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Evolution installer for Win32 Released
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Jun 19, 2006 01:12 PM
from the reach-the-singularity-faster dept.
from the reach-the-singularity-faster dept.
markybob points out that an unofficial Win32 installer for Evolution has been released, writing "Of course it's GPL, so have fun and spread it around!" From the site: "Evolution is an incredibly versatile email/calendar/PIM that took the Linux world by storm a few years ago. It has been called an 'Outlook replacement' by every tech site from ZDNet to InfoWorld. Evolution played a major role in allowing the Linux desktop to move into the enterprise by giving being able to connect to Microsoft Exchange Server and schedule/accept Microsoft Outlook Meetings. Here's a screenshot of how it handles meeting invitations sent by Outlook."
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Finally (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Finally (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Finally (Score:3, Funny)
So, basically, it's only slightly less functional than the Linux version?
Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time I read one of those "who the F*** needs this integration?" posts I have a strong suspicion that the writer have never got around to work in a real job - he might be some school/college kid who have yet to see what real work looks like.
Parent
Re:Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Finally (Score:3, Interesting)
Previously, you would have to run Outlook in 'offline' mode, and set it to sync frequently.
But other than that, yeah, they all suck the same
CALs? (Score:3, Interesting)
-Rick
Re:CALs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:CALs? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, perhaps because the law doesn't necessarily allow Microsoft to enforce whatever rules it wants to. Just because an EULA says something doesn't mean that: (1) the EULA is a binding contract, or (2) all the terms of the so-called EULA are enforceable. That's just for any seller of proprietary software; Microsoft might have additional restrictions placed upon it by anti-trust law or settlement(s).
On the other hand, you might not want to take Microsoft to court to find out what y
Re:CALs? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. Microsoft licenses Exchange servers on a per-server basis. Client access licenses are licensed on a per-user or per-device basis. They are "access licenses", not software application licenses. There is no requirement to actually use Microsoft software to access the Exchange server, but the access itself is licensed. Even if you use Outlook Web Access you still have to have a device or user CAL for Exchange.
The question of licensing Outlook or Office is completely separate.
To the person who claims that "just because it's in the EULA doesn't make it so", they are only half correct. This isn't an issue of what is in the EULA though. What is at issue is how the software licenses are sold. And if it should come to pass that MS can't legally require you to buy a CAL to access Exchange if you use Evolution, then you wouldn't legally be required to buy a CAL if you use Outlook either. In that sense it is a question of whether CAL-based licensing is legal, not whether or not the use of Evolution circumvents the need for a CAL, and it is therefore irrelevant to this discussion.
Parent
Re:CALs? (Score:5, Informative)
Not true. [microsoft.com] No matter what type of client you use to access a mailbox, it requires a seperate CAL for each user, unless you go the route of device CALs, in which case you'll need a seperate CAL for each piece of hardware, regardless of what type of client is used.
The fact that each CAL inclueds a license to use Outlook just makes it more attractive for people to use Outlook for their other mailboxes.
Parent
Re:CALs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Notice I was referring to Exchange and Outlook BOTH together in the previous post. Availability of other full-featured PIM/groupware applications open the opportunity to run servers OTHER than Exchange, AND avoid having to pay for Outlook as well.
Parent
Now where's the Intelligent Design installer? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now where's the Intelligent Design installer? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Now where's the Intelligent Design installer? (Score:4, Funny)
What is that? A crumpled piece of paper with an "X" in big black marker? "Well, we told him it was a drummer's license. He tried to eat it at first, but we stopped him."
Just as well: any line of work where you tend to die in bizarre gardening accidents isn't for me. Then again, I play the viola so what do I know? (More viola jokes than drummer jokes probably.)
Parent
Not gonna beat Google Calendar (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not gonna beat Google Calendar - oh really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Cant Sync (Score:5, Informative)
Considering I need to buy into the whole google calendar, with gtalk to get reminders, it just is not worthwhile compared to a real PIM manager aka Outlook or Evolution.
YMMV. BOCTAOE.
Parent
Re:Not gonna beat Google Calendar (Score:5, Insightful)
Jim.
Parent
More is better (Score:4, Interesting)
...before anybody goes on to tell me how great iCal, GoogleCal or Sunbird is, just like to point out that my clients like many others don't see replacing one app with two as a good reason to switch. Plus, forgoing the option to process meeting invitations with one click would never be seen as an improvement.
OTOH, seeing how impossible it is to wean clients off of IE, Outlook, Acrobat Reader, etc. Evolution needs to be even better than advertised.
Black Marks (Score:4, Funny)
It still doesn't replace outlook... (Score:5, Insightful)
I constantly see these bits heralding how great it is and you can replace outlook, but frankly it just isn't true.
To replace outlook the app would have to do more than just mail, be able to interact with the meeting requests that are sent out and the like.
I'm sure much of the problem is the legalities behind reverse engineering the proprietary protocols MS uses, but with Evolution, can I:
Go into public folders to make posts?
Manage security on inboxes so that say George Smith can also access my mailbox?
Do RPC over HTTPS to connect to my exchange server via the web (OWA)?
I don't mean to bad mouth evolution at all. I think it's great that work is constantly being made on it and they keep bringing it closer to something the windows/outlook exchange users can use instead of something that will run VBS... I am going to try out the new win32 version as soon as I can get it to download and see if I can use it as a sort of 'outlook lite' when I don't need the extra functionality.
I just don't think it's right to consider it an 'outlook replacement' especially in an exchange realm just yet. Outlook isn't just an email and calendar app.
Re:It still doesn't replace outlook... (Score:4, Informative)
I would like to point out that they actually use iCalendar. This is almost the de facto standard, well for everyone but M$ who seem to think keeping their stuff locked out of standards is a good thing (well it is for their bottomline at least). I never expect this to be a full out Outlook replacement. I am sure the second it becomes one, M$ will change Exchange Server to break it again, but for home users who use outlook this is about the only PIM replacement there is for Palm devices, short of using that ghastly Palm desktop tool.
Parent
Re:Further impressions after download (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Which I believe was the original point (Score:4, Insightful)
I must not be that savvy today, after 10 minutes of searching, I still don't have an answer as to why I am unable to connect to a 2003 exchange server. I've found a few references to people having issues with the connector missing, but this doesn't appear to be the case here since I do get the drop down option. I've been watching evolution since ximian did their connector (and back then I decided I wasn't interested in paying for it) and hadn't checked it out since novell took it GPL. Today was my first re-peak at Evolution since pre 2.x.
I'm content to wait and keep watching. Most my users are firefox advocates now, the OE users are on Thunderbird, GAIM is a godsend . . . I'll happily agree with the articles re-claim that its an outlook replacement when it really is true.
Parent
Re:Which I believe was the original point (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It still doesn't replace outlook... (Score:4, Informative)
Regarding public folders, they say that you can. I haven't tested it yet, but that's mainly because at my company (400+ users) we don't use public folders. I suspect that we are not the only ones.
Regarding delegate rights on inboxes, I haven't seen that. In some places that I have worked that is a pretty critical ability. But not where I work, and I suspect that we aren't the only ones.
On the third point, I think that you are confusing RPC over HTTPS (a feature that is new in Exchange 2003) with Outlook Web Access (OWA) which has been around since at least Exchange 2000 (not sure if we had it in 5.5). If you are using OWA, then you don't need RPC over HTTPS (which is only supported on Outlook 2003 accessing Exchange 2003). If you need RPC over HTTPS, then I suspect that Evolution won't fit the bill. But since HTTPS and RPC are fairly well known, I suspect that they could manage it eventually.
Parent
Re:It still doesn't replace outlook... (Score:3, Informative)
Really? Why abuse HTTPS like that when IMAPS is designed for it from the start?
Re:It still doesn't replace outlook... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Spam filtering (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Spam filtering (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it work with Kolab2 yet? (Score:3, Interesting)
A cancer... (Score:5, Funny)
So that makes Evolution a cancer on Windows and Christians?
Excellent for desktop migrations... (Score:5, Insightful)
In my opinion Evolution for Win32 will play a critical role in companies switching their desktops to Linux. I think its pretty clear that the most successfully way to migrate people to Linux is to first migrate their windows applications to open source or cross-platform ones, then once they are comfortable migrate their operating system to Linux.
Having applications like Evolution that are cross-platform will only help this process along.
Re:Excellent for desktop migrations... (Score:5, Informative)
Apperently, several references to C:\program files\ where hardcoded. (It's C:\Programme\ in a German XP, and yes, there are lot's of variables for accessing this. Luckily, Vista will fix this mess.)
Also, it didn't link correctly because i already had a global install of GTK (shuffling around %PATH% solved this, though).
After it started, i tried connecting it to our Exchange 2003 Server. Didn't work. Just gave a nonsensical Error Message.
So i tried to connect it to my private mail account, which is accessible through IMAP. Showed all the folders, but no messages inside. Tried to close this abomination, but that didn't work either, so i killed it using the task manager.
There's still a LONG LONG way to go.
Parent
GUI look (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does Evolution's GUI stand out as much? It doesn't look like a Windows application - the colours are wrong, for one, the toolbar delimiters are non-standard, the up-down widget as well, the checkbox is non-checkboxey, the icons are bland, and there are lots of buttons around.
Is it a GUI toolkit limitation, or...? I mean, no offense, I hear only good things about Evolution from my Linux-using friends, but this wouldn't even blend in Windows 95. I honestly can't see people using it, despite all the bells and whistles it may have.
Why does Thunderbird look like a native Windows application?
Re:GUI look (Score:3, Informative)
That's just GTK2 with look-n-feel theme installed, that's not using base widgets. Nothing prevents you from using the wimp theme, which uses Windows' native widgets.
On the other hand, Thunderbird doesn't have to look like Windows either - it all depends on your skin. The default styling though, uses Windows services to draw the widgets as well, or at least some of them.
Re:GUI look (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:GUI look (Score:3, Informative)
Evolution wasn't an easy port by the looks of it. There were lots and lots of Gnome dependencies that had to be ported to win32 before they could even think about porting Evolution. It really wasn't made to run on anything but Gnome on Linux/Unix, but there's been a lot of demand, and the Evolution porting effort will open the door
Re:GUI look (Score:3, Funny)
Because it uses these childish mushy icons?
Re:GUI look (Score:3, Interesting)
Because it's a GTK application, and GTK doesn't use native widgets. As others have suggested, you can install a theme to avoid this issue, but it won't fix a few other sticking points that I've had with other GTK apps:
* Non-standar
Ha! (Score:3, Funny)
Ha, just to piss of those open source zealots once and for all like no man has done before, I'm going to finally put my evil plan into effect and send some shivers through the OSS community by downloading this sucker and keep it all to myself ! How about that!
Not quite what it was hyped to be (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not quite what it was hyped to be (Score:3, Insightful)
If you would have investigate more thoroughly what's happening, you would have noticed that the guy who released this installer and the wrapper executable (which apparently some people mistake for an X server, huh, how clueless can one be?), and posted to Slashdot, had nothing to do with the actual porting work that went on mostly during last year (by me). Announcing his installer on Slashdot was a bit premature in my opinion.
And yes, I
Beware of software incompatibilities (Score:3, Funny)
Missing Redistributable dll (Score:4, Informative)
Not a great start, but the webdav shared calendar support seems quite a bit faster than sunbird, so that's got to be a step in the right direction.
That is an Outlook killer? (Score:5, Insightful)
That interface looks like something out of Eudora circa 1995. No wonder why people don't take Linux on the desktop seriously.
Too bad it doesn't work. (Score:3, Informative)
I saw the article, and got anxious. I told my girlfriend that she can now use the same program that I use for mail. She was anxious too. She has problems with Outlook on occasion, just as any other Outlook user does.
The install went flawlessly, but now Evolution won't start. Her machine is a fairly plain WinXP box, kept up to date fairly regularly (i.e., every night as scheduled)
Too bad it doesn't just work. I'm trying to figure out what it's delima is, but it doesn't make it look like a good thing for an end user. Most people would stop when it doesn't work. I definately can't tell the Windows users "Go download this!", because there may be a number of steps which they may need to do, that are beyond their abilities.
Re:That's great! (Score:3, Informative)