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Novell Dumps the Hula Project
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 28, 2006 04:51 PM
from the wonder-why? dept.
from the wonder-why? dept.
asv108 writes, "On the Hula general mailing list today, it was announced that Novell is no longer providing full-time developers to Hula. While the project will continue, it appears that Novell is not committed to developing a viable open-source alternative to MS Exchange. The Hula project was announced in February 2005 with much fanfare."
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Novell Releasing Hula and 200,000+ Lines of Code 223 comments
H0ek writes "Seems Novell has announced at LinuxWorld Expo that they will be releasing 200,000+ lines of code to the community in the form of a project named Hula(TM). The project is derived from the Novell NetMail product and provides web-based email and calendaring. Seems our boy Nat Friedman has some info on this, too. If you were fortunate enough to get a MyRealBox email account, you will probably know what NetMail is like."
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No full time developers (Score:5, Funny)
Come to think of it, is there such a thing as part-time developers?
salt/wound? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:salt/wound? (Score:5, Insightful)
Novell could have gotten large cash infusions, but instead they let Microsoft intimidate them. This is just plain wrong.
It's pretty obvious what happened from the timing of the event. I'm certain we'll see more of this in the future.
Apparently it was easier for Microsoft to buy off Novell than to fund SCO.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's pretty obvious what happened from the timing of the event.
Explain to me then, why is it so obvious and not just some random conspiracy theory ?
Re:salt/wound? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exchange is the MS communications gateway, allowing people to connect on MS the proprietary platform with the single most popular online communication tool.
An open source alternative to Exchange is the single most important project the open source community could develop to allow IT managers to migrate away from Microsoft.
Now, only days after a deal between MS and Novell, the open source project to build an exchange alternative is hurt by Novell removing support.
No theories needed here, just look at the facts.
Parent
Oh, come on (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Oh, come on (Score:5, Informative)
No, completely different. Hula comes from Novell NetMail. SLOX came from SuSE.
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Re:Oh, come on (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:salt/wound? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:salt/wound? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:salt/wound? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:salt/wound? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not knocking the OSS solution, not at all, but the "Exchange" problem isn't JUST an email server.. it's all the third party stuff all over the company that just assumes you've got Microsoft... In many cases you've got no way (profitable) to chase down all those loose ends... and when you finally DO, some middle manager pulls in ANOTHER must have app you have to fight over.
What's needed is more SOLUTIONS and not just pieces. The modularity of OSS is a strength and a weakness. The strength is in rapid integration of modules.. the weakness is the problem that every geek expects THEIR favorite module to work with every other module... we need to start thinking in STACKS of features rather than individual apps. The issue for geeks is that their favorite apps may not end up in the same feature "stack"... in order to round out the feature set easily without duplication. I think Google building it's own apps helps break the "must have MS" syndrome.. but Google's stuff is still their own.. and much doesn't translate to something that's feature COMPLETE in OSS right now. That's the next step for Linux distros.... to offer turnkey solutions, and not just parts. Ubuntu is on the right track, but they're not nearly ambitious enough at promoting STACKS of functions "ready to go"... but the users in the forums are definately on the right track... witness Automatix. Now do that for domain/email/groupware setup and you'll have something interesting for business.
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Re:salt/wound? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know for a fact A and B are unrelated - I work for Novell and wanted to get on the Hula project. It's been dead for months, even before the MS/Novell deal.
Parent
Re:salt/wound? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:salt/wound? (Score:5, Informative)
That conspiracy theory, while entertaining, is just totally untrue.
The Hula team decided not to go forward with the project because the project wasn't working. It had been nearly two years since we launched Hula and during that time a lot of other people entered the space (Zimbra, Google Calendar, etc) and implemented many of the innovative things that we had planned to do with Hula. This took some of the wind out of our sails, and we had some execution problems too; I don't know if you've noticed, but the project has essentially gone two years without a release, and if you've ever done any significant software development before, you know that's not a sign of a healthy project.
Now, there is some great work in Hula and we sincerely hope that some of it will be useful to the community. The AJAX-based dragonfly web interface for mail and calendar is gorgeous and open source and could be turned into a nice replacement for SquirrelMail or the other web mail/calendar interfaces. The Hula store and the former NetMail agent code are also both open source and other companies are using them now as well.
The guys who worked on this stuff (Jacob Berkman, Peter Teichman, Dave Camp, Cyrus Dolph, Rodney Price, and others) are extremely bright guys, did fabulous work, and really enjoyed the project -- but unfortunately it's one of those things that didn't work out the way everyone hoped. So it goes.
Novell customers of NetMail and GroupWise and other products can rest assured that they are unaffected and will be supported and carried forward -- I'm sure Novell will have things to say about that, so stay tuned.
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Re:salt/wound? (Score:5, Informative)
As far as the microsoft angle goes, I don't think it is nearly as open and shut as that. Hula had a variety of problems that were difficult to overcome. Almost all of those problems are centered around the underly platform.
Anyone who thinks that Hula had any kind of momentum at all before this announcement is ignoring the fundamental architectural problems that killed the project months and months ago. Something may emerge from the ashes. Zimbra has proven it can be done, but it will have to be a firefox to this convoluted and bloated Mozilla.
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Coincidence? I think not (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Coincidence? I think not (Score:5, Funny)
How weird, my nose is growing.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hula was a piece of software that deserved to die. It did the things that Exchange does but didn't interoperate with Exchange. And since not many people in the Linux/Unix world are interested in running a mail server like Exchange/Hula that is a jack of all trades, master of none, people didn't really use Hula. So Novell was pouring all the time and money into a project that they thought everyone wanted, but no one really did.
Honestly, have you heard of anyone actually using Hula?
Re:Coincidence? I think not (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because Microsoft was seriously on the verge of having Hula overtake Exchange.
Yes, that's sarcasm.
I liked Hula, or at least the idea of it, but there are quite a few of these sorts of applications around, I don't find any of them quite satisfying, and I doubt Hula has much of that market anyway. Besides, it's FOSS. Novel can't kill it if it wants to, so long as there are programmers willing to work on it.
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Re:Coincidence? I think not (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Coincidence? I think not (Score:4, Informative)
More to the point, they had a core crew that looked at JWZ, declared him God, read his statements, proclaimed them good, and then immediately replayed every single mistake that Mozilla ever made.
Hula needed to be simple, clean and functional. Even know a year later, it is none of those things.
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Re:Coincidence? I think not (Score:5, Funny)
NO... never... They wouldn't do a thing like that...
Anyway next weeks update to SLES10 will include the following features
a) OpenOffice has been updated to load/save Word documents by default and Macros will run by default.
b) Firefox has been updated to use MSN as it's homepage and default search engine
c) Evolution has been patched to try and execute all email attachments when you view an email.
d) All the above programs now need to be run as root
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Re:Coincidence? I think not (Score:5, Informative)
No, believe it or not, Microsoft wasn't in on this.
Longer answer:
I work at Novell, and for about a year, I was on Hula. I loved it. I still run it on my home server, and it still bothers me that I didn't get to finish and polish the bits I was hacking on. An insufficient degree of planning and management led to the magic "1.0" getting pushed farther out and being less clearly defined. Inside Novell culture (and elsewhere, I would think), that's a bad sign. Other projects were in the spotlight, some Ximian modus operandi kept a lot of Hula's exciting stuff secret, and a few months back, the already-thin team was cut back dramatically. At the same time, its release deadline was moved up, and Hula was still without what I'd call a manager. The writing was on the wall well before the Microsoft deal came around.
I made the mistake of getting pretty emotionally attached to Hula, so this has all been pretty rough for me to watch. I worked weekends and wee hours on that code, and I'd do it again. I can't blame anyone for using this news as fuel for the fire and/or shouting "Novell just doesn't get it", and I can't blame anyone for being highly suspicious given the recent Microsoft deal (I'm still not sure how I feel about that, by the way). But I can say, and you can take with as much salt you want: No, this was the result, a long time coming, of numerous mistakes, and of other decisions that truly didn't seem like mistakes at the time. As much as I love to blame Microsoft for stuff, the facts say otherwise in this case.
Its death as a Novell-sponsored project is unfortunate, but Hula's not dead - it's grown a small community and a bunch of us still have commit access. Read the mailing list message, take a breather, and if you still feel like being pissed off at Novell or Microsoft, fine. I tried. But at least check out Hula. It still has a ton of promise and is surprisingly useful today.
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Re:Competition? (Score:5, Funny)
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What? (Score:4, Funny)
NOW I've seen everything.
Zimbra? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Zimbra? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Zimbra? - also Scalix, PostPath (Score:4, Informative)
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Customers left stranded! (Score:3, Funny)
Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think there's anything illegal about Novell dropping its support for the Hula project, but it's another sign that they've welshed out on their former friends for money. About the best we could do in response would be to continue the project and get it deployed in the enterprise.
Bruce
Re:Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't think?!?! Last time I checked there was no law forcing them to pay for Hula development. If you don't like Novell, just don't use their products. No need to pull a Redhat and imply that they're criminals.
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Re:Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
Telling me not to use Novell's products if I don't like them ignores the fact that I'm one of the guys who wrote "their" products. I doubt you can install that system without using my software. And thus I'm one of the people who just got screwed because Novell and Microsoft colluded to engineer a way for Novell to welsh on the agreement that comes with my software.
No need to ... imply that they're criminals.
Except that they've just chosen to ally with an authentic convicted anti-monopoly law violator, found so by more than one jurisdiction. And their collusion with that law violator is engineered to reinforce the monopoly.
Bruce
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Re:Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, when I wrote the Open Source Definition, I made sure that it would be OK for you to use Open Source even if the author didn't like your politics. This was because of a license I'd seen from UC Berkeley on the Spice circuit simulation program, which prohibited the police of South Africa from using it. And still did, 10 years after apartheid was over and said police were probably Black.
But this case is different, becuase Novell and Microsoft have created a legal fiction of covenants rather than licenses in order to do what my license prohibits.
Bruce
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Re:Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement (Score:4, Interesting)
The agreement doesn't require them to do that. That's just walking out on your frends for money. And I suppose you're going to tell me there's nothing bad about that, because it's not breaking the law.
The agreement does, however, require that they not create a tiered environment of patent rights on my software. Which is what they are trying to do.
Is "welsh" an ethnic slur? On people from Wales? Sorry. I didn't know.
Bruce
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Re:Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you yourself never started a project and decided not to finish it?
Novell would be *ecstatic* if some of the great developers in the Hula community continued to carry Hula forward.
Good lord, Bruce, your character smearing of Novell is reaching new lows. To imply that this decision has anything to do with Novell's commitment to the free software community is just offensive.
Parent
Interoperability, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's that "interoperability" at work, folks...
Calendar Sharing (Score:5, Insightful)
My present solution is for my secretary to manage my calendar with korganizer -- I then just overwrite my calendar on my mac laptop (ical works fine with the korganizer files). But it would be nice to not have to call her up and say "please put ____ on my calendar." I'd rather just do it and have the calendars sync up. The ics files are understandable text files and I've thought of trying to make a sync system by comparring the files on my computer and my secretary's, but I just dabble at computer stuff -- I'm not a real programmer and I can't risk my calendar to my low quality skills. So still I wait.
Because they already have one? (Score:3, Informative)
I know it'll never happen, but I've said many times before, the best thing Novell could do for their Linux interests is open source Groupwise.
2007: In other news (Score:4, Funny)
The company also states that it will soon release it own version of CIFS after the SAMBA organisation was sued into bankruptcy.
Linux-based Exchange server? (Score:3, Funny)
From the Hula Project web site: [hula-project.org]
So if Novell has taken all their FT developers off Hula, are we to assume that Microsoft is now going to offer a Linux-native version of the Exchange server? I mean, come on. If Microsoft-Novell is really serious with their "we are working on Linux-Windows interoperability" then they're dropping out of Hula in order to work on their Linux-native of the Exchange server, right??
I mean, the only other possibility is that Microsoft "asked" Novell to stop supporting a direct competitor for a Microsoft product. And that would just be silly of them, wouldn't it...
[/sarcasm]
Maybe there it has been done already. (Score:3, Interesting)
Both offer similar functionality to Exchange.
While an Exchange server killer would be really nice it seems to me as there are already too many clients and ideas floating around with not real direction.
Novell is a company and it's primary job is to make money by making their customers happy. I could very well be that the majority of their paying customers already have an E-Mail solution in place.
Of course it is FOSS so if it is worth doing maybe the Ubuntu team will pick it up.
I'm just asking, seriously..... (Score:3, Interesting)
When you consider the available alternatives, is their any room here for suggesting that in this ONE case, Microsoft did something right, when it comes to Exchange Server? I would like someone to honestly tell me either that Exchange has problems that need fixing, or that Exchange must go for Linux to gain more share in the Enterprise space.
Which is it, and why?
Disclaimer: I was on the original Exchange team, but no longer work for Microsoft. I'm really just curious at this point what is driving the anti-Exchange bandwagon, because I don't see a real, viable competitor out there.
Enlighten me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For many open-source idealists, it is a major target because it is (1) commonly used, (2) in a business-critical role, and (3) close-source.
Since Exchange server doesn't run on Lin
What timing. (Score:4, Informative)
Thus far I've tried Hula, RSCDS, Cosmo, and Apple's CalendarServer and none of them seem to be the perfect solution. I'd love to see a package that acts as both a CalDAV server, but also gives you the ability to view and edit the calendars via a nice looking web-interface as well. I'm thankful for the projects that are currently being worked on however, and I guess I should stop complaining and start coding...
Not Surprised. Expect More Cuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Netmail was repackaged into Hula with a logo, snazzy graphics and a lot of pretty meaningless hype. The project didn't really do anything because everyone already had a POP/IMAP and SMTP server, and there were countless open source groupware and calendaring solutions around such as eGroupware, OpenGroupware and Kolab. Novell should have invested their time and effort into one of these and bit the bullet over Groupwise in order to really try and take the ubiquitous Exchange head-on in corporate environments and make some headway. However, Novell still seem to be flogging that rancid and long deceased horse called Groupwise for some reason. Every Novell using company that I know (Netware, Groupwise etc.) is using Exchange, and Novell were going to need to do something different to change that - remove licensing costs at the server and CAL ends, ensure trouble-free Exchange migrations, ensure there was a free and working Outlook plugin etc. etc. Basically, remove the barriers to actually moving away - something Novell is hopelessly poor at. All of their customers (apart from Suse) they have now are basically historical from the eighties and nineties, as you have to literally fight to buy anything from Novell.
Novell strikes me as a company in a spot of real bother, especially with financial results around the corner. Linux (Suse) revenue has not increased in any way that is going to sustain them as a company by itself, Red Hat is miles off in the distance, the Netware userbase is continuing to shrink which it was before Novell's Suse move, and worse, there is still no sign whatsoever that Novell is creating a Linux distribution with open source software that will replace Netware, functionally speaking, and completely satisfy their existing customer base and stop them leaving. Novell talks a lot about choosing a Netware or Linux kernel in OES (Open Enterprise Server) or virtualising Netware, as is, under Linux via Xen. That's the extent of their support of Netware and the roadmap that they have for it, and by all accounts their customers are less than impressed by it.
It seems as though Novell really needed that $300 million from Microsoft, and I would expect many more cutbacks on lots of open source projects and even the proprietary software that isn't making any money in the run up to the next round of financial results.
Google beats Hula (and Exchange) (Score:5, Interesting)
"People want to control their data", I hear you say. Actually many companies already outsource this stuff, and more would if it was free and the service was great.
"Disgruntled Google employee could steal my data", I hear you say. Hello, your OWN disgruntled employees can already do so, and are probably more likely to.
"GMail doesn't guarantee uptime", I hear you say. Google's already more reliable than than 99% of IT departments. I'm sure they'd be willing to take a little of your money in exchange for a contract that says so.
"Don't want ads", I hear you say. I'm sure Google would take a little more of your money to make them go away. Thanks to their economies of scale, they can charge far less than the cost of in-house email and still make ridiculous profits.
No need for Hula. Try Citadel instead. (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, do try Citadel -- it is a very well-integrated collaboration server with an ajax-style web user interface, built-in data stores, lightweight implementations of all relevant protocols (POP, IMAP, SMTP, etc.)
Down and Out in Provo, Utah (Score:4, Insightful)
Which we could still use now, even though Hula itself is dead.
It really looks now like Novell doesn't get "open source", and never did. Its management understood that it was the new buzzword, the only way to compete with Microsoft, somehow. So they bought a Linux distro (SuSE), and a desktop (Ximian), and announced a groupware (Hula). But they never really opened their projects, and left the source open mainly as a way to keep developers interested in developing for the "Novell" brand, long after there was any other reason left.
Meanwhile, SCO's lawsuits showed the power of open source, both threatening markets and defending from patent suits, as part of an organized effort by the global developer public. Even a way to work with a competitor like IBM without directly coordinating, just keeping the open content out in the public.
But they learned nothing about open source, its community, its culture, it's true value. They learned only that Microsoft so fears Linux that it will pay huge money for cross-licensing a single Linux run by a clueless, decrepit old competitor MS has already beaten every time, for 20 years. So MS can just crush it last, after MS has used Novell to attack Linux.
I really don't care about Novell. Their Directory Server will be a loss, but the LDAP servers will improve when they have to serve its demanding market. SuSE's SW and ecosystem will convert to other Linux distros, probably mostly Ubuntu. Ximian will be replaced by other GNOME developers, or just a different brand on the same team members.
And Hula will sink into the sunset, an empty promise by a senile old sellout. I just wish we could pick its bones clean for the next competitor to Exchange, without the Novell execs of limited vision getting in the way.
Ping... (Score:5, Funny)
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