Submitted by In a posting to the Hula mailing list, Novell has stated that it is no longer providing full-time developers to work on Hula. Hula was unleashed in February 2005 to much fanfare. Things seem to have been quite recently, despite the news that iFolder and Hula would be combined into something called Maui.
This probably has nothing to do with the Novell/MS deal. Hula is not a competitor to Exchange. Novell’s own GroupWise is. Hula was derived from NetMail, which itself was derived from Novell’s web access client for GroupWise.
There was not much in the way of activity concerning Hula. Novell has plenty of other projects, both open and closed, which need developer talent. There are only so many things any software company can and should work on at a time.
But, since Hula is open source, someone motivated enough can pick up the flag and keep on running with it.
hula has been more or less dead for some time. this post bring not the end for hula, but a new restart.
There is some talk in the mailing lists, because hula is a great piece of software that created a not that small community.
visit http://www.hula-project.org.
Also, if you are a python or a C developer, please add to a great project.
David camp was the lead developer of hula. Once he left novell, it was obvious it was dead:
http://campd.org/?p=27
Now that Hula is in limbo, what options are left? I’ve been using Sun’s Java comms suite, but they recently changed licensing back to a 1000 minimum seat license, and that is totally un-doable for me, when I only need 5. Taking it up with Sun hasn’t gotten anywhere, they don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about it.
So, what alternatives are there? Outlook/Exchange is out for me, no Windows machines. Need everything to be accessible from the web, or via a mail client/calendar client.
Hope Hula pulls through this ok, but I need to investigate my options.
It’s kind of scary to see support added/dropped on a whim.
try desknow at http://www.desknow.com
As for Hula, sad to see this happening to it and I hope someone will really take over and make it into something really powerful.
So, what alternatives are there? Outlook/Exchange is out for me, no Windows machines. Need everything to be accessible from the web, or via a mail client/calendar client.
You can go with Netmail which is what Hula was based off of in the first place:
http://www.novell.com/products/netmail/
GroupWise. It’s not as bad as people might lead you to believe. It runs well on Suse linux(and Red Hat I believe). You do need eDirectory to run it, but that’s not a bad thing.
So, what alternatives are there? Outlook/Exchange is out for me, no Windows machines. Need everything to be accessible from the web, or via a mail client/calendar client.
Have you looked in to the horde project?
I have been using it for a while, and found it to be a very useful system.
They support shared calendars/ tasks/ notes/ address book, and a host of other quite handy features.
The only REAL downside as far as I am concerned, is that their calendar/tasks are not updatable outside of the horde environment (which is web based).
It also has hooks in to kolab, which I believe would allow updates from outside of Horde, but I’ve not tested that.
Let me know if you have any other questions, I may be able to help.
So, what alternatives are there? Outlook/Exchange is out for me, no Windows machines. Need everything to be accessible from the web, or via a mail client/calendar client.
Why not to try http://www.open-xchange.com ?
1. Open-Xchange
Strengths – Strong webclient, many many features, vender support is available.
Weaknesses – Very difficult to install (the free version), bad support, weak client compatibility for calendar sharing, Expensive, Ugly
Suggestion – I would not install or use this solution in my business.
I have installed OX and even created an open-source project based on the work (AVA-SBS). OX implementation was just simply unreliable and the Outlook client sucks. The customer was ok with the end result but it was very painful.
Although in the end. I did get a Linux based Server with a single sing on solution, for both Linux and windows clients.
2. Scalix
Strengths – Easy to setup and install, Ajax web client (very very nice), Strong client support for both Outlook (the best Outlook compatible solution available other then exchange itself) and Evolution, Free client compatibility support for the fist 25 users, strong community support, vender support is available
Weaknesses – Expensive (after the first 25 users), non open source,
Suggestion – I would install this in my business if that business had less then 25 users
I have installed Scalix for a client with less then 25 users. That client is also using Outlook to for its workstation client. The customer is very happy with the solution.
3. Zimbra
Strengths – Very very nice Ajax based web client, a free version is available with unlimited users for the web client, strong community support with forums to help you get it up and running the way you need, vender support is available
Weaknesses – weak client support
Suggestion – I would install Zimbra in my business if all we needed was the web client.
I have not installed Zimbra and am only making this sudgestion based on what I have read.
4. Kolab
Strengths – Very strong support for Kontact (the KDE PIM), easy to install, easy administration, ldap backend.
Weaknesses – only so so support for other clients, webclient support unavailable or difficult to set up
Kolab is coming along but not yet ready in my opinion. It needs its own webclient (I hate Hord). Although with the release of KDE 4 I believe the KDE apps will become available for Windows. If that is so Kontact will work as well, giving Kolab a leg up from the others. With a very strong workstation client available that works seamlessly in both Windows and Linux we might have a winner, so keep you eye on this project. Man I just with they had an official webclient.
Now that that is said Hula is not dead. In fact, I believe that it will be better off not having the backstabbing corporation called Novel developing it. Hula is a very nice project with the possibility of offering what I consider to be the best looking webclients available.
Hula, Maui, sounds like Novell is getting fond of Hawaiian names. Now that they have signed a deal with Microsoft perhaps they should rename their company to Big Kahuna Linux. Just a thought for some comic relief.
You know, now that Novell has stopped developing Hula, Google should adopt it. A successful Hula would be a kick in the teeth to Microsoft and a great way to gain favor with the Open Source crowd. A few months of effort to get to Hula to a “1.0″, and Google would get all the love. Google, you know you want to.
I guess Red Hat would work too!
Yeah, I know, “copy’n’paste” from my blog, but at least here it will be read.
Much of what Novell was promising for Hula was ideas that have been either implemented or planned in the Citadel project [http://www.citadel.org] anyway. (We pitched Citadel to them about six months before the Hula announcement … and they said they weren’t interested, and then they announced their project. Draw your own conclusions.)
Anyway, do try Citadel — it is a very well-integrated collaboration server with an ajax-style web user interface, built-in data stores, lightweight implementations of all relevant protocols (POP, IMAP, SMTP, etc.) … very easy to install, and just a joy to use.
Strange that nobody has mentioned eGroupWare ( http://www.egroupware.org ).
Active community development (sponsored by RedHat, Tatung, Stylite), modular, rich featured, integrates with various LDAP and IMAP servers, has MS Outlook/ SyncML sync support (introduced in the latest stable version, quite sloppy, but the upcoming 1.4 version planned for this month has the problems sorted out, I’ve heard from a colleague).