Topic: SME has Competition ?? ClarkeConnect now = ClearOS

[shawnbishop]

Hi

Well browsing the web, I found that ClarkConnect is now called "Clear Foundation", looks like it has had a nice new revamp and update...

What do you think??

http://www.clearfoundation.com/

Shawn

[piran]

Looks very corporate but I'll let you know when I've found my magnifying glass.

[soprom]

This is interesting...

http://www.h-online.com/open/ClarkConnect-becomes-ClearOS--/news/114256

From this article, I learned that:

Now ClearOS – a Linux-based small business server and successor to ClarkConnect, will be free to use, with the income stream generated from related services.

The foundation will be chaired by John H. Terpstra, a long-serving member of the Samba development team and an untiring evangelist for all things open source.

ClearOS/ClarkConnect is based on CentOS 5.3. The separate, partly paid-for versions will be phased out in favour of a free full version.

Available by next december...

Some features found in Clark's:

• Multi-WAN
• ipsec vpn for site-to-site
• centos 5.3
• cyrus-imap for outlook connectors

Asterisk with FreePBX can be added manually.

Is this becoming a serious alternative to sme-server ?!

[shawnbishop]

Well if ClearFoundation is Totally "free", and it has a nice "corporate" interface, I think it will be..



But I am a SME Man...

[soprom]

I think they still have to build a knowledge base and a community to really match SME-server.  Doc, contribs, forums and Howtos in SME's are bringing the distro far ahead dispite its less corporate look.

Over the years, I learned more because I was using SME. But a product like ClearOS will bring more attention to this kind of networking solution.  And that is a great benefit.

[calisun]

I am torn, I have been a SME server loyal user since 6.0 Beta
I have beta tested 6.0, 6.1. 6.5 (Which never came out) and 7.0
So I have a long history with SME Server, but at this point I think if ClerOS does everything I need, I will jump ship.
One of the main reasons is that CentOS 5.0 came out on April 12, 2007, and as of this date SME8, which is Based on CentOS 5.X, is still in Beta stage.

[Stefano]

I have beta tested 6.0, 6.1. 6.5 (Which never came out) and 7.0
One of the main reasons is that CentOS 5.0 came out on April 12, 2007, and as of this date SME8, which is Based on CentOS 5.X, is still in Beta stage.

so, are you now testing SME 8? and what are the other reasons?

Stefano

[janet]

calisun

So I have a long history with SME Server, but at this point I think if ClearOS does everything I need, I will jump ship.

A little fickle, if everyone jumps ship, then who is going to look after sme ?
You are placing your confidence in a newish product, although of course ClarkConnect has existed for some time.
Have you even tested the latest release of ClearOS ? It doesn't sound like it, and on that basis you are prepared to jump ship already ! Oh gee.

Please spend your time using and testing sme8b4, and help get a CentOS 5.x based sme release "out the door".

[calisun]

so, are you now testing SME 8? and what are the other reasons?

Stefano

No, I am not testing SME8 because of the "other reasons"
I don't want to go into detail because developers will again ether delete my post or close this thread to further posts like they have done in the past.

I must admit that there is no sense of community here like before. In the past beta testing took months, not years like right now. Before there was more community involvement, a real democracy. Now there is a feeling of a dictatorship.

[Stefano]

No, I am not testing SME8 because of the "other reasons"

please, I repeat, define "other reasons"

I don't want to go into detail because developers will again ether delete my post or close this thread to further posts like they have done in the past.

I think that the matter is not WHAT you say but HOW do you say it.. so, again, explain

I must admit that there is no sense of community here like before. In the past beta testing took months, not years like right now. Before there was more community involvement, a real democracy. Now there is a feeling of a dictatorship.

I think you miss a point: dev's team is small, very small.. and there are no resources to waste.. anyway, if I were in your shoes I will post in the "general discussions" or directly in the dev's ML asking for a clarification

Stefano and.. "dictatorship" is another thing

[shawnbishop]

I will BETA test version 8, Lets see what it can do, I will use it as just my File servers at customers..

Also maybe look at a newish interface for SME 8??, something "corporate", and I am quite aware that the look doesnt mean anything etc...but we are all humans and we all like "Eye Candy"

Cheers

I have a feeling that this ClearOS, may be some serious competition..

[soprom]

This thread is turning bad...

Well, I can understand why someone would select CLearOS over SMES.  I know people who did.  They mainly use their server "as-is".  Personnaly, I customize my servers quite a bit and CC was not easy on this side.  I know because I tried! And it has to be easy for me to do those things... That's why SMES is better for me.

Those other reasons to select CLearOS, like I said in a previous post are things like cyrus-imap and multi-wan... It is difficult for SMES to compete against a paid dev team, that's for sure. But SMES has benefited from a very interesting contributors base, probably because its free model.

Currently (or by next december), someone looking for a free general purpose server will definitly compare SMES and ClearOS, along with Engarde and Ubuntu/usm.

What is hurting SMES right now is that there are no contribs on SME8, SME7 is too far behind with php and mysql, nobody knows when SME8 final will be available.

[Elliott]

I don't think its bad that people are discussing alternatives. It can help guide future development (at whatever pace the small dev team can handle).

I've been testing 8b4 as well as ebox 1.3 and now I'll take a look at this new one. I will say that the ebox community is coming along quite nicely and the feature set is just about all there and since it's basically sitting on top of ubuntu/debian it is very customizable.

[calisun]

please, I repeat, define "other reasons"

There is no reason to because that will not change anything, the leadership is so stuck in their ways that nothing will change.
If you don't believe me how things have changed, look at the numbers, before if you look at users online, you would see 100, 200 sometime even 300 users online. And most were actively in participating in beta forum with excitement and anticipation of the new release coming out and a real sense of community. Now you see 30, 40 users online? And most asking questions about current release, not too many are beta testing.

... I've been testing... ebox 1.3 ...

Looks nice, but one thing that it does not have and SME has, and I use a lot, is domain controller.

[Elliott]

Looks nice, but one thing that it does not have and SME has, and I use a lot, is domain controller.

If you're referring to ebox, it works just fine as a domain controller (all the way back to 1.1). In fact the beta of 1.3 is currently working to implement a MASTER/SLAVE relationship that will allow for some failover possibilities.

Look at this poll/thread I started and the followup by community members and developers.

Usage of eBox Platform