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List:       kde-pim
Subject:    Re: [Kde-pim] [RFC]: KDE GroupWare solution
From:       Mike Pilone <mpilone () slac ! com>
Date:       2002-06-17 13:44:23
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On Saturday 15 June 2002 08:07 pm, Cornelius Schumacher wrote:
> I don't think that we are "sticking" to the peer-to-peer approach. If
> there is a server available which is accepted and has documented
> interfaces we will add support for it. I will not repeat that writing a
> server is out of the scope of KDE ;-)
>
> Adding support for a calendar server isn't that difficult. I have done
> it myself in a simple way for a proprietary server solution. But the
> benefit isn't very big. My personal opinion is that the role of a
> server for calendaring is overrated, but you can prove me wrong.
> Patches are welcome ;-)

I think the huge success of Exchange server proves all of us wrong. Whether 
we think it is the correct approach or not doesn't matter when the demand 
of the office (usually the computer illiterate manager) is for simple group 
scheduling. This isn't an argument for what is the best solution to the 
problem or what is the coolest way to do something, but rather asking what 
the users want. There is no doubt in my mind that users (especially 
business) want group scheduling (and workflow).

In the past I have worked in offices that used 100% outlook/exchange 
solutions and the office would completely fall apart without it. Like it or 
not, people do not want a 15 page tutorial on how to get p2p group 
scheduling involving 4 different applications. They want to start the 
application, create an appointment, invite someone from their addressbook, 
be told if the person is available, and be done with it. This is the task 
that a secratary used to perform and the old 'schedule a meeting by the 
coffee machine' was actually 'schedule a call between our secrataries so 
they can determine a time and place that is good for both of us'. We have 
the task of replicating that in software (now that all the high-ups have 
layed off all our secrataries). My current office has selected to use 
WebCalendar (a php based server solution) to provide this functionality 
because of its ability to do realtime conflict checking and calendar 
layering. Something I believe kde-pim still cannot do.

I definately agree with Cornelius that writing a server is beyond the scope 
of KDE, however I think we could get away with using existing servers as 
others have suggested. vCard and iCal would both nicely fit into an LDAP or 
SQL database. Email is just fine on Pop3 or IMAP. It is true that we may 
have to define a schema or two, but that is easy since we have vCard and 
iCal to base it on. I would vote that we finish up for 3.1, then put some 
time into thinking of how to expand/integrate the pim libraries for both 
better inter-operation and plugable backends. Then spend the time from 3.1 
-> 4.0 99% focused on implementing real server based pim support and 
scalability (the other 1% is on bug fixing 3.1) and not look at adding any 
new features until we get it implemented correctly. Also, making sure that 
all the applications correctly use these APIs. Ideally this pluggable 
support would let us also support the Exchange plugins better and actually 
be a valid contender to Evolution. Note that I didn't mention integrating 
the apps to an Outlook application, but I am not against the idea (assuming 
we still support the loading of parts). A single 'Use PIM server' option in 
kcontrol would transparently enable all the groupware type things we want 
and need.

I think getting these libraries and APIs nailed down will make things so 
much easier in the long run. It appears that a majority of our effort is in 
playing catch-up with ourselves as the APIs constantly change (KPilot can 
confirm this over the past 3 years).

Just my 2 cents.

-mike

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