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History: Tiki Suite brainstorming

Preview of version: 68

This page is to discuss/debate/brainstorm on
  • what needs should be covered and
  • which components should be part of the suite


Related: Components and criteria



Global

Backup-FileSync

Server

Virtualization

Operating system / Server / Firewall

Ubuntu server is the recommended platform for BigBlueButton, and Debian or Ubuntu is the recommended platform for Kaltura, so it makes sense to use the same, but it's not a show-stopper. It needs to offer PHP/MySQL/APC (or XCache)

LDAP-Mail-XMPP/Jabber

For administration of OpenLDAP, LDAP Account Manager can be integrated

cdrwhite runs several boxes with OpenLDAP, postfix, courier IMAP (courier authdaemond offers LDAP but also MySQL: we could also use Tiki-based authentication + vmail for that combination)

  • There currently exists an inherent issue with LDAP and recent Ubuntu's OpenSSH pkg: due to the drop of OpenSSL in favor of GnuTLS it does not LDAP ssh keys are not supported.


Ejabberd seems the defacto choice at the moment, it features complete LDAP integration, web ui and many other modules. All this with a massive online community and some heavy backing. It tromps Prosody, which lacks LDAP and web ui, for integration and OpenFire for scalability. It also handles XMPP Jingle protocol for voice-chat support. Prosody has a very active community and developement and might someday sooner rather than later fix the lack of LDAP support.

SIP/PBX


Despite the fairly active core of solutions for VoIP including Asterisk, FreeSwitch, Yate and sipXecs. sipXecs is the only one of those that offers full integration with LDAP and XMPP (Jingle, presence and IM). However, it lacks flexibility at the VoIP level. It offers a distribution install (distributed through BitTorrent only) based on CentOS. The project is supported by the SIPFoundry foundation and Ezuce company, but hasn’t been very active lately. On the contrary, FreeSwitch offers an extremely active community and developpment. As shown by Baracuda Network’s Cudatel IP PBX Hardware, it is gaining popularity in the business sector. FreeSwitch also has two main Web UI satellite project: BlueBox/2600hz and FusionPBX. The former being more mature, but the latter gaining in popularity and offering an Ubuntu based distribution. FreeSwitch has one true show stopper: it doesn’t offer LDAP integration. Some people are claiming to be working on solutions, but nothing yet has emerged. It would however be possible to create an external real time bridge to LDAP/ActiveDirectory using mod_config_xml a web service configuration API. FreeSwitch runs off most major distributions, however it is packaged through a PPA under Ubuntu. LDAP Integration seems like it would be rather popular for FreeSwitch and something that would benefit a growing community. Asterisk is not to be ignored as it has a massive community and is by far the most used in the industry. It is quite flexible and capable, but definitely has its short comings.

ERP/Accounting

ERP/accounting is a critical business function. Here are several contenders:

  • Compiere Strengths: Compiere is an industrial strength ERP solution. It is a very mature, feature rich, and flexible application. Weaknesses: It is controlled/supported by a single company. It is released under a dual (open source/commercial) license. Compiere is java based, and uses either Oracle or Postgres backends.
  • Openbravo is a fork of Compiere. It has similar strengths and weaknesses compared to Compiere (powerful & mature, controlled by a single company & dual licenses).
  • ADempiere is also a fork of Compiere, but it is supported by a strong development community with a democratic community process. There is a great article about the advantages of loosely coupling Adempiere via an ESB here.
  • WebERP is a Apache/MySQL/PHP app that is very mature and well supported. It has fewer bells and whistles than Compiere and it's forks, but is still quite comprehensive. It has support for being loosly connected to a Wiki (Wacko Wiki). The out of the box wiki support is for wiki pages, not a tracker type CRM app.
  • SQL-Ledger is a perl/postgres based app. It was forked because of issues with the main developer (notice the "dot com" domain name).
  • Ledger SMB is the sql-ledger fork. There are a few heavyweight developers behind this project, but it moves very slowly...



https://www.ohloh.net/tags/erp/php
Activity level comparison

Client software

WebDAV edit access to files

http://suite.tiki.org/Tiki+Suite+Components#Cyberduck_WebDAV-FTP_client
http://dev.jabbim.cz/jdisk

(Mac OS' Finder also has a built in WebDAV client although it's not as flexible as Cyberduck)

SIP/XMPP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IM_clients#Multiprotocol_clients
Should be cross-platform like Jitsi or QuteCom or Blink. Pidgin and Adium are definitely also popular choices covering all platform (and available as portables), but VoIP support is still lacking. Jingle voice and video support is however starting to be a reality, but for now only on linux (no windows or mac support). On the other side, Jitsi does not offer IRC, IBM Lotus or Novel GroupWise integration which is offered in Pidgin and Adium. Maybe it could be interesting to offer support (possibly at different levels though) for a couple of clients.

Ideally, runs on PortableApps.com

Notifier

If this is not part of the SIP/XMPP client, we'll be looking for a system tray notifier app like StatusNet Desktop

  • New message in chatroom
  • New email received
  • New dent/tweet
  • Play audio and video podcasts

Browser

  • While any modern browser will do, Firefox or the SeaMonkey all-in-one internet application suite are candidates.

Email

Office suite

http://suite.tiki.org/Tiki+Suite+Components#LibreOffice

Mobile

  • SIP client
  • VPN client (OpenVPN might be an issue on iPhones, I think there are only Jailbreak clients)
  • Mail client
  • Shared Calendar
  • Shared Contacts
  • etc.


To be decided

  • An SEO tool
    • Mostly useful for web agency use case
  • StatusNet Status updates/micro-blogging (distributed) or wish2258
    • cdrwhite: how about a few minimal extensions to the shoutbox stuff, we already have? shouts-per-user (also as rss), twitter-account and facebook-account as objects with object permissions, allowing a group to use one account)
      • marclaporte: Yes, that is an option, and making interoperable with StatusNet
  • Business Intelligence
  • How TRIM fits in
  • Remote surveillance / alarm system
  • High-volume newsletters
    • Tiki newletters are fine for small volumes, but they need to be improved for large volumes and the option to use an external service would be nice (because of spam protection)
  • Remote provisioning like Jitsi does it.


For a local server there should also be:

  • SAMBA server (authenticating against OpenLDAP)
  • NFS server (authenticating against OpenLDAP)
  • A VOIP-Solution (cdrwhite: Asterisk + FreePBX + tftp-Server for phones)
  • A solution for automated backups (cdrwhite: I use my own bash scripts with support for local folder/streamer, scp/ftp/ and all mountable folders, backing up MySQL, OpenLDAP and different folders, will shortly be (again) available at http://adminloesungen.de/

Comparison chart

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{GOOGLEDOC}

Scenarios for server components

In a typical setup, there are two instances of Tiki. One behind the Firewall which acts as an Intranet (ex.: Accounting) and the other for the public site with an Extranet section (for partners, customers, etc.)

Feature Scenario A Scenario B
Wiki
Tiki Wiki
Blog
Tiki Blog
CMS-News
CRM/Contacts
Tiki CRM (needs some integration work but all components are there)
Groupware/Tasks
Tiki Tasks or Trackers
Groupware/Calendar
Forms
Drawing
Tiki Draw with SVG-edit
Commerce
Spreadsheet
Forum
Tiki Forum
Newsletter
Workspace
Maps
Tiki Maps
Accounting
Tiki Accounting (new in Tiki7)
Slideshow
Tiki Slideshow (improved in Tiki7)
Issue, bug and ticket system
Time Tracking
Timesheet (planned for Tiki8)
Analytics
Piwik
Webinar/Web Conferencing (web-based VOIP/Webcam/Chat/Screensharing)
Video Management
Password management
Server ClearOS (CentOS and mostly PHP) Zentyal (Ubuntu Server and mostly Perl)
Firewall ClearOS (IPtables, Snort) Zentyal (IPtables, Snort)
VPN ClearOS (OpenVPN) Zentyal (OpenVPN)
LDAP ClearOS (OpenLDAP) Zentyal (OpenLDAP)
Printer sharing ClearOS (CUPS) Zentyal (CUPS)
Files and folders sharing (within Firewall) ClearOS (Samba) Zentyal (Samba)
Files and folders sharing (web-based document management, optional WebDAV access)
Data backup ClearOS (Bacula) Zentyal (Duplicity)
Mail (SMTP/POP3-IMAP4) ClearOS (Postfix, Cyrus, SpamAssassin, ClamAV) Zentyal (Postfix, Dovecot, Fetchmail, ClamAV, SpamAssassin, and Sieve)
Webmail RoundCube (until Tiki Webmail is good enough) Zentyal (RoundCube) (until Tiki Webmail is good enough)
SIP/VOIP/PBX Client: Jitsi FusionPBX/FreeSwitch or FreePBX/Asterisk Zentyal (Asterisk)
Instant messaging and presence via XMPP (Jabber) Client: Jitsi Ejabberd Zentyal (jabberd2)
Virtualization
Xen?
MicroBlogging/Status updates
StatusNet or implement OStatus protocol in Tiki

History

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Information Version
Marc Laporte 86
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Marc Laporte 85
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Marc Laporte 84
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Marc Laporte 83
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Marc Laporte moving to decisions page 82
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Marc Laporte Jitsi is awesome, and it already has Desktop sharing 81
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Marc Laporte Backups, mail, Samba, etc. are part of ClearOS. 80
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Marc Laporte That was moved to other page 79
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Marc Laporte Moving to http://suite.tiki.org/Tiki+Suite+Features 78
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Marc Laporte WebDAV is solved moving http://dev.jabbim.cz/jdisk to Tiki+Suite+component+interoperability 77
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Marc Laporte http://www.jitsi.org/index.php/Development/SystrayControlModule so moving ideas to interoperability page 76
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Marc Laporte Office Suite is at http://suite.tiki.org/Tiki+Suite+Components 75
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Marc Laporte ClearOS which does mail and OpenLDAP 74
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Marc Laporte 73
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Marc Laporte 72
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Marc Laporte Zentyal is very very interesting (and it bundles Asterisk and jabberd2!) and I hope/expect there will be something like Tiki Suite made with it in the future. However, in our case, we are PHP/MySQL/jQ 71
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Marc Laporte 70
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Marc Laporte Tiki7 parser is more strict 69
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Marc Laporte 68
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Marc Laporte 67
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MatthL 66
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MatthL 65
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MatthL 64
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MatthL 63
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MatthL 62
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