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Novell to port Evolution to Windows
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Jan 17, 2005 05:36 PM
from the good-for-them dept.
from the good-for-them dept.
Gladiat0r writes "Nat Friedman blogged on Planet Gnome today that Novell has hired Tor Lillqvist (of Gimp for Windows fame) to help Fredrik Hedberg port Beagle to Windows, and after that his main task is to port Evolution to Windows."
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Damn (Score:4, Funny)
I believe the PC term is (Score:4, Funny)
Hippies has feeling too you know!
Parent
Re:Damn (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution is the Linux desktop killer app. It really is. I know this is slashdot, and here anything "K" is King, but KMail is a bad joke when you try to use it beyond simple POP3 collection SMTP sending. Evolution becomes ever more impressive with each release -- and the 2.0 series is a beauty.
Windows users would be extremely lucky to get Evolution... and I'll bet that many of them would find it one more reason not to stay with the expensive, buggy, security nightmare of Windows and Outlook.
OSS calendaring, finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
How nice... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How nice... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:How nice... (Score:4, Insightful)
When I'm on Windows, though, I do miss Evolution. This is a useful move.
Parent
Re:How nice... (Score:3)
Games, games, games. No, I don't play a lot of them either, but that's the number one gripe from people.
Fwiw I've only used Win2K twice in the past year and it's because I was on other people's machines in their houses. I don't miss any Win-whatever applications either, but then I wouldn't because I don't know what's in use these days.
Re:How nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this is how you get Windows apps to run on Linux.
1. Port leading OSS stuff over to Windows. If it's quality, you will likely have some adoption.
2. After enough people are using Evolution or another opensource app, some systems will likely be converted to Linux. Maybe in some pockets here and there, maybe more later.
Example: "Well boss, this business unit(s) only use web, office, and email. We are already using the Windows ports of these core apps, we should look into Linux during our next hardware/OS upgrade. We can run the same apps on a better OS"
3. With enough people/businesses running Linux, Windows applications will not be able to ignore the value in porting their app to Linux.
Example: "Well Mr. Vendor, we really like your app, but it needs to run on Linux too at our company. I can buy if you can run on both."
So, what does the market share need to be 5%, 10%...I don't know. But this is how you get in.
Parent
Re:How nice... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which of these will win out remains to be seen. One of the problems with Linux is that as there is no monolithic entity strategizing about this stuff on a macro level, just a bunch of individual entities following their own locally optimal development plans, you may not end up with a globally optimal strategy for OSS adoption or for the community as a whole.
Parent
Re:How nice... (Score:5, Informative)
And if that person is a responsible for an IT department that is currently negotiating to buy a site license for the latest version of Windows, well, suddenly Linux will look mighty attractive. A budget goes a lot further when you're not paying for Windows.
Parent
Re:How nice... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am presuming that your complaint would be that if they already have Evolution on Windows why would they switch to Linux?
Re:How nice... (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of linux advocates seem to think that keeping the "good" apps only on linux will win over converts. One day everyone is going to wake up and say "Hey! I gotta have (insert your favorite app here)!"
Guess what? It didn't happen in the last 10 years... it's not going to happen this year either.
Port your apps to win32 and when migrating to linux no longer looks like a steep learning curve (because the same apps live everywhere), then Joe Office Manager will look at linux seriously.
Parent
Good news for Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good news for Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
Word... check
Excel... a few complaints
Powerpoint... check
Access... isn't somebody working on it?
Outlook... doubly forthcoming
What hurdles to Microsoft lock-in am I excluding here (on the client side only---I think we are OK on servers)? Integration?
Re:Good news for Linux? (Score:4, Informative)
Access the database may suck, but Access the GUI client is pretty nice. Sometimes people don't care about referential integrity, they just want an easy to use tool for organizing data, but want something better then a spreadsheet.
The GUI clients for MySQL are lacking
When you're creating relations between tables, a graphical table editor and a GUI that lays everything out for you is pretty nice and takes away alot of the eliteness of the DB world. I can get a moderately experienced office worker setup with Access very quickly, but using MySQL requires more experience.
Parent
Re:Good news for Linux? (Score:4, Informative)
DBDesigner4 [fabforce.net] is an open-source database designer for MySQL. It's not really a replacement for Access, as it doesn't have a form designer for non-techies to enter records. But for all the fancy stuff like designing databases and forming queries, it's beautiful. My one beef is that it depends on Kylix, and as such I still can't compile it in Ubuntu. Worked great in Gentoo though.
Parent
Big If (Score:3, Interesting)
We've had pretty good alternatives to Word and Excel available on Windows for years. But the retraining and file compatibility issues prevent most people from going over.
Now if people suddenly start abandoning Word, Excel, Outlook, and Internet
Better get cracking (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Better get cracking (Score:5, Funny)
I wish MS would stop putting those "Linux is Just a Theory" stickers on school computers!
Parent
Re:Better get cracking (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
what is evolution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what is evolution? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
GroupWise mail support (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GroupWise mail support (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:GroupWise mail support (Score:3, Informative)
You're not way off, this is correct. Evolution "supported" Exchange by sucking in the exchange data via Outlook Web Access 2000 or 2003. I would imagine that it still does Exchange in this fashion, and why not? Outlook 2003 now supports doing the same thing. Interesting how that works.
Re:GroupWise mail support (Score:3, Informative)
Plus, the GroupWise support is in beta testing, wheras the Windows port is still in the planning phases (according to Nat's blog).
The actual announcement (Score:5, Informative)
Tor (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems that his work payed off for him. Congrats Tor, and keep up the good work.
This is great (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is great (Score:3, Informative)
Well, great. Or is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am just not sure if OpenSource should battle Microsoft on their own ground. They can change the rules anytime they like. And they have done so before...
Re:Well, great. Or is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Well, great. Or is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Well, great. Or is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's OK. Just as long as everyone keeps using and enjoying OpenOffice, and using Psi to connect to our new Jabber server, and Firefox to use our web applications (FreeBSD/PostgreSQL/Zope), and now Evolution to read the email that gets filtered by our happy little Postfix server before it can choke the Exchange server to death, I'll smile and nod in agreement.
The truth of the matter is that except for one or two in-house apps, everything our employees use is either a port from Unix or interacting with a Unix server. We're really not that far from being able to drop Windows altogether, and Evolution will close the largest part of that gap.
Parent
Re:Well, great. Or is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
You say that like its a bad thing but put it this way:
Your company runs OO.o, Evolution, and Firefox on Windows. You're asked to cut costs, so you point out that you can deploy the exact same thing on Linux. Minimal retraining will be required (quite possibly in the form of "If you can't figure it out, you're fired!") You get a pat on the back, and the CEO gets himself a nice fat bonus check. Problem solved!
Parent
Good news for GTK+ on Win32 (Score:5, Insightful)
Great for Openoffice, etc (Score:5, Insightful)
That was certainly stopping many people from switching to Openoffice. With Evolution ported to windows, it's no longer the case, and having the exchange connector even more. Nice news.
Lowered Activation Barrier (Score:5, Insightful)
- Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.
- OpenOffice.org instead of Office
- Evolution instead of Outlook
When Windows users can easily move w/o doing any "scary" OS change and try out open source applications "risk free", they'll be more likely to try.The last, most significant jump will be made smaller and easier, after new users become comfortable with that suite of applications.
Namely, Linux instead of Windows.
Which is down where an OS should be; a standard commodity, interchangeable, free, stable and not full of Innovations® like HTML renderers, special codec media players.
We need more of this! (Score:5, Insightful)
If people can use the same apps at work and at home on Windows and on Linux, full migration can be done.
Cheers,
Adolfo
Why this is exciting (Score:5, Interesting)
- Exchange Server Integration
- Calendar Integration
- Bluetooth Integration
I, for one, will be anxiously awaiting a release.http://gatewayink.com [gatewayink.com]
Open Source and cross platforms.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Evolution to Windows (Score:3, Funny)
An obscure company called "Microsoft" have already beaten him to it.
For those who don't know (like me)... (Score:3, Informative)
Will other developers quit? (Score:3, Interesting)
He's now in a the tough spot of deciding whether to eat his words or actually quit.
This is great news (Score:4, Interesting)
Email on the other hand is a different story. I was very impressed with Evolution on LINUX. Having a Windows port would at least pry one finger on Microsoft's stranglehold in corporate offices... maybe.
I know the
If they did, the motivation for CIOs to use Evolution disappears.
There's also the security argument but many larger companies have wised up and your Joe Average User runs in a limited account to stop their desktop from becoming a festering pool of viruses.
The
Home users often fall in a few buckets:
1) Web based mail
2) AOL mail
3) Still blissfully ignorant and using Outlook Express
4) Have a geek friend who has proselytized open source and are now running an open source email client, e.g., Mozilla's client.
That leaves primarily the third group (and some segment of the fourth group) as candidates for Evolution. Assuming NOVELL doesn't expect to charge people for this. This will have some impact but nothing dramatic.
I personally, gasp, went back to Outlook. I liked the changes they made in Office 2003 and they eliminated some of the annoyances I had with previous versions of Outlook. I operated with the Mozilla email client for quite some time having eschewed Office 2000 and Office XP.
I would be happy to go to Evolution if for no other reason than I discovered that MS is as usual thwarting my attempt to run securely. Being a super savvy user (as well as a developer/security person) I happen to run Outlook in a stunted account, i.e. I run it in a different account (Windows "runas" command) and played with ACLs so that sensitive areas such as C:\WINDOWS and "C:\Program Files" can't be written to). You might ask why I didn't create a limitd account and run Outlook with that. Turns out if you do, Office will not leverage Windows XP's themes. Stupid. I don't like the "classic" Windows motif and prefer the default that comes with Windows XP. Anyway,
I discovered much to my chagrin that despite running Outlook in this fashion if I were to run Word (under my normal desktop account), save a document, then try to reopen that document later, Word simply cannot find the document. It will repeatedly stick up an error dialog on each attempt UNTIL I close Outlook, which happens to be running under a different user!!!
I've done Win32 development. It would seem the moronic MS Office development is generating a cookie, alias, moniker, etc., based on the window station I am logged into. They are probably using the Win32 handle and are keying into some shared memory. God for all you know they could be generating strings and putting them into the Global Atom Table.
Why would they do such a thing? Because *no one* would EVER think of running desktop apps in a secure fashion... right? What they have done is simply architecturally unsound.
If you are curious about Window stations:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?u
Re:Now if only... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:great news (Score:3, Informative)
Odds are pretty good that migration is an on going process. It is very hard to move "everything" at once to a new platform. One of the reasons that Windows did so well was that it ran dos apps.
A company that is thinking of moving will want to do it a step at a time.
I know my company is trying to do it now. Oh how people complained when we made them dump outlook for Thunderbird. Not to mention how some complained about using OpenOffice because it did not work EXACTLY like word.
Re:Beagle port for Windows? (Score:3, Insightful)
Beagle is written in C#, and mono supports windows. Can't be that difficult to port to windows.
Sunbird is not a corporate calendar (Score:3, Insightful)
For one thing sunbird's events are events they aren't tied to users, etc.
It works great for a single person or a small group of people (i use it!) but it would never work well in a situation where events need to be tied to a user.