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Re: questions
by Martin Konold on Tuesday 01/Feb/2005, @05:03

> - There once was an idea to set up a kolab-server for the kde-community.
> One could integrate bugs, mailinglists, resources, todos, schedule
> kde-meetings and all that stuff. Also, one could probably stress-test
> kolab quite well with this setup.
> Why didn't this ever happen?

Due to lack of resources (mainly a decent server with a good connectivity).

As soon as server plus bandwidth is available I am more than happy to provide a maintained Kolab Server to the community!

> - I understand that putting all data into a single database might be a little
> too much.

What kind of data are you talking about?

> But since I've never understood (and even grown to hate) LDAP,
> I am wondering why all the configuration-data that now lives in LDAP
> wasn't put into a database, like mysql?!

The biggest advantage of LDAP is that it is a network access protocol while MySQL is a product with proprietary protocol network clients. Another plus for LDAP in the Kolab design is that it features a simple, efficient and reliable replication protocol.

Using LDAP as the access protocol says nothing about the storage technology.

Actually most LDAP servers use some kind of (relational) database in the backend.

> What are the disadvantages?

Relational databases are incompatible to each other and many clients including Kontact, Mozilla, Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes know how to retrieve information like addressbook data via LDAP but they are not capable to talk to a MySQL db.

> accessed with the webinterface, but the outlook/toltec connector uses its
> own set of data and is NOT synchronized with the webinterface or the kde
> client. Thus, kolab1 was useless for me. I understand this has changed
> with kolab2?

Yes, with Kolab 2 all Kolab 2 clients (PHP, KDE, Windows) use the same new Kolab 2 storage format. Basically this new format is a set of iCalendar attributes encoded in valid XML including an XML Schema (Relax-NG).

The new storage format was intentionally created in order to allow for the usage with shared folders. Multiple different clients can have simultaneous read and write access to the same folder and its objects.

> In the second interview, I would really appreciate to hear about the
> synchronization plans. IMO, Syncing is one of KDEs really confusing areas.

I agree that synching is currently confusing. For the Proko2 project we limited ourself initially for syncing with the Palm Pilot for the KDE platform. With MS Windows/Outlook any existing OL-based synching solution keeps working so plenty of choices are available. We currently have no plans for synching support via the webclient.

Related Links

·   Articles on Interviews
·   Also by Martin Konold
·   Contact author

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