[SOLVED] Is zimbra really open source product ?

[hernad]

At first place, I just wanted to reply to this thread missing-thirdparty-directory-souce-tarballs, and to say: good points dijichi2 !

But, at the and I have focused on much wider topic.

I am not free software purist. Every vendor has rights to do things on its own way. But if you proclaim yourself as an open source vendor, there are rules you have to respect.

Zimbra is a great product, and it already gained great momentum on messaging product's market .
I am sure that announcing zimbra as open source had big impact on that fact.

During past few months, you have announced many new options and great features which are proclaimed as open source.

Are they really open source ?
http://www.zimbra.com/forums/zimbra-...pensource.html

You have posted an false statement on the site http://www.zimbra.com/products/desktop.html

...
Zimbra Desktop benefits:
* It's open source; expensive investments in proprietary clients are no longer required
...

This is false statement because of the simple fact: there is no source code until now.
It is not open. It will be. May be, may be not.

Recently, new neat feature is announced: briefcase

Great, but to many us, there are again important unanswered questions:
* Is it going to be included in open source edition ?
* If it is going, why we cannot look now at the source code ?

Let's go back to the core product.

I have looked at wiki pages
Building_the_software_yourself , and searched source documentation of zcs-5.0.0_BETA2_1095-src.tgz.
Again, I have no clue how to build zcs from source. There are only rumors on forums it is possible, but it is nightmare to build third party products.

After watching activities during last 4 months, IMO, it is intentionally.
You develop your products internally. Involvement of outside (community) developers is not your priority.
The main purpose of releasing new source is to keep "open source" buzzword in your marketing.


The best example is dijichi2's solaris port effort:
thread about solaris port

I interpret Ken's response from this thread like this:

Open source edition is the playing ground for NE.
Until there is no enough commercial interest, community efforts are not going to be included.


All that lead to the conclusion: zimbra is not open source product, regarding basic open source rules and concepts.

Anyway, you can continue develop zimbra in whatever direction you consider best for your company.

If you don't need community contributions, just say that.
If you don't want to synchronize source tree regularly, just say that.

In that case please don't abuse term open source.

Regards,
Ernad

[KevinH]

Originally Posted by hernad

During past few months, you have announced many new options and great features which are proclaimed as open source.

Are they really open source ?
http://www.zimbra.com/forums/zimbra-...pensource.html

You have posted an false statement on the site http://www.zimbra.com/products/desktop.html

This is false statement because of the simple fact: there is no source code until now. It is not open. It will be. May be, may be not.

Zimbra Offline (aka Desktop) has been open source since it's inception

micro sync server code and derby port are here:
SourceForge.net Repository - [zimbra] Index of /trunk/ZimbraOffline

rest of the code is available here:
SourceForge.net: Files

Originally Posted by hernad

Recently, new neat feature is announced: briefcase

Great, but to many us, there are again important unanswered questions:
* Is it going to be included in open source edition ?
* If it is going, why we cannot look now at the source code ?

Again this is available and has been in the code since Beta 2
SourceForge.net: Files

ZimbraWebClient/WebRoot/js/zimbraMail/briefcase

Originally Posted by hernad

If you don't need community contributions, just say that.
If you don't want to synchronize source tree regularly, just say that.

In that case please don't abuse term open source.

See more info about the source tree and plans here:
http://www.zimbra.com/forums/develop...html#post56905

In short we thank you for your patience as we work to get our live source tree back online and in sync.

[hernad]

Kevin, thank for these informations, especially for clarification about source tree synchronization.

I must say issue like that should't be 4-5 month open. For example, people from Aptana: The Web IDE also develop their product with perforce. And they provide direct anonymous access to the source.

Anyway, access to the source trunk is not enough to answer to my thread question.
For really open source product there is interest to developer's feedback.

How many developers outside your company hacking last zimbra source 5 beta 2 (writing source for new functions, debugging source etc.) ?

How many of them have built zimbra desktop ?

To be clear:

I really like your products. On the other side, for me open source nature of the product is the key factor for its adoption. Whenever I have choice.

[JoshuaPrismon]

Originally Posted by hernad

Kevin, thank for these informations, especially for clarification about source tree synchronization.

I must say issue like that should't be 4-5 month open. For example, people from Aptana: The Web IDE also develop their product with perforce. And they provide direct anonymous access to the source.

Anyway, access to the source trunk is not enough to answer to my thread question.
For really open source product there is interest to developer's feedback.

How many developers outside your company hacking last zimbra source 5 beta 2 (writing source for new functions, debugging source etc.) ?

How many of them have built zimbra desktop ?

To be clear:

I really like your products. On the other side, for me open source nature of the product is the key factor for its adoption. Whenever I have choice.

herad,

First a disclaimer, I don't speak for Zimbra.

Second, I can only speak for myself but I can definitely confirm that I was able to build both B1 and B2 from the svn howto. I can also confirm that I have had a fair bit of work adopted into the tree from the initial DSPAM integration to some patches I sent last week for zimlet behavior fixes. I have never tried to build the desktop code, but since it's so closely linked to the main code, I doubt there are any troubles there.