General info request

[Bernhard Reiter]

Hi Pieter,


Am Donnerstag, 17. November 2005 14:18 schrieb Pieter Vanmeerbeek:
> I'm new to the kolab groupware system. On my search to a opensource linux
> solution to groupware, I found your project. I read all docs I could find
> on your project (see list below) but still have some questions. Perhaps
> someone can help me with them. I researched kolab in cooperation with the
> Konsec konnector
>
>
>
> 1.	is there any reason why all docs state the use of the Toltec
> connector instead of the Konsec?

Yes:
During the Proko2 contract the companies creating Kolab
cooperated with Radley Network Technologies CC - the makers of Toltec -
to get a cross platform solution. 
So Toltec saw a lot of testing and quality control during this process
and Toltec is used by the organisation that contracted erfrakon, Intevation 
and Klarälvdalens Datakonsult to build Kolab for their own use.

> 2.	Does Kolab support all possible handheld device (PALM/PDA/ GSM)
> syncing? I found on the Kolab website that it support the hotsync protocol
> for syncing. But my knowledge on this territory is almost unexisting. Does
> it also support handheld devices using the Windows CE OS?

We expect that Kolab Outlooks clients
can do some syncing via Windows based tools.
(A Kolab Outlook client is Outlook with one of the proprietary connectors.)

The KDE client only support what KDE support, which means what
kpilot and kitchensync support. We know that this support currently has bugs.

The Kolab Server itself does not directly support syncing with mobile devices.

Can you point me to the web page that says we support "hotsync", btw.
Because I do not think there is one.

> 3.	The kolab docs state that modifying events of another is not
> possible and only the creator of the event may modify (p15 in Kolab Free
> Software Groupware Project version 1.9.x Draft). It explains a delegate
> story by which another user may borrow the identity of someone else to
> create and appointment, allowing modification by the other person like with
> a secretary and the boss. It is not clear to me why the secretary may not
> modify events of her boss if she got write access to his calendar?  Why
> this difference between write access and creator of an appointment? Isn't
> this making things more complex?

Are you referring to section
      2.14. Access Control and Multiple Identities
and especially
     	Outlook 2002 already knows about multiple accounts. 
     	Providing the required functionality for emails is
	handled via the selection of the account before sending the message. 
	Using multiple accounts for
	invitations is possible though awkward with Outlook. The later is required if
	the secretary does not want
	to become the organizer of a the meeting she is organizing 
	on behalf of theboss.
?
(Page references are not that meaningful until you give the precise filename
you have been reading.)

This is so complicated, because of some shortcomings of Outlook.
If a secretary want to motify the calendar of his boss, it should be possible
without anybody noticing that it was not the boss himself.
To make Outlook do that, you need to select the different identity
and to let the Kolab Server pass the resulting email, you need to set
the right email deletate.

> A final question regarding Disconnected IMAP. From what I understood the
> Kolab system uses IMAP to store workgroup folders (calendar, notes,..) into
> the cyrus mailserver into special folders like calendar. 

This is correct.

> The Kolab docs 
> state the use of a Disconnected IMAP to configure the mailclient, Can you
> explain me the Disconnected IMAP protocol? I suppose the DIMAP protocol
> serves to map the special IMAP workgroup folders on the server to the
> workgroup folders in the Client using IMAP and in the reverse way too?
> Perhaps this system also takes care of a copy left on the server for all
> mail messages and possible user created subfolder?

Disconnected IMAP is a special way to drive the IMAP protocol
to enable several cache copies of the server contents with all emails
and subfolders. Of course the IMAP protocoll has special methods for this.
E.g. you can ask, which emails are new or have changed and thus keep
a sync relatively small, e.g. without reading the subjects of all emails.
So you can delete, create and move emails on server and several client
and you can sync this all.

>  I would expect everything to happen with IMAP as a central storage where
> all mail/workgroup things are kept, allowing access by different clients
> using pop and/or IMAP.

This is, how it is, basically.
But for it actually to be usable on the client side, a client needs to keep 
the almost full information of a calendar folder anyway to display it.
This and the reason that we wanted to enable offline use,
makes it mandatory to use a disconnected cache over IMAP for serious clients.
You can of course still access everything with IMAP and e.g. look
at stuff with mutt.

The emails in the INBOX are also available via POP3, but normally POP3 is 
driven in a way that emails get deleted and thus their remains no copy on the 
server, it will only be on the client after "popping" it.

> To make it more confusing the Konsec connector uses the pop protocol to
> fetch mail and a datafile to sync workgroup folders. So you see this part
> is unclear to me and I couldn't find any clear docs given an overview about
> this.

This again is a dirty Outlook workaround:
Outlook's code to handle iCalendar emails is in the pop3 module.
Thus you need to use POP3 if you want to be able to deal with invitations
in Outlook. Both Toltec and Konsec use this method therefore.

Bernhard

> PS I used the following docs/info. Any other source is welcome:

I hope you have found it to be of some use,
we are always open to suggestions.
And we know that the architecture document is a bit outdated currently.

> -freebusy.txt doc from kolabs CVS
>
> - Proko docs 2, doc 3 and doc 5
>
> - Kolab Free Software Groupware Project version 1.9.x
>
> - Konsec Konnector Handbook
>
> -  <http://www.kolab.org/> http://www.kolab.org/
>
> -  <http://wiki.kolab.org/index.php/Kolab2_FAQ>
> http://wiki.kolab.org/index.php/Kolab2_FAQ
>
> -  <http://www.konsec.com/> http://www.konsec.com
>
> - mailing archives of konsec and kolab