New Project Formed: OpenGroupware.org, As SKYRiX Open Ssources its Groupware Server

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Jacqueline McNally writes
“July 10, 2003 – OpenGroupware.org (`OGo’) project announces its
formation and the release today to the worldwide open source
development community of its groupware server software. The software
provides the server components necessary for full office collaboration
with the OpenOffice.org suite and various other Linux and Windows
groupware clients. OGo software runs on Linux and Solaris (www.OpenGroupware.org)”

The OGo project is a fully independent open-source project, but will
inter-operate with the OpenOffice.org software and other similarly open
clients via open standards.

The OGo software is based initially on the contribution of the code
of SKYRiX 4.1 Groupware Server, a mature product that has been in
development for 7 years, and one of the earliest groupware products for
the Linux operating system. The contributor, SKYRIX Software AG, is
well known in Germany as a leader in Linux groupware (www.SKYRiX.com).

“We are extremely excited to form OpenGroupware.org and to
collaborate with OpenOffice.org to serve the open source community
worldwide,” said Jens Enders, president and CEO of SKYRIX Software AG.
“By configuring the OpenGroupware.org server together [after install]
with the OpenOffice.org office suite and other leading groupware
clients, our customers will be able to implement a comprehensive and
integrated collaboration environment wholly composed of free software.”

The OGo software provides document sharing capabilities for
OpenOffice.org documents and will enable users of MS Outlook
(97/2000/XP), Ximian Evolution, Mozilla Calendar, OOo Glow
(OpenOffice.org Groupware Project’s client product), Apple’s iCal and
other standards-based groupware clients to collaborate.

OGo software will enable users to share calendar, address book and
e-mail information; they can communicate via instant messaging, share
folders, exchange documents, track changes, share a whiteboard, and
browse the Web all at the same time — all upon open Internet standards
and without paying or managing cumbersome licensing fees.

Says Gary Frederick, Leader of the OpenOffice.org Groupware Project:
“Just to be perfectly clear, this is an MS Exchange replacement. OGo is
important because it’s the missing link in the open source software
stack. It’s the end of a decade-long effort to `map’ all the key
infrastructure and standard desktop applications to free software. OGo
offers users a free solution for collaboration and document management
that, despite being free of charge, will far surpass the quality and
level of collaboration found on Windows (through integration of MS
Office, Exchange Server and SharePoint). Today marks the completion of
`OpenStack’.”

Adds Stu Green, Managing Director of Open Source Professional
Services, “The release of OGo means the OpenOffice.org suite is ready
for the enterprise complete with full-featured and mature groupware
solutions. These capabilities once and for all show how free software
betters proprietary solutions that require licensing payments on both
the client and server sides. Also, OGo provides multiple file format
filters for creating, storing and sharing data in an open and flexible
fashion. It’s possible now to completely avoid proprietary file formats
and non-standard XML throughout the desktop stack and infrastructure.
Licensing fees and license management are gone. And with OOo + OGo, no
remote activation is required.” (www.OSPSnet.com)

OGo has extensive and broad support for XML based APIs:an XML-RPC
`Webservice’ API, support for SunONE XML based WCAP, support for
HTTPMail/MS Exchange-based WebDAV, and finally for iCalendar files in
XML notation (according to the xCal drafts). Given the XML based
storage format of OpenOffice.org the OGo document storage will be able
to perform feature rich team based collaboration and content
management. OGo uses a WebDAV-accessible relational database management
system to make document storage accessible from the OpenOffice.org
office suite.

OGo is licensed under the open source dual licenses, Lesser General
Public License (LGPL) and the General Public License (GPL). Libraries
and components are licensed under the terms of the LGPL and
applications are licensed under the GPL. For users, this means in part
that the OGo software can be used, improved and redistributed at no
cost. For developers, the licensing implications vary depending on the
type of code contribution that is contemplated.

If you would like to join OpenGroupware.org to contribute code,
development or marketing resources to the project, please contact
marketing@OpenGroupware.org.

About OpenGroupware.org

Mission: To create, as a community, the leading open source
groupware server to integrate with the leading open source office suite
products and all the leading groupware clients running across all major
platforms, and to provide access to all functionality and data through
open XML-based interfaces and APIs (www.OpenGroupware.org).

About SKYRiX

SKYRIX Software AG, the contributor of the OGo code, is a leading
developer of Linux based groupware solutions in Germany. The product
OGo is based on, SKYRiX 4.1 Groupware Server, is a mature solution
being in development for about seven years. OGo consists of about
600,000 lines of object oriented C code and about 100,000 lines of
reusable Web components (www.SKYRiX.com).

The original author of the OpenGroupware.org reference server
software was MDlink GmbH, founded as an Internet service provider (ISP)
in Germany in 1994. The company started development on the LSOffice
application server in about 1996 to extend it’s Internet offerings with
a powerful collaboration platform usable over the Internet. Some years
later LSOffice was renamed to SKYRiX 3 and finally in 2000 a separate
company, SKYRIX Software AG, was formed to concentrate on the further
development of the product.

About OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org is the home of the open source project and its
community of developers, users and marketers responsible for the
on-going development of the OpenOffice.org product. The mission of
OpenOffice.org is to create, as a community, the leading international
office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to
all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an
XML-based file format. OpenOffice.org 1.1 runs on FreeBDS, Windows
(98/2000/XP), Linux (x86 & PowerPC), Mac OS X and Solaris; while
ports for other operating systems and hardware platforms, including
IRIX, HP-UX, Tru64, Linux (Alpha), Linux (ARM), Linux (Itanium2) and
others, are in various stages of development. OpenOffice.org 1.1, soon
available in over 60 native languages, is written in C++ and has
documented API’s licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License
(LGPL) and Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL) open source
licenses. The founder and sponsor of the OpenOffice.org project is Sun
Microsystems, Inc. Sun markets an office suite based on the
OpenOffice.org code called StarOffice. Download OpenOffice.org 1.1 at www.openoffice.org.

About OpenOffice.org Glow Project

Glow is an innovative OpenOffice.org project to create a rich
full-featured and integrated groupware client for communication and
collaboration to complement the OpenOffice.org office suite. Glow is
written using Java which has enabled the rapid development and release
of the first internal milestone supporting core calendaring functions,
both online and offline. Contacts, mail, instant messaging; P2P and web
whiteboard features are planned. Glow is designed to integrate with and
complement OpenOffice.org but can also be used as a standalone
cross-platform application running everywhere that J2SE does (http://groupware.openoffice.org/glow/).

Links:

Evolution http://ximian.com/products/evolution/
OpenGroupware.org http://www.opengroupware.org/
OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice.org Groupware Project http://groupware.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice.org Glow http://groupware.openoffice.org/glow/
OSPS http://www.OSPSnet.com
Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/
MS Outlook http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/outannoy/
SKYRiX http://www.skyrix.com/en/products/index.xhtml
StarOffice http://www.sun.com/staroffice/
Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://www.sun.com/

MEDIA RELEASE CONTACTS:
Helge Hess
SKYRIX Software AG
helge.hess@opengroupware.org

Gary Frederick
OpenOffice.org Groupware Project
garyfreder@openoffice.org

Sam Hiser
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
swhiser@openoffice.org

PUBLICITY CONTACT:
Jacqueline McNally
Community Contact, Australia/New Zealand
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
Tel: +61 8 9474 3021 (GMT +0800)
Fax: +61 8 9474 3405
jacqueline@openoffice.org

Link: opengroupware.org

Category:

  • Open Source