phpGroupWare + Horde

[Dan Kuykendall]

Any hope of a merger between our two projects? or the the consensus to
keep each other on our toes?

There is a ton of duplicate code between the two projects, and both have
their strong points. Horde has IMP which is hands down the best webmail
client I have seen. I am looking to create a fork of IMP to toss into
phpGW and replace our current mail client. The SquirrelMail guys are
looking to write their SM2 so that it plugs directly into phpGW, and at
that point depending on which is better, it will replace our IMP port.

Things in phpGroupWare that seem to be stronger than in horde:
1) More add-on apps: phpGW has more add-on apps, but not all apps are
stable. I still think phpGW wins on this account because the apps will
mature and most are fairly active.
2) Better infrastructure for application interaction: Via our "hooks"
functions and our Object Factory applications can easily use resources
from other apps or hook themselves into certain areas of other
applications.
3) Security System: We an ACL security system which is extremely
flexible and gives admins complete control of their installations, and
very soon will allow for giving rights to other users so they can admin
certain apps, or admin the rights that their subordinates have.
4) Multi-domain support: Via a single of the code phpGW can support
multiple "domains" (using separate db's). This is mostly useful for
companies tat want to host phpGW as a service. 
5) Multiple interfaces: We have almost completely moved to templates for
the interface and we designed our template system to allow for any
number of template sets so that the interface can be easily customized.
So far we have 3 different interfaces with one more on the way. Pretty
much gives phpGW a "skins" system, which our users really like.
6) Better setup program: I think that phpGW's setup program is much
stronger, and will be even stronger yet when our new schema_proc code is
done. The schema_proc code handles all table creation and upgrades using
an abstraction layer along the lines of what the phplib db classes does
for handling queries. So once schema_proc is in place, all apps will
basically be db independent and can be run by any db that we have create
a schema_proc class for. 
7) Very active: phpGW is a very active project and we have lots of
excited developers and users involved. I am just now joining the horde
mailing lists, but I had the impression that horde was not very active
anymore.

Things in horde that seem to be stronger than in phpGroupWare :
1) Stable: More stable base for apps. May be lacking in some services,
but the stability is very important.
2) Userbase: As far as I can tell phpGW is growing fast, but I would
guess that horde still has the larger userbase.
3) Strong apps: Apps like IMP and Jonah are very slick. I haven't
reviewed any other apps in detail, but these two are stand out
applications. IMP is the single best webmail I have ever seen.
4) Better app websites: You guys advertise your add-on apps much much
better than we do. We just have code in cvs, but no websites or detailed
information on them. This is something we need to do, but you have
already done. Kudos

Now I know this list seems very one sided, and I will admit that this is
because I am far more familiar with phpGW than I am Horde. I am also the
phpGroupWare project leader, so I am extremely away of every aspect and
feature, and have a natural bias which I am doing my best to put aside. 
My goal in contacting this list is to start a dialog. Not a flame war. I
have a great respect for your efforts because I am well aware of what an
enormous task a project like this is to run.
I would be very excited to broker some kind of merger in our efforts so
that between the two projects we can either do a complete merger, or to
possibly work our some "compatibility layer" so that add-on apps written
for one, could be used in the other. I do believe the phpgwAPI to have
serious advantages to the Horde base, but do think you have applications
that are fantastic. It also appears that your coding style is a bit
different than ours, and I will have to study yours to determine which
is the better solution.

Regardless, I wish you luck and if no merger ever takes place, then I
hope we can have a very friendly competition to create the best possible
groupware system!

Seek3r (aka Dan Kuykendall)
phpGroupWare Project Leader