Open Source, an interesting read

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phoenix
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Open Source, an interesting read

Post by phoenix »

I somehow seem to have missed this interesting article: https://kopano.com/blog/to-be-or-not-to ... ss-models/

I think there are a few lessons and words of wisdom in there for Synacor but I don't think they will be convinced so I won't hold my breath. :D
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Re: Open Source, an interesting read

Post by zenekbg »

Im sure synacor make business decision, but there is a problem whit
many years of open source zimbra, and now only closed pay to use version.
It is clear this synacor make some bullshit claims - 500 million users - hahaha! Are you sure?
On the main web page is a shark picture whit slogan "Open Source Email and Collaboration"
Why? Why advertise something you will quit for the future?
Or plans are changed now?

It will be better for everyone synacor to make clear msg to the public and say
what will do in the future. This forum is for users and system administrators or some
kind in the middle and this type of information is critical for decision.
One mail server live 5yrs and we need to know what will happen.
If will be payonly model I`m fine whit this, but information must be clear and
given whit year of advance (from CEO or some type of employee).
I like clear and direct tone - something like this "Its over bitches, free version will
end next year. Make decision - pay the price or go another path"

I personally invested some time to learn how to operate zimbra (from a sysadmin point
of view) and will be waste of time for me to switch to kapano.
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Re: Open Source, an interesting read

Post by phoenix »

My point in posting the blog entry wasn't to advertise Kopano but to point out the benefits of an Open Source project, a fact the Synacor seems to overlook at every turn and their total disdain for these forums and the benefits they provide to the company.

BTW, the only part of ZCS 9 that's not Open Source is the new 'react ui'. You can actually download a build of ZCS 9 from Zextras or the Beezim repository - they both work well.
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Re: Open Source, an interesting read

Post by jholder »

Hi There,

Perhaps I can help. I'll try to answer your feedback as best as possible, but let me say that Open Source is something we want and need to be better at.

zenekbg wrote: there is a problem whit many years of open source zimbra, and now only closed pay to use version.
Almost all of the Zimbra server source code is open and free to browse here:
https://github.com/Zimbra
Open source does not mean freely built binaries. But the fact that we're Open Source allows companies to build Zimbra and offer their own distributions. It's the same model the Linux kernel uses. You don't download a Kernel, you download it from someone else who builds it. That's the whole essence of being open source.

There are huge costs associated with building free software, which people use freely. Servers, storage, QA, file hosting..and the list goes on. Simply put, Zimbra has grown up. It's in many companies hands now.
Zimbra isn't going anywhere and we haven't ruled out bringing back official FOSS builds in the future (something we really want to do).

There are no plans to kill FOSS, we can't. The cat is out of the bag, and software we use prohibits that model.
zenekbg wrote: It is clear this synacor make some bullshit claims - 500 million users - hahaha! Are you sure?
Yeah, more than sure in fact. Email is one thing that boomed with COVID-19, and Zimbra powers many large services. I, myself, worked on an issue for several months for one customer who had several tens of millions.
zenekbg wrote: Why? Why advertise something you will quit for the future?
Let me put this to rest now: Zimbra is not and cannot end open source.
Have you wondered why Microsoft has gone so far into open source land?
It's because many companies REQUIRE that the code be audited for security. If Zimbra went completely closed source, we would: Violate Licenses within products we use and force very large organizations who pay us to abandon Zimbra.
zenekbg wrote: Or plans are changed now?
Changed?
zenekbg wrote: It will be better for everyone synacor to make clear msg to the public and say
what will do in the future. This forum is for users and system administrators or some
kind in the middle and this type of information is critical for decision.
One mail server live 5yrs and we need to know what will happen.
If will be payonly model I`m fine whit this, but information must be clear and
given whit year of advance (from CEO or some type of employee).
I like clear and direct tone - something like this "Its over bitches, free version will
end next year. Make decision - pay the price or go another path"
The Zimbra source code will remain open and free for as long as github exists (at least). We hope to bring back Open Source Prebuilds in the future.

I would only add that Synacor and Zimbra do care. When a big bug hits, it's gut wrenching to us. We care about quality over profits. It's so hard to see that sometimes. The Zimbra team cares, and Synacor will protect it.
Just note that of all the times that Zimbra changed owners, the owners never closed up shop. There's reasons behind that.
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Re: Open Source, an interesting read

Post by phoenix »

If Zimbra is so keen on Open Source then why have they not provided the patches via the repository for the OSS version of ZCS 9 or are we supposed add those ourselves?
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Bill

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Re: Open Source, an interesting read

Post by jholder »

phoenix wrote:If Zimbra is so keen on Open Source then why have they not provided the patches via the repository for the OSS version of ZCS 9 or are we supposed add those ourselves?
This was a topic of debate on our side. The issue is that the downstream providers are responsible for building them.
We considered issuing patches, but there's a technical problem: since partners are building FOSS, we don't always know what their base version will be and the scripts can fail very badly.

Each patch is tagged on github, so anyone could check out that tag, build it, and run the installer and it will patch.
For instance, Patch 23 is https://github.com/Zimbra/zm-mailbox/tree/8.8.15.p23

Yum and Apt can be configured to use the patches, but when we offloaded building, it meant that we had to also offload patching.

So to patch a foss build, and the partner hasn't provided a patch:
then check out the patch and build it and run the installer.

Again, being open source doesn't mean that binaries must also be provided. The source is open and can be checked out by anyone.
In fact, nothing is stopping anyone from building it and putting them on github or creating a foss yum and apt repositories. We won't stop them.

I want to reemphasize that we don't consider this approach ideal.
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Re: Open Source, an interesting read

Post by JDunphy »

Given this reality, I wonder if it might be more prudent to install the Network version and then overlay the mailboxd packages for the OSS users to get a more stable experience. I have never run OSS Zimbra myself but if there is another major security problem as we saw a few years ago, we all pay the price when the Zimbra brand is tarnished... and not providing patches by the sources providing the builds isn't helping here as Bill has expressed since many of the patches have been security related. Certainly these forums are clogged with OSS versions where the admin thinks they are at 8.8.15 (fully patched) or 9.X and simple stuff like the shared libraries were not updated. It's a huge mess and time sink for the forums attempting to debug these odd errors AND that makes the product appear fragile and not stable. This is not a win for anyone given the product's reputation is at stake.

The recent commercial patches (ie. P20) haven't helped with this view either and patching first after a patch release is best left for those that really believe. ;-) ;-)

I have no idea if this is even feasible and what changes might be needed to make this happen but I might take this on myself as I am curious of the lock-in that seems to be creeping into the product for commercial customers. If there is no lock-in, I could see a patch cycle with a little bit of package mgmt magic or script glue to make this fairly transparent along with a build of the latest mailbxod, etc. Not speaking from any experience here but what is keeping me from Zimbra 9 is a sneaking suspicion there is no way back to OSS once we move in that direction. That could be wrong as 8.8.15 might have already put us in that position.

In any event, creating a build environment for RHEL8 is my next task to see for myself first hand what is going on here.

Jim
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Re: Open Source, an interesting read

Post by Klug »

JDunphy wrote:In any event, creating a build environment for RHEL8 is my next task to see for myself first hand what is going on here.
Beezim is working on a Rocky Linux build.

They've finished their build farm to be able to build Zimbra for Ubuntu 16 18 20 and RH 7 8 in about 2 hours (quoting Florent on this).
It means building the 184 dependencies and Zimbra.
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