"exchange server" for Linux

[Les Mikesell]

On Thu, 2005-09-29 at 12:05, Craig White wrote:

> > > Then there are open source projects that don't wish to get locked into
> > > just Outlook clients but want to support open standards such as ical,
> > > webdav, etc.
> > 
> > Do any of these provide a system where the emailed notification or
> > change affects the recipient's calendar schedule (and related alarms)
> > even if he hasn't opened the email yet?  If you are counting on the
> > alerts from the system, they have to update in close to real time.
> ----
> I haven't a clue which ones might or might not. I would guess that some
> do (Kolab comes to mind). I wouldn't know though. My guess is that you
> would find varying features, integration, clients.
> 
> Does Exchange server support open standards to allow other clients?

You can do email with about any imap client.  Exchange2000 and
up has some documented web connector access that Evolution is
able to use, but my company is still using version 5 so I keep
a windows laptop on my desk just for outlook and an occasional
visio drawing, even though I do most email on my Linux desktop
using evolution with an imap connection.  

> At this point in time, no workgroup software, open source or proprietary
> has all of the bases covered.

If you are going to do calendar/scheduling at all, you need to
make the changes happen quickly and automatically.  The reason
it's difficult/impossible for standards-based stuff is that
the RFC's only cover wire-level transmission format, not how
things are stored or how they interact with each other.  So,
there are some standards for how a calendar event would be
transmitted, and there are standards for how things like that
are attached to email messages, but there aren't any for
how a mail server or agent interacts with a calendar or notification
service.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com