[Kolab-devel] RFC - The future development direction of Kolab

[Bernhard Reiter]

Hi All,

On Thursday 14 June 2007 15:29, Stephan Buys wrote:
> Kolab's single greatest feature for me is the fact that it was designed
> around a LDAP directory. 

to generalise it is a directory service which does the identity management.
The idea of such a directory service to also make it a configuration service
directory is good and not quite recent. 
However it seems that there are practical problems with this, 
especially with LDAP. The idea that a really cool set of attributes 
with common usage gets standardised has not come true to some extend. 
The password problems is a glowing example for this.
Application just do not work togehter well enough.

Many customer where we have been already have some approach to a identity 
management and they need Kolab Server to be modular, cooperating with
eDirectory, activedirectory, fedora directory and so on.
OpenLDAP itself did not strike me as a very good implementation.
One step that I would like is to make Kolab Server more modular here.

> The role that kolabd fullfills is really versatile 
> and can be used beyond just groupware/email:
>  - With the KOLAB_META template mechanisms it is possible to deliver:
>         * Samba integration
>         * Asterisk integration
>         * LDAP logons for Linux clients
>         * Auto-configuration (via LDAP) of Kontact for first time users
> using LDAP logons

I have seen people using LDAP for more as well. You can implement
a reliable queing concept with it.

> ** Shouldn't we consider making kolabd a first-class citizen? Its own
> sub-project, tightly coupled with LDAP/slurpd and able to handle much more
> than just postfix/cyrus/etc? It could be the basis for an enterprise-wide
> directory/central user store managing services as needed.

The real use of kolabd is the contents this means the contents of the 
templates, the attributes and all this. Actually kolabd already is quite
versatile.

If you would ask me where to take Kolab in the Groupware area,
I would say:
a) solve the mobile client problem, g.e. evaluating a funambol connector.
b) integrate a good email archiving solution
c) make provisions for a client integrating accounts from three different
   Kolab Servers so that the user is in control of his or her data.
d) Add soa capabilities. Best with a new set of clients based on python-kolab.
   Also to add testing.
e) make a better automated test setting. We are growing compatible clients,
   so this is getting increasingly important.
f) solve document management, does this mean inventing good ids which work
   for referals. Doing this with offline clients is a challenge.
   What about signatures and document life time management?
g) Make it capable of better CRM funcation, solve the gap here between
   our user centric and pim centric approach and the data mining capabilities
   of large "contact" databases.
h) Make email encryptions to fully be usable in iTIP emails and in the storage
   format. This would take protection to a new level.

Bernhard

-- 
Managing Director - Owner: www.intevation.net      (Free Software Company)
Germany Coordinator: fsfeurope.org. Coordinator: www.Kolab-Konsortium.com.
Intevation GmbH, Osnabrück, DE; Amtsgericht Osnabrück, HRB 18998
Geschäftsführer Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter, Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
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