On Fri, 2004-11-26 at 18:19 -0500, Mike Dittmeier wrote:
> I chose dovecot over cyrus because of the documented install steps that
> I found for cyrus. The fact that I would have to create imap accounts to
> be used with cyrus v.s. using the list of existing unix users as the
> list of email users. It was just a simple install for someone who had
> not installed or configured either of the imap servers before.
Dovecot and Cyrus IMAP servers were really created for different
purposes. A big one is real users for the former, virtual users for the
latter.
Dovecot is nice, although I found the version included with Fedora Core
2 (CL4.0) to be a bit buggy (not unexpected for a ".0" release). As
such, I modified the old SPEC file for UW-IMAP 2001 and rebuilt packages
of UW-IMAP 2004a for Fedora Core 2.
> I do intend to visit the mater further as far as security, stability,
> add-on features, and speed.
Cyrus IMAP is good to learn if you have virtual users, need ACLs, etc...
Especially if you deploy something like Bynari InsightClient or another
collaboration client that uses an IMAP-store.
> The idea in mind is to create a simple install pack that will reduce and
> standardize the installation of smb servers for customers as well as
> spreading the work on Linux.
You mean something like SME Server (fka E-Smith Server)?
http://contribs.org/modules/news/
It's based on Red Hat CL3 (Red Hat Linux 9), and starting to age a bit
now. Earlier releases date back to the Red Hat Linux 6 timeframe. I
wouldn't use it for a gateway (something like IPCop is much better), but
as a web-administered LAN server, it works most excellently.
Development has been stagnant. Some of the contributors I personally
know were interested in updating to Fedora, and I started to get
involved earlier this year. But a lot of general talk about moving to
Debian seemed to derail a lot of interest -- especially when Fedora is
not only the direct route, but most of the Debian suggestions seemingly
came from people not interested in doing a lot of the leg work.
> A large portion of the business industry is small mom and pop
> businesses, that I feel have been left out of the linux world.
Most of it is due to unrealistic expectations. If you're a consultant
planning to cater to mom & pop shops, I don't want to deter you, but
it's really not an area where you want to be charging money. I find it
has the same problem as many other industries, the savings are expected
across the board, including how much people expect you to charge them.
I often got stuck trying to solve unrealistic application requirements,
where the shop got themselves into using a mission-critical application
that was very eccentric.
> Commercial software developers don't provide as many aps for linux as
> they do for Windows for a reason.
Marketshare? But even beyond that, there's another reason. Because
Linux _is_ more popular than we reality.
When you see Windows, you know it is Windows. Microsoft ensures this.
They don't cater to vendor black boxes -- at least not until recently.
And even then, it's still the "Microsoft support is external" issue for
an OEM/vertical vendor.
That's why there are literally millions upon millions of vendor black
boxes out there running Linux, but no one knows it. Because the reality
is why would a vendor retail/vertical a Linux application when they can
sell you a whole box they support? Something they can support from
hardware to end-user app.
And that's where Linux is succeeding brilliantly. As a more reliable,
hardware-to-application, black-box platform. There is little to no
incentive to sell an end-user installed Linux application atop of
another platform. Because the OEM/vertical vendor can control the Linux
platform itself, unlike Windows.
> That can be changed very quickly if we can convert a large portion of
> these smb businesses to linux. My plan is to pull together alist of
> commonly used packages that provide all of the services and apps used
> by smb business to include accounting packages, pos sytems, and so on.
I wish you the best of luck. If it's a Freedomware project largely done
for free, it will do well.
But I have found it's difficult to consult for hourly rates for mom &
pop shops. It's far better to sell an "application-specific black box"
solution that leverages Linux, something you can control from not only
just the end-user app, but all the way down to the OS and hardware too.
Something you can't with a Windows solution.
And then you can sell that solution, possibly with or without SLAs
(depending on the applications), at a price-point and TCO far lower than
a Windows solution. And it caters far better to the customer too.
These are just my personal observations and experience. I personally do
not consider myself a shrewd enough businessman to make a good buck, so
I might not be the best person to listen to. With that said, if anyone
needs a good system integrator to design, cater and support such total
black box solutions for network border, network security, file services,
development/release control, etc..., I'd love to find a partner.
-- Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org> Self----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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