Preannounce: Kroupware Project started

[Matthias Kalle Dalheimer]

On Wednesday 11 September 2002 09.10, Don Sanders wrote:
> Hi Kalle,
>
> How does this project relate to the changes I am working on in the
> KMail  make_it_cool branch?
>
> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kmail&m=103165356723524&w=2
>
> The most important change I'm working on is better kde-pim, KMail
> integration and I hope that you can benefit from those changes.
>
> This branch is development focussed rather than politically focussed,
> with the two following exceptions.
>
> I would like to move forward with my donate to a bug idea
>
> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=102974311107311&w=2
>
> and I would like to meet all the developers that I clsoely work with
> and sit down and talk to them. Not immediately but I want to aim for
> once every three years.
>
> Kalle I was aware that the German government was interested in
> sponsoring such a project as kroupware before I began working on the
> make_it_cool.
>
> At the stage I learned about the groupware project I had already
> relocated to Australia and had begun serious work on fixing
> architectural problems like my independent commands patch, and
> workingon vFolder support. In fact contrary to popular opinion my
> primary focus when working with KMail has for a long been fixing
> architectural problems but sometimes it takes a long time to realize
> what exactly the architectural problems are, and even longer to work
> out how best to solve them.
>
> Kalle, I like you, I want us to be friends, a very real reason why I'm
> working on these changes is that I hope that they can help you and
> Klarälvdalens Datakonsult. I want to see your company achieve every
> possible success.
>
> Now I do feel serious grief about the way my return to active KMail
> development has been received:
>
> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kmail&m=103165950728283&w=2
>
> But I want you to know that a large part of my motivation for working
> on make_it_cool is to help you, **I want to help you Kalle**.
>
> Given that I have been up front about my political ambitions do you
> think we will be able to work together in a mutually beneficial way?
>
> Your friend and admirer,
> Don Sanders

Hi Don, 

thanks for your heartwarming words!

I will have to leave many of the actual technical answers to Karl-Heinz, Bo 
and Steffen, since they are busy with the KMail side, while I will mainly be 
on the KOrganizer side of this project. But as a general note, I don't think 
that we will get around having three branches right now:

HEAD: stabilizes towards KDE 3.1
make_it_cool: longer-term architectural changes
kroupware_branch: only as many architectural changes as are necessary to meet 
our project objectives; drop-dead deadline on Oct. 15

But of course I hope that we can integrate the branches as soon as possible; 
an outline of how this can be done is contained in my answer to Zack's email 
(sorry, I am not as virtuous with message references...).

And, of course, if we need an architectural change for Kroupware that you have 
already achieved in make_it_cool, we would be stupid to reinvent the wheel; 
we'll certainly want to use your code then. And likewise, we would be very 
glad if you can make use of anything we do. (The more we take from each 
other, the higher the hopes that the three branches will converge again.) 
But, as I said, how this is actually done is something I will have to leave 
to my colleagues to work out. (Unlike Dilbert's pointy-haired boss, I know 
when to get out of the way of my employees :-)) Karl-Heinz 
<mailto:khz at klaralvdalens-datakonsult.se> is currently working on the KParts 
integration, Bo <mailto:bo at klaralvdalens-datakonsult.se> and Steffen 
<mailto:steffen at klaralvdalens-datakonsult.se> are working on offline IMAP 
support. These two areas are probably the biggest architectural changes we 
have to work on. Steffen is also the project leader for the client side of 
Kroupware. The server side is led by Martin Konold of long-term KDE fame 
<mailto:konold at erfrakon.de>, the project as a whole by Bernhard Reiter of 
Ägypten fame <bernhard.reiter at intevation.de>.

Thanks,

Kalle


-- 
Matthias Kalle Dalheimer
President&CEO/VD
Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB
Platform-independent software solutions