Kopano - Roadmap 2021

JungleMarc

I like Kopano.

I am a previous Zarafa user, been on paid subscription for many years.

Kopano makes whole lot more sense to me versus using any other collab platform. I find everything is well organized, very good for debugging any aspect of the system. I look forward to renewing my subscription this year.

I pay for subscription even if I don’t use much support time. It is there if I really need it. For the few times I had to open a ticket, I always liked the level of insight / technical detail from the support team.

I hope the Z-Push development will keep going for Oultook, knowing it was the intended direction, as opposed from using the oldschool Zarafa MAPI plugins.

As much as it must be difficult to support and develop Z-Push for Outlook compatibility, I applaud the effort of everyone involved. I hope Z-Push development keeps going. It is an amazing tool.

Best regards,

Marc

kermit13

@drauer
Hello Daniel,
do I understand it right that we don´t have a chance to get native Outlook in the near future ?

Best Regards

Frank

drauer

@kermit13 said in Kopano - Roadmap 2021:

@drauer
Hello Daniel,
do I understand it right that we don´t have a chance to get native Outlook in the near future ?

Best Regards

Frank

Hi Frank.

No, thats not what I wrote:
We currently cannot say when and how the ActiveSync/Z-Push development will go on. But no matter how, it will never be what you probably mean by “native Outlook”. This is not possible with ActiveSync implementation by Microsoft. Kopano with its KOE is one of the only groupware vendors that enhances ActiveSync by collaboration features, but it can never reach the native Outlook with Exchange implementation.

Regarding native Outlook support please bear with me that I currently cannot go into detail, but Kopano has and will put a lot of effort into implementing a solution.

Bye, Daniel

hooge

There was the native Zarafa-Client (latest version as i remember zarafaclient-7.2.6-52189.msi), which is in heavy use by our company with Office 2010.
Unfortunately, the source code was never released after further development was stopped. Probably due to some copyright issues. Maybe it would be possible to publish the uncritical parts so that someone else could continue the development.
Kind Regards, Thomas

drauer

@hooge I just got the confirmation that the zarafaclient cannot be open-sourced, also not parts of it; I am sorry to tell.

thctlo

@drauer

https://github.com/steep-system/STEEP_SYSTEM
has Native outlook support and used kopano and samba components

Only you see he stopped with development because he didnt include/obey the Samba licences.

kermit13

@drauer
Hi Daniel,
thanks for the fast answer … I do not talk about z-push, this is working pretty fine for the mobile devices.

I really mean native access for Outlook, unfortunately 99% are working with Outlook only and the connection via
Activesync is more or less a nightmare regarding the calendar and resource booking.
We are coming from Zarafa and with the old mapi driver everything was fine but we know that the mapi driver is
not working with Outlook 2016 / 2019.
I understand that you can´t say me a date when we can expect outlook support, but a roadmap if we could expect
it this year or latest next year would be fine.

Best Reagards
Frank

drauer

@thctlo said in Kopano - Roadmap 2021:

https://github.com/steep-system/STEEP_SYSTEM
has Native outlook support and used kopano and samba components

I know, thats why I wrote “one of the only vendors”.

drauer

@kermit13 said in Kopano - Roadmap 2021:

We are coming from Zarafa and with the old mapi driver everything was fine but we know that the mapi driver is
not working with Outlook 2016 / 2019.

It was also a dead end, you probably remember the times when Microsoft changed “something” every few weeks, which had to be reverse engineered, implemented in the zarafaclient, tested, shipped and rolled out at the customers, meaning collaboration was broken every few weeks for several weeks.

I understand that you can´t say me a date when we can expect outlook support, but a roadmap if we could expect
it this year or latest next year would be fine.

You can expect “something” to happen surely this year.

Gerald

@drauer said in Kopano - Roadmap 2021:

To your questions I can talk about:

Kopano Core and WebApp development has not stopped 6 months ago, but nobody took care of the release page. Simple as that. We added the missing entries today

Thank you for your openness… But where is the development happening? According to the git repo the kopano-core project is quite dead except for very basic bug fixes, which I would not call “development” but at best “maintenance”.

alt text

I would love for the days of Zarafa to come back when there was actually a reason to pay for the product. I’ll never understand how management could have been so incredibly stupid to abandon the commercial native Outlook client in search of some vague “100% fully open source” future with unclear monetization opportunities. An open source future which then of course never materialized (a working and maintained Kopano is not part of any linux distribution, and even the commercial UCS Server port seems unmaintained). Perhaps the ship can still be turned around, but I fear its stuck in the Suez canal and too late. I for one have had to mostly migrate to Hosted Exchange by Microsoft (part of the Office 365 / Microsoft 365 offerings) and don’t see any way those paying customers will ever come back to Kopano.

Sinux

@gerald +1

ich habe mir auch den Stand auf github und die Entwickler mal angesehen wohin sie denn alle abgewandert sind und das geschah alles mitte 2021. Es wird bis heute nicht ehrlich kommuniziert und das ist ein NoGo!

einzige “Alternative” wäre
https://community.grommunio.com/

und nein kein englisch Felix ich schreibe mal deutsch;)

mcostan

@drauer I was wondering when the roadmap for 2022 will be released.

I have been with Zarafa / Kopano for years and years…

drauer

Hi.

Sorry for my late reply, I somehow did not receive notifications:

Thank you for your openness… But where is the development happening? According to the git repo the kopano-core project is quite dead except for very basic bug fixes, which I would not call “development” but at best “maintenance”.

Development happens on https://stash.kopano.io, e.g. https://stash.kopano.io/projects/KW/repos/kopano-webapp/commits for the WebApp.

I’ll never understand how management could have been so incredibly stupid to abandon the commercial native Outlook client in search of some vague “100% fully open source” future with unclear monetization opportunities.

I have to ask you to keep polite. Nobody abandonded native Outlook support out of fun or stupidity.

I for one have had to mostly migrate to Hosted Exchange by Microsoft (part of the Office 365 / Microsoft 365 offerings) and don’t see any way those paying customers will ever come back to Kopano.

Yes, for some customers Office 365 is the better option. Some later regret their choice, some are very happy with it. Thats life, products and needs and conditions keep changing.

drauer

@sinux said in Kopano - Roadmap 2021:

und nein kein englisch Felix ich schreibe mal deutsch;)

And I will keep posting in english.

ich habe mir auch den Stand auf github und die Entwickler mal angesehen wohin sie denn alle abgewandert sind und das geschah alles mitte 2021. Es wird bis heute nicht ehrlich kommuniziert und das ist ein NoGo!

You mix and mangle “openness” and “honesty” completely: We were always honest in our communication, but (of course!) we did not talk about internal personnel matters in the public. Yes, some people left the company, thats what we told, nothing new. Others joined. Everything else is not of your business.

einzige “Alternative” wäre
https://community.grommunio.com/

If you would look at them as critical as you are looking at Kopano I doubt you still would call it an alternative…

Btw: My offer to have a call together still exists.

drauer

@mcostan said in Kopano - Roadmap 2021:

@drauer I was wondering when the roadmap for 2022 will be released.

I have been with Zarafa / Kopano for years and years…

We cannot tell at the moment, sorry.

drauer

@gerald said in Kopano - Roadmap 2021:

An open source future which then of course never materialized (a working and maintained Kopano is not part of any linux distribution, and even the commercial UCS Server port seems unmaintained).

It does not make sense for Kopano to be part of any distribution.

And Kopano4UCS is meanwhile available in the test App Center and currently being tested by several parties.

Sinux

Btw: My offer to have a call together still exists.

Ich warte seit über 3 Wochen auf einen Rückruf nur so nebenbei…

drauer

@sinux

Ich warte seit über 3 Wochen auf einen Rückruf nur so nebenbei…

Ich finde keine Mail die ich dir irgendwie zuordnen könnte … Kannst du bitte nochmal eine schicken mit Infos wann und wo ich dich erreichen kann?

Gerald

It does not make sense for Kopano to be part of any distribution.

As usual, this is something where i fully agree with you. The problem is that this was official policy at Kopano for the last years!

See examples here or here. Also in the forum, whenever it was mentioned that for a fully open source program (which Kopano aspired to be) it is a bit weird that there are only untested nighlies available for the users - the “solution” mentioned was that you are supposed to use the version from the distro and work was underway to integrate Kopano into distributions.

Of course this never made any sense! Which is why it is so sad that the person who made all these mismanagement decision seems to be still onboard? What will be next? My guess is: “Kopano announces version 11, the first open source Groupware with NFT integration!”

mcostan

@drauer ok I understand, but it will definitely happen in the course of this year is that correct?

As I said, I do think Kopano is a great product.