other client support

[coluche]

Hi,

I really like OpenXchange but I am not interested by Outlook support. We already tacked 2 times OXEE for clients and want to give them access to there calendar using an other program than Outlook or in our case the webaccess.

One of the client is using MacOSX (ical, mail and contact) and the other is using Thunderbird with Lightning. It would be great if OpenXchange can support this clients using for example a OXtender that people will receive with OXEE like the Outlook OXtender.

I understand that it's bad for OpenXchange corporation if all products can connect without problems to the community version of OX but they must also understand that many people using or selling OX want to use other clients than Outlook. We will still buy OXEE because it's not so much expensive for support and a good upgrade system.

[coluche]

No posibility to obtain an official position from OX?

[Martin Heiland]

Hi,

i work at OX but i am not the right person to give a company official statement, anyway this is my personal statement.

OX:EE and all other products allow access to the ical and vcard interface, those interfaces are triggered by accessing http://ox-server/servlet/webdav.ical and webdav.vcard
I already mentioned that there are some 3rd party clients having problems with the generated output or when uploading data. This is not by intention and i think this interfaces require some care and enhancement.

Open-Xchange has documented at least two very stable interfaces to the groupware server (http api and oxwebdav) which are used by the AJAX GUI and the Outlook OXtender. If there would be a ambition to keep the server locked for 3rd party stuff we would surely not publish those interfaces - but we do so and are happy if anybody uses those interfaces. Just one Example besides the OX AJAX GUI is the Funambol connector which also uses the HTTP API and is built by the API specification at the wiki.

The OX Outlook connector part is another thing. We have some hosting providers which offer the OX Hosting Edition and provide the Outlook OXtender to their customers covered by a monthly fee. They depend on the "upsell" possibility when providing the Outlook connector to their customers. If any OX:EE OXtender would be able to use their offering it would be a financial loss for them. The Community Edition is based on the Hosting Edition and contains some parts from OX:EE (The Admin Interface for example) which leads to the fact that OX:EE OXtenders do not work against the Community Edition. Anyway - this is more a market constraint than a intended crippling of the software. The Outlook Connector is no Open-Source nor free software (like free beer).

Greetings

[coluche]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

OX:EE and all other products allow access to the ical and vcard interface, those interfaces are triggered by accessing http://ox-server/servlet/webdav.ical and webdav.vcard
I already mentioned that there are some 3rd party clients having problems with the generated output or when uploading data. This is not by intention and i think this interfaces require some care and enhancement.

OK. Do you know if there is some timeline on this bug to be resolved?

Open-Xchange has documented at least two very stable interfaces to the groupware server (http api and oxwebdav) which are used by the AJAX GUI and the Outlook OXtender. If there would be a ambition to keep the server locked for 3rd party stuff we would surely not publish those interfaces - but we do so and are happy if anybody uses those interfaces. Just one Example besides the OX AJAX GUI is the Funambol connector which also uses the HTTP API and is built by the API specification at the wiki.

OK, If I would have some XUL (or other language) knowledge I will create (or modify) an add-in for thunderbird. But it's not the case, ... I will be very happy to make some beta-testing or documentation if someone create the add-in but I can't create it, ...

[Rene Stach]

OK. Do you know if there is some timeline on this bug to be resolved?

First of all, I think most problems happen because different clients and servers handle specific issues (like recurring appointments and their exceptions) in different ways. Second, we are currently discussion internally, what we'll do about this interface: Build in fixes for specific clients, change to the CalDAV standard or anything else.

Results won't be available soon but we have this on our list.

René