Few questions about Kolab

[Bernhard Reiter]

Hello Radu,
let me answer some of the questions that have not been addressed so far.

Am Freitag, 16. September 2005 01:08 schrieb Radu Filip:
> I am looking around to figure out if Kolab is the tool I need. Because all
> software are tools, I will describe first what my needs are:
>
> I need to have a "central":
> To-Do List
> Notes
> Calendar
> Contact List
>
> Each of these should have both "private" parts (accessible only to me, like
> private notes, contacts, etc) and shared parts (shared notes, contacts,
> etc), available/editable to others (also using Kontact).
>
> By "central" I mean on a specific Linux server, with public IP address.
> These should be accessible primarily from KDE/Kontact clients (required),

Yes this is possible, you will have to create one folder per policy
and set the necessary rights.
E.g. a private calendar folder and a shared calendar folder.
The same for notes, contacts and to-do-lists.

> but it would be nice to have a web interface (preferred) for them 

There is an experimental webinterface based on Horde.
Your milage might vary.

> or be able to use them from Outlook or Thunderbird (preferred).

Outlook can be turned into a full Kolab client with a proprietary connector,
like Toltec.
For Thunderbirds calendar plugin there is an experimental addition called 
Synckolab. It will be quite limited as the calendar code of the Mozilla 
project was in flux for a while.

> (2) Is Kolab the tool that can meet my need as I described them above?

Yes.

> (3) Why there is no Kolab ebuild available in Gentoo repository, not even
> for "~86"? Is there a specific technical reason?

Not a specifc one, you have to ask the Gentoo people.
I guess that just nobody did the work, because it is a lot of work.
As the Kolab Server basically glues together a few standard components,
the quality ensuring work is important and the real value.
You can glue these components together based on what the distributions
offer, but you will have to do a lot of the testing yourself.

> (6) What else should I know before starting to deploy Kolab?

Use a dedicated machine.
Do not use a network file system.
Test the Kolab solution in a test and stating system before deployment.