EGroupware is free

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 groupware software intended for businesses from small to enterprises. Its primary functions allow users to manage contacts, appointments, projects and to-do lists.

It is used either via its native web-interface, making access platform-independent, or by using different supported groupware clients, such as Kontact

Kontact

KMail supports folders, filtering, viewing HTML mail, and international character sets. It can handle IMAP, IMAP IDLE, dIMAP, POP3, and local mailboxes for incoming mail. It can send mail via SMTP or sendmail...

, Novell Evolution

Novell Evolution

Evolution or Novell Evolution is the official personal information manager and workgroup information management tool for GNOME. It combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions. It has been an official part of GNOME since version 2.8 in September 2004...

, or Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite...

. It can also be used by mobile phone

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

 or PDA

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

 via SyncML

SyncML

SyncML is the former name for a platform-independent information synchronization standard. The project is currently referred to as Open Mobile Alliance Data Synchronization and Device Management...

.

It currently has translations for more than 25 languages, including right-to-left language

Right-to-left

A language is described as right-to-left if writing starts from the right of the page, and continues to the left. Right to left scripts are:* Arabic alphabet - used for Arabic, Persian, Urdu and many other languages....

 support. It depends on a standard X-AMP System and as such requires no specific operating system. Most popular internet browsers are supported for use as web based clients.

History

EGroupware is the most current manifestation of a chain of projects. The original project was called webdistro. In 2000 development on the project phpgroupware began, which was based on webdistro; and in 2003 the EGroupware fork was born. EGroupware has a very pronounced community character compared with its predecessors.

There is a EGroupware constitution, adopted in 2005, which guarantees freedom and security to the community and establishes admin elections.

For a short time Tine 2.0

Tine 2.0

Tine 2.0 is an open source business software package covering the software categories groupware and Customer Relationship Management , released under the terms of the agpl license....

 was an official subproject of EGroupware. The goal of the subproject was the development of future technologies for the EGroupware project. Due to internal disagreements, the projects EGroupware and Tine 2.0 had separated from each other in February 2008.

Main features

• Calendar (including support for scheduling of groups, resources and contacts)
• Contact-manager using an SQL database or LDAP
• Integrated IMAP webmail client (FelaMiMail)
• Infolog, an application for tasks and notes
• Element based project manager highly integrated with all other apps
• Resources management (inventory) and booking tool integrated into EGroupware calendar
• File manager
• SiteMgr: web based authoring system with fine granulated access control lists
• Time-tracker application integrated with project manager
• Tracking of bugs or other, integrated with project manager
• Wiki
• Knowledge base
• CalDAV
  CalDAV
  Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV, or CalDAV, is an Internet standard allowing a client to access scheduling information on a remote server. It extends WebDAV specification and uses iCalendar format for the data. The protocol is defined by RFC 4791...
  
   and CardDAV server

See also

• List of collaborative software#Open source software compares its features with others
• List of project management software

Literature

• Ralf Becker, Birgit Becker, Michaela Knotte, Ingo Kreißelmeyer: Manual EGroupware 1.4, English, Outdoor Unlimited Training GmbH, 1.Edition, January 2008, ISBN 978-3981196818
• Ralf Becker, Birgit Becker, M. Knotte, I. Kreißelmeyer: Benutzerhandbuch EGroupware 1.4, German, Outdoor Unlimited Training GmbH, 1. Edition, August 2007) ISBN 978-3981196801

External links

• EGroupware Community Edition
• SourceForge EGroupware project site
• Stylite - an EGroupware service provider
• EGroupwareItalia - an Italian EGroupware service provider