Hi all, I think it is time to provide the list with some details about us and our project. I will give just a short overview here. If you'd like to know more details, please feel free to ask. About us The main developers for the evolution-kolab project are employees of two German conmanies. The companies are kernel concepts [1] tarent Ltd. [2] Both companies are active in the Linux and OSS development field. See the respective websites for more info (english versions available). The Developers are Nils Faerber (kernel concepts) Silvan Fin (kernel concepts) Christian Hilberg (kernel concepts) Hendrik Helwich (tarent) Umer Kayani (tarent) More resources may be allocated as needed. :) About the project The goal of the evolution-kolab project is to provide a plugin for Evo/EDS which will allow Evo users to utilize a Kolab 2 server [3] as a groupware solution. We will try to map as much of Kolab's functionality as possible onto Evolution whithout changing Evolution itself (other than providing a plugin, that is). Especially, we will not touch core Evolution or E-D-S. The fun thing about Kolab is that our backends will need to talk not only IMAP and SMTP (for retrieval/storing of contact data and calendar data), but also LDAP (another contact data source) as well as HTTP (trigger for free-busy-list generation and f/b-list data retrieval). Some tech details have already been discussed on evolution-hackers. It is required that all data transport be secured via SSL/TLS if at all possible (as an option for the user). We will need to provide working and tested results by the end of Q1/2011, latest. This means we have a tight schedule, so we have to restrict ourselves on a number of issues. These are (including, but not limited to ;-): * targeting Linux for client and server *solely*. No specific attempts will be made to be portable to other platforms (like *BSD, Windows, ...). Nevertheless, by offloading as many low-level-details as possible to GLib and friends (and making use of highlevel Evo/EDS infrastructure), it should be possible to port to other platforms fairly painlessly. * targeting Evo/EDS 2.30 only (2.30.2 presently, we should be able to follow patchlevels). It is a customer requirement that the plugin be used with current stable versions of GNOME and we will not be able to stand API churns or move to GTK+-3 on our development platforms for several reasons, mostly due to development deadlines. However, we will actively read evolution-hackers for updates on the upcoming changes in 2.31 and try our very best that our code be portable to 2.31 with as little pain as possible. * targeting Kolab 2 (either Version 2.2.3 or 2.2.4, this has to be discussed internally, still). Kolab 1 will not be supported. * providing DEB packages for Debian/GNU Linux only. RPM packages should not be too hard to generate from our debs (or by other means), but we will not be able to provide them. * User manuals and other documentation will be in German (another customer requirement). Volunteers who will translate to English and other langs are welcome. Source docs will be in English, of course. Testing will be done using the GLib Testing framework for unit tests. As far as integration testing goes, we're not yet settled but I think we may use python, expect or something the like for automation. Coding style will follow Evolutions conventions [4] as closely as possible. Our project will be GPLv2 (or a comparable FLOSS license which will assure at least GPLv2's freedom level ;-). There should not be any licensing issues here. If there are doubts, please feel free to ask for clarification. Our customer, for whom we will develop this solution, is also very specific about the project being hosted publicly and accessible by everyone. If Evolution staff will be willing to host our project sources within Evo git repo, we'll happily transfer our stuff there as soon as we have a first preview ready. So long for now, Best regards, Christian [1] http://www.kernelconcepts.de/ [2] http://www.tarent.de/ [3] http://www.kolab.org/ [4] http://projects.gnome.org/evolution/patch.shtml -- kernel concepts GbR Tel: +49-271-771091-14 Sieghuetter Hauptweg 48 Fax: +49-271-771091-19 D-57072 Siegen http://www.kernelconcepts.de/
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