Novell Dumps the Hula Project 440
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."
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
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:Calendar Sharing (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.google.com/calendar/ [google.com]
and for offline (never used it):
http://www.calgoo.com/ [calgoo.com]
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
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
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.
Re:Google beats Hula (and Exchange) (Score:3, Interesting)
Google apps for my domain on a box in my server cabinet? Then we'd be talking.
Re:Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement (Score:2, Interesting)
This is his way of gathering supporters without spending millions in court. A lot of people on this site care about the issue and making noise by having a pettition with huge number of supporters is a good thing.
Re:salt/wound? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why would they compete with Groupwise (Score:3, Interesting)
But I'm wondering why Novell was going for it at all. Their proprietary system GroupWise is extremely stable and scalable (unless your admin's are monkeys) and makes exchange look sick unless you are talking about things like umm - you know - FEATURES and other fluff. But honestly - it ain't bad.
Why would they champion an OOS alternative to their own product?
But then - I can't say I really understand why they would champion Linux over Netware, unless they are acknowledging they've lost the OS battle and want to concentrate on selling the service and application layer/ring.
I guess they were really buying into the whole OOS thing. Well - up until some manager started to wonder what exactly is left to sell.
Re:Coincidence? I think not (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Linux-based Exchange server? (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe that's why they open-sourced NetMail/Hula in the first place--to start getting it off their plate and onto someone elses who wants to run with it. Novell (and any company in the world) has a finite amount of programming resources and they cannot take on everything, as much as they do or don't want to.
To my knowledge, NetMail was never really a full-featured desktop mail server anyway. It was a great large-scale webmail system and that's about it. I don't think that's the same boat that Exchange (or GroupWise for that fact) is in.
Besides, as someone mentioned above, I think Zimbra is the winner here anyway.
-m
Re:salt/wound? (Score:4, Interesting)
Novell is the new sendo (Score:3, Interesting)
Novell needed to do some due diligence before they entered this deal. So sad. Where will all their engineers go?
Re:I'm just asking, seriously..... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, apart the fact it doesn't run on Linux, or Mac OSX?
Exchange is a good piece of software, and is a key part of the overall integrated server system that Microsoft offers. I've been using Exchange 2003 (and administering it) for about an year at my job, and my major complaint is about something that has been added in the most recent iteration: the seemingly impossibility to retrieve a single mail from a backup.
We used to made daily backups, and one day my boss came up and was like "uh, I think a week ago I accidentally deleted a very important mail, can you retrieve it for me into the backups?" and I was like "for sure!".
But apparently, the idiot they hired to replace you (I know it was possible to retrieve a single mail from a backup atleast until Exchange 7 or maybe even 2000) thought that this was a very dangerous operation to allow, and I was presented two choices:
You probably detected some serious hate surface between the waves of sarcasm, and I hope you can understand why. I mean, that's the only real complaint I have against Exchange, and is probably not too representative, but I somewhat got the idea that the application is now in its descending curb.
Overall anyway, Exchange offers great features: and from a users' point of view, is a good application. As developer, I might bitch about the lack of support for standards, but yeah, that's a long issue.
And the OSS community wants to "clone" it in term of functionality because it works, not because we think it sucks. Elseway, we wouldn't bother. Now, it's just a pity that due to IP fears you cannot particicpate to the developement of any open-source alternative...
Re: Hula or the Microsoft deal?? (Score:3, Interesting)
I daren't say anything about the Microsoft deal, because I don't have sufficient information yet. The real consequences of that deal will shake out over the next few years. Many a short-term "good deal" becomes a long-term "what-the-crap-were-we-thinking", but I'm not convinced that Novell's "deal with the devil" will turn out that way. Nor am I convinced it won't. In the meantime, I've got code to write and checks to take home, so it's hard to be too unhappy.
Re:salt/wound? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:serious issues with exchange server (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do people use Exchange despite its problems with the Exchange database, trampling on SMTP standards, security holes, etc.?
Because as kludgy as Exchange may be, the set of functions it provides together with Outlook are something business find very valuable. There are three main groupware servers in the market: Exchange, Groupwise, and Domino. I'm not going to speculate on which of those three may be the best on technical merit, but the marketplace has generally chosen Exchange over the others.
Why has no FOSS alternative to Exchange ever gained any traction? Well, for one thing we have a very large installed base and trying to get companies with a large and complex infrastructure to rip it out and replace it with something else is hard as long as what they have is working. Even if the something else is both better and cheaper, getting them to make the switch is hard. If that something else is not better and cheaper, it's impossible. And from the standpoint of businesses where everyone is using Outlook, putting in an open source Exchange replacement, unless Outlook clients could talk to it natively without any extra plug-ins, does not meet the definition of "better."
Exchange is big. It's complex. It has a huge amount of code in it. Making a true FOSS drop-in Exchange replacement would be very difficult. You can duplicate the functionality pretty well, and many FOSS projects have (Kolab might be the best of those, and it's also very complex, and maintains it's own internal RPM database of its components, which I find just ugly), but AFAIK none of them is really a drop-in replacement for Exchange. If anyone could really make one, it might get adopted widely for its cost savings, but I'm not holding my breath. The alternatives out there are good enough to use in a business that does not yet have a groupware server and is setting one up, but not good enough to drive out Exchange where it's already established
Meanwhile, Exchange 2007 is a real improvement over previous versions. Faster. More secure. Exchange Edge is aimed straight at shops that are all Exchange except for Sendmail or other *nix-based servers on the network edge. We've raised the bar for how how much any FOSS Exchange replacement has to achieve to displace Exchange.
Re:salt/wound? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of the users love it though, because it looks purtier.
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.
Re:salt/wound? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was on a project for a client once that moved from GroupWise 6.5 to Exchange/Outlook 2003. My job was to walk around the floor and answer people's questions. Every single question involved things user couldn't do any more:
1. Why can't I get properties on my sent items and see if someone read a message without getting a return receipt?
2. Why can't I take a category in my personal address book and share it out?
3. Why can't I share out a folder easily?
4. Where's my document library?
GroupWise really is Exchange+Sharepoint. It's a damn good product.
Re:Protest the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a loss (Score:3, Interesting)
Phillip.
Re:salt/wound? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not just say it was too immature for you or you didn't like it, and leave it at that.
Your right. I didn't like Hula once I got past the "gee-whiz" factor and actually started looking at code. And a year later, the reasons I didn't like the hula code still hold. Here is the rub, as a IT consultant (who has installed several 1000+ user email solutions on everything from Exchange to Sendmail + LDAP) I am out there promoting the daylight out of solutions that are not Hula. As a open source contributor I write code for solutions not Hula. And sadly, I still move people from Linux to Windows because their linux solution can't compete with Exchange.
Zimbra (Score:3, Interesting)
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.