We would be more than happy to work with Alessio and the NethServer team to consolidate energies. This same invitation goes out to any who are in this space. It is true that we have a lot of common functions. Our team is intimately familiar with their architecture and we've already identified several areas where we can leverage some of their key architecture pieces into our methods to produce a sum greater than the parts.

I think the example set my CentOS and RHEL is that we have more in common than we have in differences and that together we can all reach the common goals that we have. We welcome the opportunity to work together. Ultimately, this will be a win for everyone! Exciting things in store for all of us ;)

On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 9:11 AM, Jim Perrin <jperrin@centos.org> wrote:

On 01/10/2014 05:50 AM, Alessio Fattorini wrote:
> Hello everybody,
> my name is Alessio Fattorini and I'm part of a team of FLOSS developers
> that is working on a project named  NethServer. We’d like to share with
> you our experience and our ideas for the future developments.
> You could think of NethServer as CentOS with some extra packages,
> particularly
> a powerful and extensible web interface that simplifies common
> administration tasks.
> NethServer is for the sysadmin who appreciates the effectiveness of a
> user interface which saves time compared to direct configuration file
> modification and for users who want to approach CentOS without having
> Linux skills.


The Clear folks have proposed a SIG/Variant as well that on the surface
sounds somewhat similar. Is there overlap here, where
cooperation/coordination between the two groups would be beneficial?


> We didn't reinvent the wheel, NethServer is a partial rewrite of the
> original SME Server code, focusing on maintainability, extensibility and
> standard compliance with CentOS.
> We think we achieved those goals with:
> * A dynamic, streamlined user-interface
> * Standard components, tested widespread configurations
> * Minimal differences with upstream (CentOS)
> * Easy installation
> * Simplified administration tasks
> * Use of templates and text-based db for configuration (configuration
> will always be consistent)
> * Built-in extensibility
>

Where does this code live currently? is it available via git or similar?

> NethServer architecture explicitly supports developers by making it easy
> to install and integrate additional software. We quickly added some
> pre-configured modules, installable with a “single click”, for example:
> LAMP framework
> Caching + filtering web proxy (with SSL filter)
> SOGo Groupware
> Mail Server with Antispam and Antivirus
> VPN (OpenVPN and IPsec/L2TP)
> Firewall (Shorewall)
> Intrusion detection (Snort)
> ownCloud


Are these packaged in rpm or handled via some other installation method?


> More informations could be found on the official project website:
> www.nethserver.it.
>
> As soon as we read about CentOS variants, we have developed the idea of
> releasing NethServer as a CentOS variant and we are thinking of a SME
> SIG, a group exploring the needs of small enterprises (we are based in
> Italy, where the vast majority of enterprises is really small).
> According to you, does NethServer meet the basic requirements?
>
> We’ll be at Brussels Dojo and FOSDEM and we'd love to discuss directly
> with you our ideas.
> Cheers,
> Alessio and the NethServer team


Certainly. Please stop by and we can discuss in a bit more detail.


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Jim Perrin
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