Ah memories

I’ve started my interaction with Java a long time ago – in 1998 (*), when a friend of mine show me thr good ‘ol Borland JBuilder and how to write Swing applications. I was using a very very old computer that I bought a day before that and my first compilation took 30 min or so.

Couple of months after that I betrayed Java and I’ve start using PHP and other easy to learn web languages, because my employer requires that, but I never forgot my loving Java.

14 years after

14 year after that I had the opportunity to be a part of Java community again. Of course I followed what’s going on with Java during the years and when the Oracle bought it I was shocked. They did the same with MySQL…

What is the future of Java NOW?

Last couple of months I am working with JUG and other Java boys and girls and I see that most of them are not happy, enthusiastic and don’t care about the spirit of Java (if I may use that expression).

I don’t want to start a technology flame war and I am not a Java tech person at all, but I am worried about the community around Java.

The Example
There are JUG’s with 1000 and more members, from which 50 are active online and 10 coming to an offline meeting.

Community?
Most of you can say Java is only about the technology and maybe they are right, but this is not what I think. Java is about the community also – There is no technology that can survive without a community around it and the community plays a big role to make a technology kick-ass.

That’s I want to find the way to scream “WAKE UP” and to push the technology forward.

So, where is the problem?
Is it Oracle politics about Java? Are you afraid of them?
Is it Community Management – most of the JUG lists are used as one way communication. There is no active engagement from the leaders at all. Sad!
Is it the “threat” of other languages? Really?

What do YOU think? How to bring back the passion?

I have my own vision, but I’d love to hear more about yours. Can you share it with me, please?

P.S I’d love to discuss this at FOSDEM and I may buy you a beer
(*) in my 1.0 version the date was wrong, sorry for that.

“For the plane in the fog, the mountain is unforeseeable, but then it is suddenly very real, and inevitable.”

Simon Forster, Minister for foreign relations

WHAT IS KOLAB?

Kolab is a personal information management solution, also referred to as groupware. It can provide and manage your information including email, address books, calendars and tasks.

The Kolab server acts as the central information repository and thanks to its uniquely powerful design can host up to tens of thousands, theoretically even hundreds of thousands of users.

All these users can freely share email, address books, calendars and/or tasks with all, some, or none of the other users. This allows Kolab to provide the support base for a wide variety of activities, such as coordinating appointments, working on common projects and ensuring consistency in customer contact.

FEATURES

The new Kolab 2.3.0 server includes a lot of new features, namely:

1. Z-push synchronization for mobile devices
2. A reworked webadmin
3. The possibility to have multiple accounts with the same name.
4. Modular packaging of the webclient
5. Many updated core components
6. Tons of bug fixes

A detailed list of changes is available here

UPGRADING

Because of the changes in LDAP, upgrading from 2.2.4 is not trivial and requires manual intervention. Please make sure you read and follow the upgrade instructions in http://files.kolab.org/server/release/kolab-server-2.3.0/sources/1st.README

Documentation and OpenPKG packages are available from here as shown on http://kolab.org/download.html.

DOWNLOADS

Binary packages for Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze/stable) and 5.0 (Lenny/oldstable) on x86 platforms can be found next to the sources.

Support for Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (etch/oldstable) was dropped because it is no longer supported by Debian ether.

As soon as they have synced, you can also use the the mirrors listed on http://kolab.org/mirrors.html

You can check the integrity of the downloaded files by importing our file distribution key and verify the OpenPGP signature and SHA1 checksums:

$ wget https://ssl.intevation.de/Intevation-Distribution-Key.asc
$ gpg –import Intevation-Distribution-Key.asc
$ gpg –verify SHA1SUMS.sig
$ sha1sum -c SHA1SUMS

NOTICE

This release marks the end of a long development cycle. After over 2 years, the master and the stable branch are (more or less) in sync again. We
introduced many new features and fixed a large number of bugs. We tested the release intensively but due to the massive code changes, we might have missed something or even introduced new bugs.

Before you use this release in a critical environment, we’d like you to test it. Please report any problems you encounter in our bug tracker: https://bugzilla.kolabsys.com/

Depending on the number and severity of bugs, we will issue an updated release soon. We already have a number of fixes in the queue such as the today’s Z-push 1.5.2 release, so Kolab 2.3.1 will come soon.

CREDITS:

I’d like to thank a few people for their help, namely and in no particular order:

- Paul and Georg, for giving me the chance to work on a great project like Kolab
- Bernhard for his coordination
- Thomas and Sascha for their support, especially during this week
- Bogo for the awesome new look of the webadmin
- Jeroen for his input and providing me the infrastructure I need
- Gunnar for responding so fast to the issues we spotted

Without these people the Kolab Server 2.3 would not be possible. Thank everybody for your hard work!

Regards,
Christoph

I will help OKFN in building their community around CKAN ant other important topics for me and them. They really like what I did for SUMO project, when applied for a job last year and we will use this document as a checklist together with other ideas we have. (I am full with ideas, yeah)

It’s really awesome because most of the CKAN community members are programmers like me and I think we have a lot of common interests.

This project will be probono and will take 1-2 h of my free time per day, but it will be great if I can help the OKFN to spread the Open Data ideas and technologies around the World.

I am putting some efforts to build my network in Linkedin: