I got the impression after attending a LinuxCon session that Exchange 2007 support in Evolution was a solved problem in SUSE. Is the same true in openSUSE 11.3? What packages do I need to install to enable Exchange email/calendar/contact sync in Evolution? And does it depend on IMAP? Thanks.
I’m wondering why people are not asking Microsoft this question. The ball sits firmly in their court if you ask me.
caf4926 wrote:
> I’m wondering why people are not asking Microsoft this question. The
> ball sits firmly in their court if you ask me.
If that was the answer we’d never have SAMBA.
I don’t expect MS to write Linux programs. The EU has forced them to
cough up some of the specs for compatibility - not sure where the
Exchange RPCs fit into the scheme of things, but if they’re documented
there’s no reason the Linux community can’t have written clients.
Connectors exist but some are a ‘bring money’ proposition…
…Kevin
Kevin Miller
Juneau, Alaska
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
In a recent poll, seven out of ten hard drives preferred Linux.
If the documentation is any good. It seems MS does not know how to document API’s.
On 2010-08-13 22:06, gogalthorp wrote:
>
> If the documentation is any good. It seems MS does not know how to
> document API’s.
When they want, yes, they do it very well.
I have a book documenting MsDOS api, and it is real good. Expensive book.
And another one about windows 3, by somebody else, also good stuff. The ones made by Microsoft were
too expensive for me.
Newer versions I don’t have, I switched to linux.
If a MS API is not well documented, is because they simply do not want to.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))
MSDOS docs used to ship with the DOS disks. LOL I have several. They seem prettify complete except for the secret hidden API’s lol Now you are lucky to get a restore disk with the hardware.
I have only limited experience with using Evolution to connect to our Exchange 2003 server a year ago. Given Novell’s and MS’s ‘collaborative solutions’ replationship , I would have expected better MAPI support for Exchange 2007
Interesting Ubnuntu thread on the subject.
These are interesting too:
I haven’t got a need for it, but I saw an interesting project on Sourceforge recently:
DavMail POP/IMAP/SMTP/Caldav/Carddav/LDAP Exchange Gateway
Perhaps this is another way to get connected to proprietary Exchange.
On 2010-08-14 00:06, gogalthorp wrote:
>
> MSDOS docs used to ship with the DOS disks. LOL I have several. They
> seem prettify complete except for the secret hidden API’s lol Now you
> are lucky to get a restore disk with the hardware.
That’s not the api documentation, or thechnical reference manual as the called it. This was
expensive, never freely given. These things often come with a non disclosure agreement, so that if
you write a program using it you can not redistribute some source files you got - headers and such.
Which means that it is possible that people that have this api can not write GPL programs with it.
It could explain why some of the tools to connect to exchange servers are proprietary, too.
Just a random thought at 3 AM 
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))
These things often come with a non disclosure agreement, so that if
you write a program using it you can not redistribute some source files you got - headers and such.
Which means that it is possible that people that have this api can not write GPL programs with it.
It could explain why some of the tools to connect to exchange servers are proprietary, too.
I wonder how the samba or DavMail developers cope without potential legal issues? Why has Exchange support been so difficult by comaparison?
On 2010-08-14 04:06, deano ferrari wrote:
>
>> These things often come with a non disclosure agreement, so that if
>> you write a program using it you can not redistribute some source files
>> you got - headers and such.
>> Which means that it is possible that people that have this api can not
>> write GPL programs with it.
>>
>> It could explain why some of the tools to connect to exchange servers
>> are proprietary, too.
>
> I wonder how the samba or DavMail developers cope without potential
> legal issues? Why has Exchange support been so difficult by comaparison?
It depends on how interested the Microsoft guys are at interoperability, an whether they (our side)
have used reverse engineering.
If you reverse engineer the API, without having access to it, you are safe, I understand. of course,
it is less reliable. You could not have contemplated circumstances that did not happen when you
reverse engineered it, that make your software fail later… it is difficult.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))
Guys, please don’t hijack my thread for Microsoft bashing. It doesn’t help answer the question. (Disappointing that a forum administrator started this diversion.)
Back to the topic: I currently use DavMail to connect Thunderbird/Lightning to an Exchange 2007 server, although Lightning still has some bugs, so I wanted to try Evolution. I was hoping it had native support for Exchange 2007, but I guess not. I’ll give DavMail a try with it and let you know how it goes.
rhasselbaum wrote:
> Back to the topic: I currently use DavMail to connect
> Thunderbird/Lightning to an Exchange 2007 server, although Lightning
> still has some bugs, so I wanted to try Evolution. I was hoping it had
> native support for Exchange 2007, but I guess not. I’ll give DavMail a
> try with it and let you know how it goes.
>
>
I am also one of the persons with the “pleasure” to connect to an exchange
server for my job.
Bashing is here really the wrong thing. I for example cannot influence our
system administration to move their mail system to something else.
The imap access from evolution to the mails in exchange works in an
acceptable way but I also hoped for a mapi connector to get easy access to
the shared company calendars. Before they updated to exchange 2007 it worked
in an acceptable way with the plugin.
I think everybody here knows that all this originates in the microsoft
policy to keep the protocols and api more or less secret and that the linux
world can only try to reverse engineer.
But a question about the progress cannot be answered with “ask microsoft”.
This is counter productive.
One has to see it from another point of view:
I am happy enough that I am at all allowed to use linux for my work and that
I am not forced by company policy to use ms windows (we are only 4 linux
people in a company with about 20 employees and about 100 associated
freelancers). If we linux users in the company now come and say remove
everything which does not interact with our system the result would be
“don’t use it - use windows with outlook”. Would be a big success?
@rhasselbaum:
I am interested in your results with DavMail, I think I will find time to
try and look at it in a week or so, if you can report any experiences
earlier, I would be pleased to read them. Thank you.
Yes, the DavMail option looks promising. I’m investigating it now.
I have been using DavMail with Opera mail client for several months, and I am very pleased with it.
I actually prefer this method to connecting the exchange server with Outlook, because my school only provides 100mb for my mailbox and the space limitation is sometimes very annoying with the exchange server. (I have keep archiving my mailbox and stuff)
With DavMail it works as if you connect to a pop3 server. I don’t have to worry about the mailbox space, much simpler. DavMail have been just working without any problems until now.
-Joon
Thanks for sharing your experience. Nice to know it works well for you.
Well, I have DavMail working with Evolution mail and calendar. No luck syncing the address book with the corporate directory, though. And unfortunately, Evolution still has an annoying habit of messing with the format of messages when you reply to them. So I guess I am sticking with Thunderbird and Lightning for the time being.
Check out the Evolution-MAPI project. The repo is available at GNOME:Evolution:mapi
There is not a one-click (that I can find) for 11.3, but I have had good luck with the factory install (knocking on a lot of wood); Evolution-MAPI One-Click Installer (Factory)
I have been using it for a while. The only thing I can’t get to from Evolution is my company’s public folders (we keep a shared calendar). If you are only using the basic groupware stuff (mail, calendar, contacts/address book, tasks) then it works really well.
Regards,
Frank
This worked for me! That repo seems to be good for 11.3 now. Thanks for posting!
Whoops. Now that we are at 11.4 now, Evolution is a newer build and this is broken again. Awww.