[plug] NEW PROJECT FORMED: OpenGroupware.org, AS SKYRiX OPEN SOURCES ITS GROUPWARE SERVER

[Jacqueline McNally]

MEDIA RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW PROJECT FORMED: OpenGroupware.org,
AS SKYRiX OPEN SOURCES ITS GROUPWARE SERVER

July 10, 2003 - OpenGroupware.org ('OGo') project announces its formation 
and the release today to the worldwide open source development community of 
its groupware server software. The software provides the server components 
necessary for full office collaboration with the OpenOffice.org suite and 
various other Linux and Windows groupware clients. OGo software runs on 
Linux and Solaris (www.OpenGroupware.org)

The OGo project is a fully independent open-source project, but will 
inter-operate with the OpenOffice.org software and other similarly open 
clients via open standards.

The OGo software is based initially on the contribution of the code of 
SKYRiX 4.1 Groupware Server, a mature product that has been in development 
for 7 years, and one of the earliest groupware products for the Linux 
operating system. The contributor, SKYRIX Software AG, is well known in 
Germany as a leader in Linux groupware (www.SKYRiX.com).

"We are extremely excited to form OpenGroupware.org and to collaborate with 
OpenOffice.org to serve the open source community worldwide," said Jens 
Enders, president and CEO of SKYRIX Software AG. "By configuring the 
OpenGroupware.org server together [after install] with the OpenOffice.org 
office suite and other leading groupware clients, our customers will be 
able to implement a comprehensive and integrated collaboration environment 
wholly composed of free software."

The OGo software provides document sharing capabilities for OpenOffice.org 
documents and will enable users of MS Outlook (97/2000/XP), Ximian 
Evolution, Mozilla Calendar, OOo Glow (OpenOffice.org Groupware Project's 
client product), Apple's iCal and other standards-based groupware clients 
to collaborate.

OGo software will enable users to share calendar, address book and e-mail 
information; they can communicate via instant messaging, share folders, 
exchange documents, track changes, share a whiteboard, and browse the Web 
all at the same time -- all upon open Internet standards and without paying 
or managing cumbersome licensing fees.

Says Gary Frederick, Leader of the OpenOffice.org Groupware Project: "Just 
to be perfectly clear, this is an MS Exchange replacement. OGo is important 
because it's the missing link in the open source software stack. It's the 
end of a decade-long effort to 'map' all the key infrastructure and 
standard desktop applications to free software. OGo offers users a free 
solution for collaboration and document management that, despite being free 
of charge, will far surpass the quality and level of collaboration found on 
Windows (through integration of MS Office, Exchange Server and SharePoint). 
Today marks the completion of 'OpenStack'."

Adds Stu Green, Managing Director of Open Source Professional Services, 
"The release of OGo means the OpenOffice.org suite is ready for the 
enterprise complete with full-featured and mature groupware solutions. 
These capabilities once and for all show how free software betters 
proprietary solutions that require licensing payments on both the client 
and server sides. Also, OGo provides multiple file format filters for 
creating, storing and sharing data in an open and flexible fashion. It's 
possible now to completely avoid proprietary file formats and non-standard 
XML throughout the desktop stack and infrastructure. Licensing fees and 
license management are gone. And with OOo + OGo, no remote activation is 
required." (www.OSPSnet.com)

OGo has extensive and broad support for XML based APIs:an XML-RPC 
'Webservice' API, support for SunONE XML based WCAP, support for 
HTTPMail/MS Exchange-based WebDAV, and finally for iCalendar files in XML 
notation (according to the xCal drafts). Given the XML based storage format 
of OpenOffice.org the OGo document storage will be able to perform feature 
rich team based collaboration and content management. OGo uses a 
WebDAV-accessible relational database management system to make document 
storage accessible from the OpenOffice.org office suite.

OGo is licensed under the open source dual licenses, Lesser General Public 
License (LGPL) and the General Public License (GPL). Libraries and 
components are licensed under the terms of the LGPL and applications are 
licensed under the GPL. For users, this means in part that the OGo software 
can be used, improved and redistributed at no cost. For developers, the 
licensing implications vary depending on the type of code contribution that 
is contemplated.

If you would like to join OpenGroupware.org to contribute code, development 
or marketing resources to the project, please contact 
marketing at OpenGroupware.org.

About OpenGroupware.org

Mission: To create, as a community, the leading open source groupware 
server to integrate with the leading open source office suite products and 
all the leading groupware clients running across all major platforms, and 
to provide access to all functionality and data through open XML-based 
interfaces and APIs (www.OpenGroupware.org).

About SKYRiX

SKYRIX Software AG, the contributor of the OGo code, is a leading developer 
of Linux based groupware solutions in Germany. The product OGo is based on, 
SKYRiX 4.1 Groupware Server, is a mature solution being in development for 
about seven years. OGo consists of about 600,000 lines of object oriented C 
code and about 100,000 lines of reusable Web components (www.SKYRiX.com).

The original author of the OpenGroupware.org reference server software was 
MDlink GmbH, founded as an Internet service provider (ISP) in Germany in 
1994. The company started development on the LSOffice application server in 
about 1996 to extend it's Internet offerings with a powerful collaboration 
platform usable over the Internet. Some years later LSOffice was renamed to 
SKYRiX 3 and finally in 2000 a separate company, SKYRIX Software AG, was 
formed to concentrate on the further development of the product.

About OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org is the home of the open source project and its community of 
developers, users and marketers responsible for the on-going development of 
the OpenOffice.org product. The mission of OpenOffice.org is to create, as 
a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all 
major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through 
open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format. OpenOffice.org 1.1 
runs on FreeBDS, Windows (98/2000/XP), Linux (x86 & PowerPC), Mac OS X and 
Solaris; while ports for other operating systems and hardware platforms, 
including IRIX, HP-UX, Tru64, Linux (Alpha), Linux (ARM), Linux (Itanium2) 
and others, are in various stages of development. OpenOffice.org 1.1, soon 
available in over 60 native languages, is written in C++ and has documented 
API's licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and Sun 
Industry Standards Source License (SISSL) open source licenses. The founder 
and sponsor of the OpenOffice.org project is Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun 
markets an office suite based on the OpenOffice.org code called StarOffice. 
Download OpenOffice.org 1.1 at http://www.openoffice.org.

About OpenOffice.org Glow Project

Glow is an innovative OpenOffice.org project to create a rich full-featured 
and integrated groupware client for communication and collaboration to 
complement the OpenOffice.org office suite. Glow is written using Java 
which has enabled the rapid development and release of the first internal 
milestone supporting core calendaring functions, both online and offline. 
Contacts, mail, instant messaging; P2P and web whiteboard features are 
planned. Glow is designed to integrate with and complement OpenOffice.org 
but can also be used as a standalone cross-platform application running 
everywhere that J2SE does (http://groupware.openoffice.org/glow/).

Links:

Evolution  http://ximian.com/products/evolution/
OpenGroupware.org  http://www.opengroupware.org
OpenOffice.org  http://www.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice.org Groupware Project http://groupware.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice.org Glow http://groupware.openoffice.org/glow/
OSPS http://www.OSPSnet.com
Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/
MS Outlook http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/outannoy/
SKYRiX http://www.skyrix.com/en/products/index.xhtml
StarOffice http://www.sun.com/staroffice
Sun Microsystems, Inc. http://www.sun.com

MEDIA RELEASE CONTACTS:
Helge Hess
SKYRIX Software AG
helge.hess at opengroupware.org

Gary Frederick
OpenOffice.org Groupware Project
garyfreder at openoffice.org

Sam Hiser
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
swhiser at openoffice.org

PUBLICITY CONTACT:
Jacqueline McNally
Community Contact, Australia/New Zealand
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
Tel: +61 8 9474 3021 (GMT +0800)
Fax: +61 8 9474 3405
jacqueline at openoffice.org