[NBLUG/talk] OpenGroupware.org: SKYRiX OPEN SOURCES ITS GROUPWARE SERVER (fwd)

Andru Luvisi luvisi at andru.sonoma.edu
Thu Jul 10 13:48:01 PDT 2003


Now THIS is cool!

Andru
--
Andru Luvisi, Programmer/Analyst

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 19:17:12 +0800
From: Jacqueline McNally <jacqueline at decisions-and-designs.com.au>
Reply-To: announce at openoffice.org
To: announce at openoffice.org
Subject: [ooo-announce] OpenGroupware.org: SKYRiX OPEN SOURCES ITS
    GROUPWARE SERVER

MEDIA RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW PROJECT FORMED: OpenGroupware.org,
AS SKYRiX OPEN SOURCES ITS GROUPWARE SERVER

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 at 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 http://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 at opengroupware.org

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

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


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