Quality Open Source Calendaring / Scheduling?

Jim R. Wilson writes "In past jobs, I've used Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, Novell Groupwise, and Google Calendar for handling business appointments. I'm sorry to say it, but I have yet to see a rival to Microsoft's scheduling features. On Slashdot I have occasionally read rumblings that there are better open source email and calendaring solutions out there. Can anyone substantiate this claim? What are the OSS alternatives? Can any compete with Microsoft's resource scheduling?"

WebCalendar

[DaGoodBoy]

We use this: http://www.k5n.us/webcalendar.php [k5n.us]

Works well for our needs.

This is Slashdot.

[jellomizer]

Just because it is by microsoft people hate the product even if they never used it before. They will say Some Obscure Open Source tool is better even though they never really used the microsoft one... After so they just may realize that they are missing someting. That is the last thing they want to hear. It would be like someone from an other political party saying someone from the other party actually made a big difference and the world is better because of him/her. It just wont happen.

Re:Haven't found much

[Wicked187]

I believe the removal of Public Folders in Exchange 2007 is a result of integration with Sharepoint. The functionality is supposed to still exist, just outside of Exchange, itself. I haven't tried it out yet, as I do not have a 64-bit server to install on, but I do like a lot of the features in Sharepoint, and I can see how they would be better than Public Folders (and considering that Outlook pulls data in from Sharepoint, it should be fairly seamless from the user perspective).

Zimbra

[sg_oneill]

Zimbra pretty much does it all. The web client is top notch, and makes a perfectly fine outlook replacement (Yeah, I know. Just try it, seriously), and its got some serious scaling capacitys (Its used by some of the biggest ISPs around). Yahoo now owns it, so its got some name backing. The catch is the outlook compatible one ISNT so open source, but its pretty cheap.

Citadels pretty nice too, and Ignatius foobar is a cool guy, but its a pretty eccentric product. I think they've kinda been fucked around a bit with outlook compatibility, but I admit I havent checked in a long time.

I am waiting for a good calDAV server

[dominux]

in the mean time I am using webcalendar which works great. Lotus Domino runs on Linux and would be my preferred choice of proprietary solution, I am trying to get IBM to make Domino a CalDAV server, anyone who has an IBM rep is encouraged to beat them up about CalDAV support. www.bedework.org looks quite good now. Might have to re-evaluate that one.

Zimbra

[hackus]

http://www.zimbra.com/ [zimbra.com]

We are replacing all of our Exchange users and dumping exchange by the end of the year.

It is an open source free replacement for Exchange.

Very nice and integrates well with Sunbird (Thunderbird Calander).

-hack

Re:Compatibility

[forrestt]

How is that an assumption about your scheduling? It's an invitation to a meeting, if you can't make it or don't want to, you are free to decline the invitation or even just ignore it. But, it would be nice if your dentist could send you an appointment reminder with a link that would put it in your calendar so when your boss is wondering where you are he can look at the calendar (no, telling your boss has no effect on them knowing where you are when they want you). Or perhaps your friend could send you an email to go do something that would require you to take off early Friday and include a link to update your calendar. Or maybe some vendor could send you an invitation to meet them for lunch with multiple times for the event and you could pick one. Or maybe a customer needs to meet you to schedule a time they can call you so you send them a meeting invite, Or maybe even the people from SANS sending you an email after you register with a link to update your calendar to say you won't be at work for that week.

Being in your company has nothing to do with wanting information in your calendar, and you are the person that gets to decide if it is worth putting in the calendar or not.

Citadel is *the* solution

[IGnatius T Foobar]

You really want to check out Citadel [citadel.org]. It has a very comprehensive feature set -- not just calendars but also email, address books, message boards, instant messaging, access via all standard protocols plus a gorgeous ajax-style web user interface.

The best part about Citadel is that it is very easy to install. There's an automatic installer script right on the web site. No fuss, no muss, just enter the install command and watch it go. No tedious mucking about with integrating all of the pieces yourself, as the entire Citadel system is self-contained.

And the whole thing is GPL, unlike solutions such as Zimbra and Scalix which claim to be open source, but when you actually go there you find out that to get the full feature set you have to buy a commercial version. The Citadel project makes its very best work available to everyone on the same terms.

Re:Not really

[HermMunster]

Zimbra is INCREDIBLY COMPLEX TO INSTALL. It was sold to Yahoo who essentially is going to abandon all open source and take it out of that market. Do NOT trust Yahoo on this one.

Zimbra's programmers were daft. They would only make installs for certain releases of the OS and then they would get rude to those who were seeking support. They essentially created a product and abandoned those in the open source arena, and they don't care about you.

Their install requirements, their installer script, and their attitude is obnoxious at best.

Re:This is Slashdot.

[srussell]

Just because it is by microsoft people hate the product even if they never used it before.

I have to use Exchange at work every day. It sucks. My main gripes are:

• It doesn't integrate very well with anything but Outlook
• It often has problems with timezones and/or time changes. We get a week or two of screwed up scheduling twice a year, right around the daylight savings time change.
• Resource scheduling is just stupid. If you forget and add a room as a required participant instead of a resource, it doesn't get scheduled, and ends up double-booked. This happens to everybody, even people who have been using it for years.
• Sometimes it silently drops people from the invite list

That said, the free/busy tool is pretty decent, and the IMAP functionality is acceptable.

--- SER

gratification physiology

[epine]

Very common mantrafesto indeed. Apache, Linux, MySQL, Postgres, Firefox, and too many others to name were all yesterday's "next year's choice"-of-the-year choices, some of them more than once, but it so goes. The perceptual problem is premature nomination. Motto of the premature: try, try, again. Little known fact (IIRC): for the exponential distribution, which has maximum entropy (hence corresponds to the best assumption with no information), your expected waiting time at any point is equal to the length of time you have already waited. Dang, the quality of the Wikipedia article on the exponential distribution is too high and exceeds my ability to parse in under three minutes. Little know fact: quality is inconvenient. Perhaps that explains why its imminence is more celebrated than its arrival. Given your nick, I suspect you knew this already.

Re:Haven't found much - Actually...

[bmzf]

Actually, yes... perhaps. For whatever reason, Novell decided to let go of the Hula project but, being open source, others took the project on and it's alive (although it seems to be progressing forward slowly due to lack of man power). It's called Bongo [bongo-project.org], and it looks pretty nice. Go check it out.

Re:CalDav

[wodgy7]

CalDAV is much more flexible than just downloading and publishing iCalendars. It's a complete groupware server. For instance, your secretary can make changes to your calendar if you authorize her to, you get free/busy time slot viewing/finding for team members, everyone in a group can schedule a fixed resource like a meeting room, etc. Most of this is difficult with just iCalendars, which are fundamentally just files.

Re:Haven't found much

[jamshid]

This is a great article about the Chandler saga: http://www.gamearchitect.net/Articles/SoftwareIsHard.html [gamearchitect.net]. It's the Mitch Kapor financed Exchange killer. So many smart people, so many good intentions, but 7 years later it's barely beta.

I've always thought really smart, hard working people are the biggest problem with software -- they tend to make things that only really smart, hard working people can use, fix, and extend.

Re:no

[sammyo]

Exactly, there's even a book about the biggest most heavily funded effort: Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software [dreamingincode.com] but download it [chandlerproject.org] and try it out [chandlerproject.org]!

Re:Power Failure Resistant:

[OptimusPaul]

Mod parent up! Serious, nothing beats the Pen and Paper, except maybe the pencil and paper. Once they find a simple way to replicate it we will be set.

YES

[corigo]

Zimbra actually beats Outlook and Exchange server hands down. The first solution I have seen to do so. Still waiting for a completed off-line client though. Web based email and calendaring the surpases Exchange is a great start though!