MS offering to buy Yahoo ???

[mdeneen]

I think it has been ZPL from the beginning, but it really depends on the component.

Look for yourself:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://...a.com/license/

You keep banging on about this half licensing stuff. I'm not aware that any part of Zimbra was ever licensed under MPL, do you any evidence to back this up?

I believe the licensing changed in version 4.5.8 to YPL from ZPL, but I'm not aware that ZPL was any more lenient. It might be interesting to investigate iceweasel. Somehow Debian managed to diverge firefox from MPL, perhaps a similar thing is possible here.

[jholder]

Actually, it's ZEUL, and I personally helped draft it.

I strongly suggest you read it and get your facts straight. It may not be OSI approved, but it grants you many many rights with very few restrictions (Zimbra logo being present).

[Rich Graves]

I don't understand the problem with the YPL and the web UI branding. At worst, you need to give credit to "powered by Zimbra." You're giving credit to the original community. This is a problem for Debian sticklers, but even Debian has Iceweasel. And Ubuntu ships Firefox.

Absolute worst case, I could see Zimbra becoming a project of the Apache or Mozilla foundations, or some consortium of universities, presuming that key folks who left Stanford for Zimbra are able to return. Universities wouldn't be as well off as they would be with continuing support from Zimbra, but they'd still be better off than they would be with Exchange or Cyrus (which they're already self-supporting).

Microsoft could choose to kill the Outlook connector, but they could have done that already, and I don't see that as a huge loss.

[dkarp]

You keep banging on about this half licensing stuff. I'm not aware that any part of Zimbra was ever licensed under MPL, do you any evidence to back this up?

The server was licensed under MPL 1.1 from the beginning. Here's the last rev of Mailbox.java on sourceforge.

[fselendic]

You keep banging on about this half licensing stuff. I'm not aware that any part of Zimbra was ever licensed under MPL, do you any evidence to back this up?

I believe the licensing changed in version 4.5.8 to YPL from ZPL, but I'm not aware that ZPL was any more lenient. It might be interesting to investigate iceweasel. Somehow Debian managed to diverge firefox from MPL, perhaps a similar thing is possible here.

I keep banging because I'm extremely careful about licensing stuff, and ALWAYS remember somewhere in the back of my mind what different product are licensed after.


"Zimbra Collaboration Suite Open Source Edition

The Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) Server and Zimbra Ajax Toolkit are both licensed under the terms of the Mozilla Public License (MPL), and require that modifications made to existing files be given back to the Community.

The ZCS Ajax web and admin clients are licensed under the terms of the Zimbra Public License (ZPL), which is derived from the MPL. It requires Zimbra attribution for any products derived from the source code."

http://web.archive.org/web/200701141...a.com/license/

So, situation is actually very very positive for someone with a little business spirit.

My question was does anyone remember last code drop under that license(s)?

[JoshuaPrismon]

Considering the fact that Zimbra is only useful if you buy the closed source version, this is not really a big surprise. Microsoft will simply shut Zimbra down. You should be using a system that is fully GPL to begin with. There are several good ones available.

I have been using the open source version since the first public beta. I upgraded to Network recently, but I've decided to downgrade when I get a chance because of the user number limitations that I am hitting.

Zimbra is a open source application, they have street cred. The prospect of MS buying them is terrifying, but I think Zimbra has actually gotten to the point that there would be some significant worries about the exchange/zimbra overlap.

Personally, if you believe as I do, sooner or later Microsoft will have to go open source.

So by all means, save a copy of the source code. But don't panic.

[dijichi2]

I keep banging because I'm extremely careful about licensing stuff, and ALWAYS remember somewhere in the back of my mind what different product are licensed after.

Apologies, you're right I just checked back through my source tarballs. V. Interesting! I assume this was changed quietly with 4.5.8, how very not public spirited.

Actually, it's ZEUL, and I personally helped draft it.
I strongly suggest you read it and get your facts straight. It may not be OSI approved, but it grants you many many rights with very few restrictions (Zimbra logo being present).

That's only for binary distributions and irrelevent to these dicussions.

Generally of course we would all love Zimbra to be GPL but in reality it's highly unlikely to ever happen, at least in the near future. I was terribly pessimistic after the Yahoo purchase but really things have just got better and better. Zimbra is essentially a commercial product that we are allowed limited access to the source. As long as it stays that way I guess we should all be happy. It would be nice to know if there are any clauses in the Yahoo purchase that allow future freedom but I guess it's unlikely that a) they exist or b) the public would be told.

[dwmtractor]

Absolute worst case, I could see Zimbra becoming a project of the Apache or Mozilla foundations, or some consortium of universities, presuming that key folks who left Stanford for Zimbra are able to return. Universities wouldn't be as well off as they would be with continuing support from Zimbra, but they'd still be better off than they would be with Exchange or Cyrus (which they're already self-supporting).

I'm with Rich on this. There are a variety of opportunities that could pick up where Zimbra-within-Yahoo!-within-Microsoft might leave off. Frankly, given both the technical success and the popularity Zimbra has enjoyed, if there aren't VCs or foundations taking a good hard look at the potential opportunities this presents, they're dumber than I thought.

And to the frightened NE users--I understand your fears. I'm not sure which is worse--having just spent a ton of money on something that may turn out to be less than you expected, or having just spent a ton of money and resources preparing to buy something that now you're afraid to buy. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. However please remember:

1. No multibillion-dollar acquisition happens overnight. Between SEC, other regulators, and all the other potential stakeholders, even if every Yahoo! stockholder said "yes" to Ballmer today, the whole thing would take months to button up.
2. When have you ever seen Microsoft move quickly on anything? Really, now. . .
3. Contract law doesn't get thrown out by mergers. You who have support contracts will get them honored. The details of how they are honored will have to be worked out (assuming a buyout even happens) but even Gates and Ballmer can't simply annul all of your support agreements.

There may come a time when you/all of us have to jump. I don't know that, and I doubt even high-level Zimbra employees know it yet. But there is nothing to be gained--and a great deal to be lost--by reacting too quickly. Save your emergency actions for immediate emergencies, and give this one a little time to unfold.

Cheers,

Dan

[JoshuaPrismon]

Zimbra is barely open source to begin with. To GPL the version that is actually usable would be to destroy Zimbra's business model. More likely Microsoft will simply shut it down, and that's fine. If you want a truly open source system you should select one that is already GPL'ed.

disclaimer: my post, not zimbra's, ignore the moderator badge.

Given you have written two posts on the forum, and both are license posts, I supect that you may have a ideological point of view here

I spent a while looking at the license changes when Yahoo purchased Zimbra. It's will be okay.

[Sonny Ali]

I realize this will probably make most Zimbra admins mad, but I think Exchange is a better and a more stable email server. We've been running Zimbra for over a year and we've had nothing but trouble with it. I R&D'd Zimbra when we were considering it and made my suggestion to go with Exchange. However, management decided to go the open source route, and since then, HA has never worked, Zimbra chokes often, the ZCS Connector also chokes often, and the webmail is slow and lacks a lot of functionality (but is a good looking webmail compared to some). Now that MS will own Zimbra, I think Zimbra will only get worse. And before I get an earful, I didn't build our Zimbra servers... I just manage the flow of emails and the users.