Lotus Notes client for Linux

Post by **Patrick** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:04 am

I decided to email Jeff Eisen (Lotus Notes Chief Architect) asking if they plan on porting Lotus Notes to Linux. His response:
"There is a Notes Plug-in for Workplace Managed Client for Linux that is in
beta now. It has full application functionality of the Notes client --
that is, all apps work as long as they don't make any Windows specific
calls.

This is a native port in that it is NOT Wine or any other such emulation
layer.

We have no plans for a Linux Notes client without the Workplace Client
embedding -- that is, no plans for a Linux client along the lines of
today's Windows Notes client."

Upon further investigation I found this on the IBM website:
ftp://ftp.lotus.com/pub/lotusweb/workpl ... _sheet.pdf - check out the last page

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/l ... c-toolkit/

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:13 pm

No!!!

No!!!!!!

Notes must die!!!!!

Please don't encourage them!

Actually this Managed Workplace Client looks interesting. I may try to get the demo and run it. I'm wondering if this is a descendant of OS/2 as it was always aimed at doing Windows as well as native stuff.

Post by **Patrick** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:19 pm

Gomer_X wrote:No!!!

No!!!!!!

Notes must die!!!!!

Please don't encourage them!

Actually this Managed Workplace Client looks interesting. I may try to get the demo and run it. I'm wondering if this is a descendant of OS/2 as it was always aimed at doing Windows as well as native stuff.

Unfortunately a lot of businesses use Notes. Not so much for the email and instant messaging but for the databases and work flow. My company has been using it for years. I know exactly where you're coming from. There have been discussions at my job about possibly migrating to linux on the desktop. If they can use their existing applications then the likelihood of adoption is much higher. Nothing would make me happier than running linux (insert any distro) on my desktop at work.

If you do check it out please let me know how it goes. I'm attempting to get the chief architect of Lotus Notes on to discuss this in further detail.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:30 pm

Patrick wrote:Unfortunately a lot of businesses use Notes. Not so much for the email and instant messaging but for the databases and work flow. My company has been using it for years. I know exactly where you're coming from. There have been discussions at my job about possibly migrating to linux on the desktop. If they can use their existing applications then the likelihood of adoption is much higher. Nothing would make me happier than running linux (insert any distro) on my desktop at work.

We switched from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook. Many departments use the Notes database functionality extensively to document workflows and procedures. So far my company has not provided a solution, which means those of us who need access to a database have to bring up Lotus Notes (and it's gargantuan resource needs) in addition to Outlook.

Personally I don't see why SQL and an HTML/Perl/PHP front end couldn't do the same thing, but they don't ask my opinion.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 3:13 pm

If notes disappeard tomorrow, I'd likely be w/o a job. Not because I'm a notes hacker, but the company I work for depends very heavily on notes/domino.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:52 pm

Snarkout wrote:If notes disappeard tomorrow, I'd likely be w/o a job. Not because I'm a notes hacker, but the company I work for depends very heavily on notes/domino.

If Notes disappears, I promise I'll send you paper and crayons so you can go on like nothing happened.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:03 pm

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:54 pm

All that needs to be done is IBM making a nice little Notes plug-in for Evolution!

russh · Post by **russh** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 4:11 am

...a notes client for Evolution? Why not simply enable IMAP on the Notes server and use Evolution directly?

That'd certainly take care of the email requiements -

Apart from that;

-I've run Notes under wine for around two years
- the Workplace Managed Client is a great step forward for native support, but is a fair bit slower unless you have a wodge of memory.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:03 am

Tsuroerusu wrote:All that needs to be done is IBM making a nice little Notes plug-in for Evolution!

Notes and Evolution are not the same. If Lotus Notes were just an E-mail/groupware client it would have died long ago. It includes a shared database functionality, which is what most people are holding onto.

I'm sure the Evolution people would love to have a client that could work with a Domino backend, but I'm guessing it's a pretty difficult thing to do. IBM's commitment to Linux apparently doesn't extend that far, or they would be working on something like that themselves.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:11 am

Gomer_X wrote:IBM's commitment to Linux apparently doesn't extend that far, or they would be working on something like that themselves.

Yeah, you're probably right, I'm actually a little disappointed with IBM on this one. They push Linux, but at the same time they havn't put AIX in the grave yet, I guess they use Linux as a sort of "Hey <insert name of big corporation here>, you can use Linux, it's a great operating system, very powerful, provides very scaleable servers..... AND if you need something even more powerful.... AIX is the bomb dude!"

Post by **Patrick** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:21 am

Tsuroerusu wrote: They push Linux, but at the same time they havn't put AIX in the grave yet, I guess they use Linux as a sort of "Hey <insert name of big corporation here>, you can use Linux, it's a great operating system, very powerful, provides very scaleable servers..... AND if you need something even more powerful.... AIX is the bomb dude!"

You pretty much nailed it on the head. Ultimately they're looking to make more money (which is understandable). Linux is just another market segment that makes them money. AIX is not going away because they have invested quite a bit into it over the years and it turns a profit, just like AS400, mainframe and any other product.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:29 am

Patrick wrote:You pretty much nailed it on the head. Ultimately they're looking to make more money (which is understandable). Linux is just another market segment that makes them money. AIX is not going away because they have invested quite a bit into it over the years and it turns a profit, just like AS400, mainframe and any other product.

I saw an article yesterday that described the old UNIXes as more robust and solid than Linux, and that companies with huge databases might prefer UNIX in that case, and that Linux still needed to mature in that environment. I looked at this and thought "WTF is this guy talking about!", Linux is more than mature as a server operating system, and are very close to being a very good desktop operating system for the general non-geeky/advanced computer user (I think the HP guy that was on the show recently was not up to snuff as far as desktop Linux, he sounded like we were still in the KDE 3.0 days).

mrben · Post by **mrben** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 11:37 am

Patrick wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote: They push Linux, but at the same time they havn't put AIX in the grave yet, I guess they use Linux as a sort of "Hey <insert name of big corporation here>, you can use Linux, it's a great operating system, very powerful, provides very scaleable servers..... AND if you need something even more powerful.... AIX is the bomb dude!"
You pretty much nailed it on the head. Ultimately they're looking to make more money (which is understandable). Linux is just another market segment that makes them money. AIX is not going away because they have invested quite a bit into it over the years and it turns a profit, just like AS400, mainframe and any other product.

Actually, I'm not sure that's quite accurate. IBM continues to support AIX because there are still thousands of customers that are using it, and who don't necessarily trust Linux as yet, in the same way that many people still use Windows for the same reason. There are (AFAIK) only 2 OSs that run on AS/400 hardware - Linux and AIX.

Also, IBM is still not focusing on Linux on the desktop, hence there being no move to bring Notes to the desktop (other than in the form previously described), although I suspect that the port would be an horrendous job anyway. Domino is, of course, ported, because it's the server side.

As a last point, bear in mind that IBM is a huge organisation, and setting/changing strategy is much harder/slower than for a small company. There are people internal to IBM who are very supportive of Linux on the desktop, but it will probably be a while before that support is made strategy at a corporate level.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:36 pm

Patrick wrote: If you do check it out please let me know how it goes. I'm attempting to get the chief architect of Lotus Notes on to discuss this in further detail.

Looked a little closer and although there's a 180 day trial version, you need an IBM ID in order to download it. Oh well.