EE/HE/community confusion, OX newbie

[svensen]

Hi,

I'm new to Open-Xchange, and I'm trying to get a test site up and running for evaluation, and maybe for production later.
The first thing I tried was the OX:EE vmware image, which was impressively easy to set up. But since I also wanted mobile device sync via funambol, there had to be something more flexible. Besides, I do wanted to know how things work.

Following the 'build from scratch' instructions in the wiki was no luck for me. There were countless build errors, probably because the library dependencies did not match exacly. I then copied the libs over from the OX:EE image, so the build process finally went through. The GUI then presented dozens of java errors, so I finally gave up on this one.

The second approach was the discontinued community installer. No luck either, BUILD FAILED. But there was another hint on that page, where would be debs available.

So I prepared to get the debs from

deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/server:/OX:/open-xchange-sp4-beta4/Debian_Etch /

on a fresh installed debian, following this guide.
Installation went fine, so I did set up postfix, cyrus, SASL, PAM, libnss_mysql to pull things from oxdatabase.

Funambol installation was straight forward. I got funambol bundle-6.5.14 with oxconnector-6.5.8 up and running following the provided guide. Syncing seems to work like it should.

There seems to be no admin interface. OK - I can live with that.
Then I learned that there was no CLI for adding mail_domain so I had to INSERT INTO mail_domains. OK, not too complicated, I could eventually write a script for that. I liked that admin gui very much and I do miss it! Is it still to come or will it be a 'commercial' feature again?

Logging in into the gui gives me a 404 error in the info pane. Apache's error log says

File does not exist: /var/www/ox6/plugins/com.openexchange.passwordchange

That's true, there is no such file. Does that mean users can't change their password on their own? Or did I miss something?

So finally here comes my question:
Do I have the right approach? Which version/edition should I get?
The debs seem to perform good but also seem to be incomplete compared to the express edition. The community installer is discontinued. Building from source is a nightmare to me.

Thanks in advance
Sven

P.S.: Awesome work, the client gui 'feels' very much like a desktop application. And thanks for sharing open-xchange with the community.

[Martin Heiland]

Hi Sven,

1. The Admin GUI is part of OX Express and also freely available via CVS
2. The Installer script builds the OX Express flavor with some configuration stuff
3. The packages available are the OX Server flavor, for integration into existing systems, so no out-of-the-box stuff

All those flavors are built upon a shared code basis which is public available via CVS
completely. The only things that are missing at the public CVS are proprietary
implementations for customers (auth mechanisms, mail backend etc.). Those hold
confidential data which should not be public and additionally no one except the customer
really needs those implementations.

I understand that the different versions, editions etc. may be confusing, but at the end, it's
the same software. Express is a little bit more different because it contains out-of-the-box
configuration stuff which is normally done by the administrator. Those features may be
highly appreciated for some people who like to set up and run a groupware server with no
configuration effort, but it is a single-platform solution for Ubuntu 6.06 which is what we
bundle at the commercial product. But, managing the whole operating system, software
stack and flawless integration is just beyond the scope of a groupware solution. We think
we're best in building a groupware, other people/companies are great in building system
administration and automation tools, Parallels for example.

The packages are the solution for the build from scratch issue and that's very common, most
free software is available as packages for administrators as well as CVS access for
developers, that's what we also do. If you're able to do the configuration stuff for
mailserver/databases by your own, the packages should be fine. There is no need to set up
a new mailserver, if you're already running one you could just use the accounts on that
machine.

The issue with File does not exist: /var/www/ox6/plugins/com.openexchange.passwordchange
simply means that this plugin is not yet finished, Open-Xchange Server 6.5 has gone public
beta on 1st of July and we're still working on some features. Changing the password via
the user UI will be one feature thats currently missing.

Hope that helps

[svensen]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for giving me some insight. So if I get it right is basically:

OX:EE == Community Edition == cvs branch bf_6_4

cvs != Hosting Edition ~= Server Edition beta

Server Edition beta == public packages available from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/server:/OX:/

is cvs bf_6_4 now discontinued?

That was quite confusing to me because the community installer wiki was directly pointing to the beta packages, so one could think those were packages for installing some sort of "community" edition.

Will the packages still be available and updated if version 6.5 goes GA?

Sorry for pestering you with questions but there seems to be little information elsewhere

Sven

[Martin Heiland]

Hi Sven,

Hosting Edition SP3, Express Edition = CVS bf_6_4
Hosting Edition SP4, Server Edition = CVS HEAD (bf_6_5 soon)

The CVS bf_6_4 branch is a "Bugfix" Branch, meaning that it's maintained but only bugs with
existing products are fixed, no new features or big changes are added here. The Head is the
most current version of the software, that will be bf_6_5 when it's feature complete.
The term "Community Edition" may be a bit misleading, there is no special crippled release of
the Open-Xchange sources, technically you get the same code like available at the EE/HE/SE
sources/packages. There are two repositories to get the latest packages:
http://software.open-xchange.com/ for HE/SE Releases (updated after testing is done)
and
http://download.opensuse.org/reposit.../OX:/snapshot/ for daily snapshots, untested

All packages will be updated after the GA release, but maybe less frequent because we've release cycles.

Greetings

[svensen]

Martin,

thanks, now I get it....