Zimbra

Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) is a groupware product created by Zimbra, Inc., located in San Mateo, California, USA. The company was purchased by Yahoo! in September 2007. The software consists of both client and server components. Two versions of Zimbra are available: an open-source version, and a commercially supported version ("Zimbra Network") with closed-source components such as a proprietary connector to Outlook for calendar synchronization.

The ZCS Web Client is a full-featured collaboration suite that supports email and group calendars using an Ajax web interface that enables tool tips, draggable items, and right-click menus in the UI. Also included are advanced searching capabilities and date relations. Online document authoring, "Zimlet" mashups and a full administration UI are also included. It is written using the 'Zimbra Ajax Toolkit.

The ZCS Server uses several open source projects (see the section, Included open source projects). It exposes a SOAP application programming interface to all its functionality and also is an IMAP and POP3 server. The server runs on many distributions of Linux as well as on Mac OS X.

ZCS is compatible with proprietary clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail, both through proprietary connectors available only in the commercially supported version. ZCS can also interface with the open-source Novell Evolution, so that mail, contacts, and calendar items can be synchronised from these to the ZCS server. Zimbra also provides native two-way sync to many mobile devices (Nokia Eseries, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone with 2.0 software).

Software license

Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) source code is available under the terms of the Yahoo! Public License (YPL) which is derived from the Mozilla Public License (MPL), and accordingly requires that modifications made to existing files, if distributed, be provided in source code form to the recipients under the same license. It also includes a clause requiring trademarks, logos, etc be preserved making it an "attribution-style" open source license.

Categorically it is similar to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Common Public Attribution License (CPAL). Attribution-style open source licenses are a newer trend in recent years; and though now embraced by the OSI are not without some controversy. Some believe they may violate sections of the Open Source Definition and abuse the term "open source" while others believe they enable overall growth of the open source movement by allowing "commercial open source" companies (SugarCRM, Socialtext, Zimbra) to compete with proprietary ones in the enterprise.

Included open source projects

The ZCS Server utilizes open source projects such as:

• Postfix
• MySQL
• OpenLDAP
• Apache Tomcat (replaced by Jetty since 5.0)
• Lucene
• Verity
• ClamAV
• SpamAssassin
• AMaViS and Amavisd-new
• DSPAM
• Aspell
• James
• Sieve
• Perdition mail retrieval proxy (until 4.5)
• nginx (since 5.0)

See also

• Ajax
• Groupware
• Online office suite
• Comparison of feed aggregators

External links

• Official site: blog, community, forums, wiki, demo, download, etc.
• Review: Zimbra Webmail
• Yahoo! Public License 1.1
• Pre-integrated Zimbra server (open source edition)