Features/OpenChange

= OpenChange =

Summary
Natively access Microsoft Exchange using OpenChange. By using the libmapi library from OpenChange, tools such as kdepim and Evolution can become first-class clients of a Microsoft Exchange Server

Owner

 * Mbarnes

Current status

 * Targeted release: Fedora 11
 * Last updated: 2009-02-26
 * Percentage of completion: 100%
 * Done. Packages are in Rawhide.
 * Don't know about kdepim status but it's not a blocker.

Detailed Description
OpenChange aims to provide a portable Open Source implementation of Microsoft Exchange Server and Exchange protocols. Exchange is a groupware server designed to work with Microsoft Outlook, and providing features such as a messaging server, shared calendars, contact databases, public folders, notes and tasks.

OpenChange provide interoperability with Exchange protocols. This is the MAPI library development purpose (libmapi). MAPI stands for Messaging Application Programming Interface and is used within Microsoft Exchange. The OpenChange implementation provides a client-side library which can be used in existing messaging clients and offer native compatibility with Microsoft's Exchange server.

Benefit to Fedora
Currently Evolution has the 'Exchange connector', however this uses WebDAV and is highly susceptible to changes in the exchange server. In particular, it will break when native clients (Outlook) do not. OpenChange will allow more kdepim to also access Exchange, and provide a better user experience with Evolution.

Scope
Requires bringing in alpha snapshots of Samba4, as OpenChange is dependent on the Samba4 client libraries. Samba4 includes a copy of Heimdal kerberos, which we should try and ship as an independent (rather than bundled) library.

Test Plan

 * 1) Setup Microsoft Exchange
 * 2) Set kdepim and Evolution to use an account
 * 3) Send and receive mail

User Experience

 * 1) Users should be able to access Microsoft Exchange servers better.

Dependencies

 * Samba4
 * Reviews:
 * https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=453083 (samba4 - Approved)
 * https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=453395 (openchange - Approved)
 * https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=476315 (evolution-mapi - Approved)

Contingency Plan

 * Revert optional build time dependency of kdepim on libmapi

Documentation

 * http://www.openchange.org

Release Notes
Fedora 11 will include the OpenChange library, to improve access to Microsoft's Exchange servers (including Exchange 2007) from Linux clients, by using the native 'MAPI' protocols. To use this support from Evolution, install the evolution-mapi package.

Comments and Discussion
See Talk:Features/OpenChange