Status of Kolab Community Edition?

[Reitelbach, Thomas]

Am 03.05.2024 00:01, schrieb Geoff Nordli:
> There is a lot of development still going on.
> 
> Is there a suggested on the best distribution to use with kolab?
> Alma, Rocky 9, Debian, Ubuntu?

Hi Geoff,

the team around apheleia-it has changed from CentOS to Alma Linux - at 
least they are building RPMs for it, as I can see.

At least the RPMs on their mirror "mirror.apheleit-it.ch" are 
installable which is not the case for Debian Packages.

Yesterday I managed to install Debian 11 packages. The "setup-kolab" 
needed some tweaks to run (wrong python versions in the shebang of the 
script and some other python related bugs). But it still leaves an 
unusable system afterwards so I gave up on it.

My guess is, it needs some new volunteers on the community edition to 
make it work again. First step would be to understand the established 
infrastructure around the build process and OBS. But I think this users 
mailing list is not the best place to discuss things on this topic - 
devel mailing list would be more appropriate.

Cheers
Thomas


> On 2024-05-01 13:06, Lennart Ackermans wrote:
> 
>> Hi everyone,
>> 
>> Development is certainly ongoing (see git.kolab.org [1]). My
>> impression is that the management of Apheleia (the company that now
>> owns Kolab) has decided to not actively work on the community. I
>> don't blame them, they can spend their money how they want to. They
>> still make available all their packages to the community. I think
>> Debian 11 should already work and Debian 12 is being worked on. (I
>> don't know the status of other distros.) So the project is not dead,
>> it's just that the community documentation is not being updated.
>> 
>> I do think that the situation has improved since a while ago.
>> Developers engage with the community now on git.kolab.org [1]
>> (wasn't the case before).
>> 
>> If there's any hope for the documentation it has to be the community
>> itself that revives it. I believe anyone can contribute to the
>> documentation on git.kolab.org.  (I did manage to get something
>> added to the docs a while ago.) Next time I'm updating my Debian
>> installation I will consider addings some documentation. But I'm
>> very limited on time (and I suspect most here are).
>> 
>> But really, things will only improve if we do it ourselves!
>> 
>> Best wishes,
>> 
>> Lennart
>> 
>> On 01-05-2024 19:01, Carpenter, Troy wrote:
>> Another "me too" email.  My system is still on Centos 7.  I have
>> never found the time to resolve all the upgrade/migration issues to
>> a new OS.  I have been looking for a replacement groupware system,
>> but haven't really found one.  Mailcow looked promising, but me and
>> my users have gotten used to how Kolab works both via Roundcube and
>> mobile clients.
>> 
>> Things seemed promising about a year ago when the new management
>> chimed in here on the future of Kolab, but then radio silence after
>> that.
>> 
>> Troy
>> 
>> On 2024-05-01 11:50 AM, Eric Chaput wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I'm in a similar situation, and will soon need to upgrade from
>> Debian 10 to 11.
>> 
>> I tried a few times to ask questions on the IRC channel on Libera,
>> on
>> which there are always a few users, but silence.
>> 
>> Unfortuntely if I'm unable to upgrade I will have to migrate away
>> from
>> Kolab Community ;(
>> 
>> Thanks
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> On 2024-05-01 07:41, Reitelbach, Thomas wrote:
>> Hallo list,
>> 
>> I wonder if there is any development ongoing on Kolab Enterprise
>> and/or Kolab Community Edition. It's very quiet on the lists and I
>> have difficulties getting usable and reliable information on the web
>> regarding Kolab.
>> Documentation for Kolab seems very outdated, it references Builds
>> for Operating systems that do not work at this time (Debian 10,
>> CentOS 7 and so on). The referenced mirrors in this documentation do
>> not work, referenced Package signatures (for example for debian) do
>> not work or the GPG Keys are simply missing and so on.
>> The different projects on OBS seem all not usable, are missing
>> packages or have serveral failed packages.
>> 
>> I found blog entries regarding installation on Alma Linux which
>> seems to be the current reference installation, but even this does
>> not work (installation works, but after setup-kolab it leaves an
>> unusable kolab installation, for example mailboxes for new users are
>> not beeing created.
>> Or, if mailbox creation works somehow, roundcube users can only see
>> their mailbox but none of the additional folders, even if they are
>> existing on the imap store.
>> 
>> So can someone please enlighten me if there is any work in progress
>> on the community edition at all? For me the project - as I see it
>> right now - looks dead. This would be very sad, as I'm a kolab users
>> since Kolab 2 and I really love it.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> Thomas