Do cyrus devs plan to implement PUSH-IMAP protocol?

[Georg C. F. Greve]

On 2012-01-30 20:42, Greg Banks wrote:
> Georg, I notice there's a page about Z-Sync on the Kolab wiki. Do you
> have any idea of the legal issues with the protocol?

It's obviously subject to all the general issues with patents.

Other than that, it's about as safe as anything will ever get with 
Microsoft or another of the IT behemoths, I'd say. As long as you make 
sure to stay within the Open Source / Free Software realm, that is.

We have indeed hooked up Z-Push to the Kolab server as one option to 
get data to the mobile. As you wrote in your later mail, Microsoft has 
offered it under a pledge [1] as part of its Workgroup Server Protocol 
Program (WSPP) [2] in response to the antitrust case in the European 
Union.

Our implementation is 100% Open Source / Free Software and distributed 
as such. We never dual-license it for commercial purposes. In fact we 
transferred Copyright in the Kolab backend to the Free Software 
Foundation Europe to ensure this part is Open Source in perpetuity.

So we're reasonably confident that we're within the bounds of the WSPP.

As to the question whether Microsoft's promise could be revoked or is 
reliable, that is a difficult question, of course. Our hope is that 
Microsoft will not want to enter into another costly legal battle with 
the Commission by going back on its assurances made in the antitrust 
proceedings.

In any case if they were to go back on it, we'd definitely increase the 
push for alternatives, which in fact we're already working on with low 
intensity.

In the end, this is a major design advantage of Kolab: Storage in IMAP 
means we get offline capable groupware clients easily once there is 
IMAP. All it takes is  some connector into the local data store on the 
device, which libkolabxml [3] is going to make a lot easier to 
implement.

So yes, we have substantial interest in all technologies that make IMAP 
as fast, accessible and least-bandwidth as possible, including for 
mobiles, since this will allow replacing the quasi monopolistic protocol 
for this purposes that ActiveSync has become.

Best regards,
Georg



[1] 
http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/other/interoperability-principles-patent-pledges/default.aspx
[2] 
https://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/wspp/wspp-patent-pledges/default.aspx
[3] http://kolab.org/pipermail/kolab-format/2011-December/001569.html

-- 
Georg C. F. Greve
Chief Executive Officer

Kolab Systems AG
Zürich, Switzerland

e: greve at kolabsys.com
t: +41 78 904 43 33
w: http://kolabsys.com

pgp: 86574ACA Georg C. F. Greve