[CentOS] Re: Using CentOS as a file server on a win2K domain

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 01:53 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> That's only a factor on the availability side.  Often you have
> to just pick a time anyway and let the recipients deal with
> conflicts.  What I mean is that outlook will send meeting
> requests to email destinations on servers that don't sync
> and it goes into the recipient's personal calendar regardless.

Okay, then that's the e-mail attachements.  Because still, same concept,
scheduling is done by the client (Outlook) itself.  Whether Outlook
retrieves from a server store, or receives an attachment.

> Right, but personal calendars still work whether you share anything
> or not.

Correct.

> Outlook will do this too when used without an exchange server.  However
> different versions don't even interoperate with themselves.

EXACTOMUNDO!  Read up on Outlook Shared Folders and attachment format.
If you connect to a server store, at least the store enforces _some_
interoperability.  But not in the attachments.

That's why I don't even call it a "Proprietary Standard," but an
"Unmaintained Standard" (hence Hostageware).  Again, there is some
documentation out there on how different versions of Outlook vary from
vCalendar and don't even interoperate with themselves.

> The office2000 version has a bug in the mime format that is fixed in the
> xp/2003 versions but they don't work right with each other.

Ever since SR-1e for Outlook 98 broke Shared Folders, I _always_ use a
server store.  That's where the MAPI SP really helps "tame" Outlook.
Bynari's InsightConnector does the same for IMAP.

> Evolution works with these but it was too buggy to depend on back when
> I tried to use it that way.

???  To Evolution itself?  Or just Outlook?
Evolution does _true_ vCalendar, and I've _never_ gotten any other
e-mail client to read what it sends out.

> Hmmm, I think I was running some tnef->mime converter via procmail
> on my mail server when I had it working without exchange, but that
> was only needed when the outlook settings were wrong.  I haven't
> found a way to glue that functionality into evolution itself when
> pulling messages directly from an exchange server via imap.  I assume
> this is unnecessary when using exchange2000 and the evolution
> adapter.

Yes, because the connector lets Evolution just access the Exchange
server store.

> The email side is moderately standard.  I think even the tnef cruft is
> understood well enough if someone wanted to deal with those attachments.

TNEF is just an attachment format, not an actual, end-application usable
data format.  It's like XML, which is just a standards format, not an
actual, end-application usable data format.  You can decode TNEF, just
like XML, but can you understand the data format?

The problem is that Outlook does _not_ have a maintained Calendaring
attachment data format.

> The problem is that there aren't any great alternatives that combine
> the features of outlook/exchange and even if some are available now it
> is too late. 

???  Please stop saying that.  Honestly.  Or at least rephrase it:  

"The problem is:

A)  There is no Freedomware server looks like Exchange from the
standpoint of Outlook and transparently drops in without any client side
changes, and

B)  There is no Freedomware client that has to work with Outlook's
Shared Folder attachments which aren't even a proprietary standard and
have changed and seen incompatibility between different Outlook versions
itself."

Much better.

How you went from admitting that Outlook doesn't operate well with
itself to your above statement is beyond me.  This is what I'm talking
about when I say Linux people are sometimes Microsoft's best marketing
agents.  

> As I understand it, the evolution connector to exchange2000 uses the
> webmail interface under the covers so the web interface might even
> play a part here.

Hmmm, interesting.  So it act likes an Outlook Web Access (OWA) client?
I'll have to read up on the Ximian connector.  Novell opened it all up,
and there have been additional connectors in development.

> We're still on pre-2000 exchange

Then you don't need ADS!  Great!  Now's the time to switch!

> and its web interface sucks,

Every Exchange alternative (even the proprietary back-ends) have a rich,
integrated web client.  I personally like OpenGroupware.ORG (OGo)
because it's a totally open back-end with server-side scheduling --
including iCal, its own WebDAV (plus Evolution/Outlook connectors),
Palm.NET, web and its own XML-RPC (don't know any clients that use that
yet though).

The only issue with OGo is the initial installation.  It's not fun.

> so I don't know much about how the newer versions are supposed to work.

They use ADS' now instead of maintaining their own, internal X.500 DAP.

> Anyway, I consider it a feature that outlook adjusts calendar updates
> like the time of a conference call when the mail is received even if
> you don't open the message.

Server-side scheduling can do this for you too.
In fact, relying on client-side scheduling can be a coherency nightmare.

I'm not sure if I should discuss this further because everything I say
something, you turn it into almost a pro-Microsoft viewpoint, which is
quite the opposite.

-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                     b.j.smith at ieee.org 
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