Has the hula hoop fallen?

[jbailey]

Last weekend I found myself looking for something to hack on that wasn't something I see during my work day. I took a look at Hula. I've wanted something like this for use at home. It would be nice if auzure_skies and I could see one another's calendar, have our own Jabber server, and have easy access to our email through a local client or through webmail.

There seem to be a steady stream of commits to Hula's SVN, but almost no discussion on the mailing list. I've sent in one patch to the Makefile so that make dist would run (accepted), and sent another asking for design information (No answer yet). In general, the codebase seems crufted with a bunch of legacy NetWare concepts. It's written in at least four languages (C, C , C#, and Python) and doesn't seem to have a testsuite. The code also currently doesn't run on powerpc without segfaulting.

Ah well. Anyone know if there's another project that has similar aims and goals? Basically some sort of server software that will handle almost all of what evolution can hand to it, plus some sort of extensible interface so that it's reasonably easy to add things like Jabber servers, RSS/Atom Aggregators, etc.

Comments

hula on debian

[(Anonymous)]

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=hula

it seems hula's debian package is quite abandoned. Some time ago i almost tested it, but openxchange was getting nice too ... so decided ... none of them.

maybe one apt-get install hula ... just to see

Re: hula on debian

[jbailey.livejournal.com]

I had actually started with the hula in Ubuntu which is even older than the one in Debian.

The one in Debian is still 1000 SVN commits behind head, though. There's a comment on the bug asking for a newer version that the DD is waiting for the store branch to land against the head. At that point, he'll still be stuck with code that looks to be only tested on i386. The lack of a testsuite there is particularily concerning.

Re: hula on debian

[lordmuck.livejournal.com]

Debian's Hula package is definitely not abandoned.

If you look at the bugs, there's one asking for a newer release, and the reasons for not providing one yet are listed there.

[thumperward.livejournal.com]

It doesn't have a lot of public discussion because like many other things it's basically an internal Novell project just now. At some point it'll spring fully-formed from Nat Friedman's forehead and it'll be worth investigating further.

- Chris

[scjody.livejournal.com]

On the groupware (http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html) front, there's also Chandler (http://chandler.osafoundation.org/), who are at least trying to do community-driven development. No idea how well they're succeeding or how close it is to your needs, but it should be worth checking out.

[jbailey.livejournal.com]

Ah nice, I'll take a look at that.

BTW, I think you left your shirt here this weekend. Brownish, vertical stripes.

[scjody.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I forgot about that. Can you bring it when you come up?

Hula hoop hasn't fallen

[lordmuck.livejournal.com]

To be fair, this is pre-alpha unreleased software you're testing.

I won't argue with the code base quality, you're basically right. However, it was much worse when it was released. There are two options: a) do a Mozilla, or b) do a OpenOffice.org. While there are pros/cons with both approachs, I think the evolution rather than revolution approach is correct in this case: the basic Hula design and architecture is sound and tested, most of the problems are at a local code level rather than an architectural level.

That's not to say there's no revolution: the queue system has been refactored, and the main mailstore - the heart of the system - is being completely replaced. Also, the upcoming caldav support is completely new.

There were no testsuites when it released, there are now: if you look around you'll find a few, and they'll only grow.

I'm not trying to convince you to change your mind; Hula at this stage isn't really ready for use (indeed, earlier versions where much more useful). But, sometime this summer it will start becoming useful and I wouldn't dismiss it yet.