[CLUE-Tech] [Fwd: [whiteboard-groupware] Introduction (plus phgpGroupWare as a solution)]

[Kevin Cullis]

Thought this might be of interest to some techies at CLUE.

Kevin

"Dan Kuykendall (Seek3r)" wrote:
> 
> Hello I am Seek3r (aka Dan Kuykendall) and I am the phpGroupWare
> (http://www.phpgroupware.org) project leader and the guy that started up
> the OGS (Open Groupware Standard) Project (http://www.ogsproject.org).
> 
> The OGS Project is basicly the same thing you guys are doing. So Im
> willing to just let OGS die and combine forces, because I think that the
> community and the world need an open groupware solution.
> 
> I also think that phpGroupWare will be an ideal server solution to start
> with. Let me explain the OGS plans and please understand that I havent
> had time to catch up on all the mailing list archives yet (will do so
> tonight). And please look at http://www.ogsproject.org for some diagrams
> that help give you a picture of how we think this can work... take the
> drafts with a grain of salt... they are just some inital concepts...
> 
> OK, first off I think we are all best servers by an xml based
> solution... something using XML-RPC and/or SOAP. Its fairly easy to
> provide both in most cases. This gives us the ability to have dedicated
> servers, ones that run via some apache module, from PHP, JAVA or
> whatever... Its also platform and language agnostic which will provide
> greater possibility for a wide acceptance.
> 
> The key is to define the functions/calls, variables and return value
> formats and such. Then document all of this as completely as possible.
> This will allow any number of server and client implementations to by
> built ala IMAP, or any of the other protcols that have made the NET what
> it is today.
> 
> So basicly the client and server uses SOAP or XML-RPC to talk to each
> other for sending/recieving the data, and to execute routines.
> 
> If your following this far, let me explain how phpgroupWare fits into
> the picture. phpGroupWare is a massive codebase of groupware services.
> Yes yes, I know your thinking its just a web based groupware suite...
> but that is where you are wrong. Its a collection of services, which at
> this point only has an http interface. I am working like a dog to
> correct that and build both SOAP and XML-RPC interfaces to the services.
> To do this requires some modifcations to the style of the code, and
> these changes are already underway, basicly seperating ALL the business
> objects with the display objects. With some interest by you guys, this
> code changes would become top priority so that we can provide you with a
> rapid test implementation. We could have almost all of our apps
> providing SOAP and XML-RPC interfaces in a matter of months, with some
> smaller ones ready in a couple weeks to start the inital testing with.
> 
> What phpGroupWare offers as far as services:
> Msg/Email: Basicly abstracts the datastore so that the email server can
> be IMAP, POP3, POP3+SQL (for folders, or ever some custom one, all using
> the one defined interface.
> Todo, and Notes: basic stuff... currently phpgroupware uses sql for this
> Calendar: Data is stored in SQL using a xml-ized libmcal interface. It
> is VERY close to fully supporting the Vcal format as well (99% done).
> Contacts: Stores data in SQL or LDAP and has vCard support
> Accounts: Stores data in SQL, LDAP or in the Contacts datastore. Handles
> group memberships and other basic account needs
> ACL (Access Control List): Offers very flexible security services
> Authentication: Authentication can be against a SQL table, LDAP,
> IMAP/POP3 or HTTP_AUTH. Additional auth classes are a simple process
> 
> We also have classes for storing preferences, applications rights and
> other such needs.
> 
> Im not sure all of the details that would be required for storing on the
> server (such as prefs) but we can offer the interfaces to these classes.
> 
> Another advantage to phpGroupWare is taht there is the web interface to
> it. This allows for users to use both the local client, which many would
> prefer and the web interface when on the road or somewhere that the
> local client is not installed. It also makes it easy for developers to
> test the client side code and be able to load up the web interface to
> make sure the local client is displaying all that it should...
> 
> Not to mention that the phpGroupWare project has some experience with
> this and has a very active and exciting team together. We have the code,
> the people and the drive... what we need is a project like yours to work
> with us. Everyone will benefit, and I believe we will be doing this the
> *right way*. Dont forget... if we can get this going... we can possibly
> beat Microsoft to the punch and offer what amounts to a GroupWare .NET
> before they do ;-p
> 
> I await your comments!
> 
> Seek3r
> 
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