[Owncloud] Email handling in ownCloud

[Advrk Aplmrkt]

On 7 November 2011 07:51, Thomas Müller <thomas.mueller at tmit.eu> wrote:
>
> Am Montag, den 07.11.2011 um 13:10 schrieb Frank Karlitschek:
>> On 07.11.2011, at 12:33, Advrk Aplmrkt wrote:
>>
>> > On 7 November 2011 05:15, Frank Karlitschek <karlitschek at kde.org> wrote:
>> >> Hi Thomas,
>> >>
>> >> having a full fledged email server in ownCloud is not an option at the moment because it requires an SMTP daemon, spam filtering, an imap server, dns configuration and more which is not easily doable for normal users.
>> >
>> > Hello,
>> > I've been trying Citadel groupware server
>> > (http://www.citadel.org/doku.php). It is a complete, well-established,
>> > fully GPL'ed, email server that's extremely easy to setup (it has an
>> > automated install script).
>> > I might be hard to bundle a Citadel server as part of ownCloud, but
>> > perhaps some integration could be developed so that the two work well
>> > together?
>>
>> Absolutely. It would be cool to integrate different Groupware solutions into the ownCloud webinterface.
>> I already started a simple proof of concept integration for Kolab.
>> https://gitorious.org/owncloud/apps/trees/master/kolab
>>
>> Cheers
>> Frank
>>
>> Frank Karlitschek
>> karlitschek at kde.org
>
> I totally disagree on that - sorry! ;-)
>
> First of all it feels odd!
>
> Second any groupware out there offers calendar, contacts and file management - why did
> ownCloud implement that - but not the mailing stuff?
>
> All these groupware solutions mainly rely on other components for emailing (CourierIMAP, PostFix, spamassassin ......) and
> ship scripts for (almost) automated installation. At least this in my experience with GroupOffice.
> ownCloud could deliver such scripts as well - but that's now what I want to have!
>
> I want all my data stored within my cloud! And this - most of all - includes my emails as well!
> For sure integration of the email client with contacts and calendars must work smooth as well.
>
> I'd like to see ownCloud become my private data vacuum clean - sucking it all in! ;-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Thomas

I agree with your disagreement in that it may seem odd. :p
But, I think ultimately it would be the most awesome if ownCloud could
provide its users with the flexibility to:

(1) Integrate with other groupware systems such as Kolab or Citadel to
gain email functionality. This can be done by providing plugins to
ownCloud for integrating with other groupwares.

OR

(2) Using email functionality that comes with ownCloud.

If ownCloud can provide *both* (1) and (2), then that's a huge win for
flexibility. For instance, some users could "add" ownCloud to their
existing server infrastructure, while other users would use ownCloud's
builtin services to start a whole new groupware server. This would be
a killer feature of ownCloud that makes it stand out from other
groupwares, and potentially welcome swathes of new users!

Unfortunately I have almost no programming experience, but would love
to help in any way possible to help realise (1) and (2).