we were missing the database piece. This also gets us into a whole bunch of new accounts. And MySQL is complementary [with Sun's existing portfolio]. We are able to provide the enterprise 24/7 support services required by the Fortune 500, which is much greater value than a smaller company can provide. Also, the tenor of the two companies and their conduct are very similar.

OS Commerce: The True Cost of Free Carts

This is one in a series of columns on the open-source commerce (OSC) industry.

A free, open source shopping cart may sound really attractive in these economic times, but how free is free? It's not a trick question. If you add in the cost of the technical degree required by some free, open source carts, or technical support to get others to work, as well as the value of your own labor and the supporting services needed, your free shopping cart may not really be free at all. Here we will examine the range of full costs of operating an Open Source, online store such as osCommerce, Zen Cart, CRE Loaded, or osC-MAX.

What are the True Costs of Running an Online Store?
If you already have a technical education and own the software programs to run it, meaning that you will be your own technical support guru, then you may be able to run a free online store for close to free, by hosting it yourself, customizing it and doing your own graphics, and so forth. But the majority of users will need to pay for or locate the following:

* Software and Customization
* Template or Custom Design
* Domain Names
* Web Hosting
* Technical Support
* Credit Card Processor
* Security - SSL Secure Certificate
* Supporting Computer Programs and Upgrades
* Your own Education
* Your own Labor

We'll take a look at the range of each of these items in turn so we can get a better picture of the whole costs.

Software and Customization ($0 to sky's the limit)
It is rare for an online store to contain exactly the features that a business requires. Once you have your business idea, you will do a lot of research to find the program that is best suited for your industry, and then have that program tweaked for you. One option is to go with a program that is loaded with many features, hoping that it will contain most or all of the features you need.