Intranet Journal: Enhance Your Lotus Intranet with Open Source Solutions (and Notes/Domino 7.0.2)

May 9 2006

John Roling, aka Greyhawk68, contributes this article to Intranet Journal.  Great to see some exposure outside the core Notes/Domino community for OpenNTF projects such as DominoWiki, domBulletin, Blogsphere, etc.

One clarification:

IBM has really gotten the value of a business blog, and recently obtained the services of Steve Castledine. Steve created one of the first and most popular Domino blogging templates, dominoblog. With Steve's hiring, dominoblog "will be integrated into the IBM product set."

At this point we're not sure what that means, but there have been several rumors over the last year about IBM providing a blogging template natively in Domino. An IBM-branded version of dominoblog could be just the thing.
Actually, we are sure what it means.  At Lotusphere 2006, IBM indicated that the 7.0.2 release of Domino will include a blogging template.  That template will be based on Steve's DominoBlog work.  Details still to be announced, but that is absolutely the plan.

Anyway, here's the link.  Intranet Journal: Enhance Your Lotus Intranet with Open Source Solutions > (Thanks, Duffbert)  Good job, John R!

This reminds me, I realized the other day that I need to write more about the 7.0.2 release.  7.0.2 is going to have a lot of new stuff, all of it completely optional but likewise all of it interesting and innovative:
  • IBM Lotus Notes access for SAP solutions -- seven use cases for integrating Notes mail/calendar/contacts with SAP systems
  • A weblog template
  • An RSS feed template -- note this isn't a core code change, it's a database which aggregates information from other Notes databases and publishes them as RSS feeds.  I'll be writing more about it in the coming days.
  • "Nomad" (current codename, formerly "Wanda") -- A complete, functioning, supported Notes install to a portable USB memory key, for enhanced roaming user support
  • Improvements to iCalendar support
  • Notes 7 on Macintosh (Power and Intel); Domino Web Access support on Macintosh/Firefox
  • Notes 7 on Linux via the IBM Workplace Managed client 2.6.1
  • SmartUpgrade "run as admin" utility -- which will work with previous releases of Notes but is shipping with 7.0.2

I'll start to cover more of this over the next week, with both Admin2006 and DNUG/IBM Lotus Technical Forum presentations on tap.

Ed Brill LaGuardia Airport, New York NY US Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [28]

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  1. 1  Ted Stanton http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/InsideLotus | 5/9/2006 6:19:11 PM

    What about Domino running on a 64 bit OS?

  1. 2  Paul Rigby www.ingensys.net | 5/9/2006 6:26:08 PM

    Domino has been running on a 64bit OS for around 8 years - On the IBM i5s, aka iSeries, aka AS/400 (it's had more names than Prince!).

  1. 3  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 5/9/2006 6:45:13 PM

    Do you mean Safari for Macintosh/Firefox?

  1. 4  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/9/2006 7:48:47 PM

    @1 I think you mean that Domino 7.0.2 will be supported on Windows x64, right? Not a native 64-bit implementation, but supported on the OS.

    @3 - no, I mean DWA on Firefox/Mac. Safari is not supported.

  1. 5  Dave  | 5/10/2006 3:10:19 AM

    SmartUpgrade "run as admin" utility -- which will work with previous releases of Notes but is shipping with 7.0.2

    <round of applause>

    I dipped my toes into the waters of SmartUpgrade for 7->7.0.1, and shuddered when I realised that the users needed admin privileges. I think more spyware found its way into our network during the 2-week upgrade period than at any other point!

    Ed, do you have any further information on how this utility will run? Will it need to be installed as a service on the client machines?

  1. 6  Steve Cogan  | 5/10/2006 3:37:30 AM

    @1 "Is Lotus Domino supported on Linux x86_64?"

    { Link }

    Or was that a comment on the article not giving enough details on the Domino Intel 64-bit roadmap.

    Kind of like the Mission Impossible III line, "Please don't interrupt me when I'm asking rhetorical questions" :-)

  1. 7  Oliver Regelmann http://www.n-komm.de/blog | 5/10/2006 5:59:03 AM

    "An RSS feed template"

    Is this the announced RSS support for 7.0.x or will there be something else with which I can subscribe to feeds within the Notes client?

  1. 8  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/10/2006 6:12:08 AM

    @7 Yes, it's the announced RSS support for 7.0.x. It's a server/template capability, accessible by any feedreader. For RSS feeds within Notes, today there are third-party options like { Link } .

  1. 9  Norm Van Bergen  | 5/10/2006 6:39:59 AM

    "SmartUpgrade "run as admin" utility"

    Can't wait - will be just in time for an upgrade of several thousand clients this fall who don't have admin access to their machine.

  1. 10  Ben Rose http://www.lnug.org.uk | 5/10/2006 6:40:29 AM

    Great stuff, particularly excited about "IBM Lotus Notes access for SAP solutions" - be interesting to see how the licensing works for this.

  1. 11  Oliver Regelmann http://www.n-komm.de/blog | 5/10/2006 8:07:27 AM

    @8: Thanks for the clarification.

  1. 12  Thomas Yung http://www.thomasyung.com:81/ | 5/10/2006 8:26:21 AM

    "Improvements to iCalendar support"

    What kind of improvements? Currently, Notes support for iCalendar has been limited to some easter egg that allows import of .ICS files via a mail attachment. That current feature requires us to manually go to our inbox to accept each meeting invitation entry separately. Full import/export capability should be in the File menu, with importing of iCal events being smart enough not to import duplicate entries. Also, how about iCalendar subscriptions?

  1. 13  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/10/2006 10:38:48 AM

    @12 Here's the soundbyte I have: "Provides customers the option of going to a website which publishes internet calendars (iCalendar based) and import that information into the Notes calendar."

    @5 Rob Ingram, the product manager, says no, it is "an admin utiity that is used to create a special install kit".

  1. 14  Ted Stanton http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/InsideLotus | 5/10/2006 11:29:58 AM

    So Domino 32bit will be supported on Windows 64bit?

  1. 15  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/10/2006 3:23:18 PM

    @14 yes, with 7.0.2 for Windows x64.

  1. 16  Jeff Mitchell  | 5/10/2006 5:04:47 PM

    @5 No, not client service required. Short answer is:Creates new exe with username/pw of account with privledges to be used with SmartUpgrade.

  1. 17  Malcolm Barr  | 5/10/2006 8:44:48 PM

    Nomad sounds like it might finally be a workable roaming solution. Where can I find out information on how it is installed, configured, managed, backed up, etc.

  1. 18  Steve Cogan  | 5/11/2006 3:59:09 AM

    @14 Ted,

    From Domino R7.02, Domino server will be supported by IBM on Windows2003 64-bit edition. This will only be supported in 'compatibility mode' - but will still give great platform/scalability improvements.

    The plan (as I understand it from "Lotusphere comes to you") is that this is a stepping stone to the 'full' Intel 64-bit version of Domino which will appear in beta at the release of Domino 'next' (R8 ?). This next version of Domino will run in 'full 64-bit' rather than compatability mode.

    Oh - and, as always, Domino will be backwards compatible, no rip & replace, so Domino 'next' will have a 32-bit version of Domino available as well. (In fact it sounds like Domino 'next' will be released in 32-bit fitst, with a beta of 64-bit.)

  1. 19  Steve Cogan  | 5/11/2006 6:08:25 AM

    @14 Ted,

    Just re-read your question (always a good thing in exams - BTW just passed my ND7 updates & have been 'grandfathered' into R5/6/7 PCLP!). The easiest answer is to say 32-bit Domino will work on an Intel 64-bit platform (EM64T not Itanium).

    However, there are 3 ways of looking at EM64T: (for Windows)

    1. 32-bit mode. No difference to 32-bit, and not leveraging any real benefits of 64-bit. Current Domino releases will work and be supported in this mode.

    2. Compatability mode. Uses 64-bit kernel space, but if the application hasn't been re-compiled for 64-bit the app won't necessarily address the 64-bit memory. Domino R7.02 will be supported in this mode.

    3. Full 64-bit mode. You'll need a 64-bit app for this mode, i.e. Domino 'next' will be best suited for this.

    The advantage of mode 2, compatability, for Domino on Intel, is that the Windows 'page-pool' kernel limitation should be blown away, so enabling greater scalability than has been possible up to now.

  1. 20  Dave Harris http://www.wavysworld.com | 5/12/2006 4:09:21 AM

    Ed, I'm sure Legal have been over this already, but Nomad is the name that Creative Labs use for the utility in win explorer for accessing the Zen mp3 players as storage devices.

    Sure there's no conflict here?

  1. 21  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2006 7:12:04 AM

    @20 "Nomad" is currently a codename. Not yet sure if it will be the shipping name or not.

  1. 22  Carl Fink www.kullman.com | 5/12/2006 10:25:27 AM

    As for the Linux plugin to the Workplace Managed Client: do you mean that the Managed Client will ship with 7.02? Or just the plugin? Or just that as of the 7.02 release it will exist, but you'll still have to obtain and pay for a completely separate piece of software, the Managed Client, to use Notes under Linux?

    Any chance of Admin and Developer clients under Linux, or should we just use the web client under Firefox, and wait for the Eclipse-based Workplace IDE to support Notes, respectively?

  1. 23  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2006 12:37:08 PM

    Good questions, Carl. The 2.6.1 Workplace managed client -- yes, a separate piece of software -- is the shell for Notes 7.0.x running on Linux. Both need be installed...that architecture will change at Notes "Hannover".

    Don't expect admin/designer clients supported on Linux... WebAdmin runs very well on Firefox/Linux.

  1. 24  David Vasta david.davidandkelly.com | 5/12/2006 1:12:26 PM

    Kind of @ 22 but just a follow up and to make Ed a little Red too....here goes!

    I would die if Lotus actually delivered half of what they should have years ago....This is not a jab at you Ed so don’t take the personally. If you want to get mad about it then please do something about it instead of feeding us the same line you have since I started talking about it. Number, figures, blah blah blah.

    The constant talk of ; we hate Microsoft, but then force is to use the clients on Microsoft’s OS instead of delivering one for Linux and Mac. Hey where is the logic there? Microsoft sucks but not enough to make us use it a little. Oh I know...that dark hole that Lotus can't see out of that would be your ***, and you might want to pull your head out of there long enough to actually deliver a solution that does not make you look like hypocrites.

    It reminds me of REAL Solutions where we were selling our customers Lotus R5 solutions and on our desktops we all user Outlook with an Exchange Server on the back in….you want to see a customer go nuts on you. You tell them that Lotus is the way to go and the company that just sold them the $50K solution is using the tool they just talked you out of. It’s just wrong.

    There I said it and I will say it again if you need me to. I thought IBM was behind Linux and going to move a large percentage of the desktops to Linux over the next few years....that was about 2003 so I am guessing that was what we call lip service and I need to stop as I am getting off topic, but I am not going to stop until they deliver, granted it may never happen but you isn’t going to shut me up with figured and such as they really don’t matter in the case, what really matters is IBM needs to do what they say they are going to do. At least work with the WINE folks to make it run like a champ without any crapola and old R5 tech notes. We need both the Developer and Admin on Linux and MacOSX.

    I know I know you hate me and wished I would go away or work for IBM and shut up. The latter of the two would be my wish.

    I don’t hate Lotus or IBM I just want to see change and while Hanover is a start it’s long over due.

    -David Out!

  1. 25  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2006 1:41:50 PM

    There are 30,000 IBMers or more running Linux desktops today, and internal deployment is definitely planned for the Linux plug-in version of Notes. As for Designer and Admin on Linux and OS/X, I hear you, it's just hard to make the commitment to a huge amount of testing/QE resources to something that a smaller number of people will use, compared to the millions who use the client itself. Given limited resources, wouldn't you rather have a kick-ass Notes "Hannover" client rather than drop a bunch of effort from that in order to do the porting/testing for admin/designer?

    As for timing, I'm sure every software product in market today has someone wishing it was sooner/better/faster. This is how we do it, and I think the innovation in Notes "Hannover" will lead the market, not trail it, in many areas.

  1. 26  Rob McDonagh www.CaptainOblivious.com | 5/12/2006 4:01:44 PM

    Ed's right, I'd much rather have a killer Hannover client than the Designer/Admin on OS X, Linux. And my primary computer is a Mac. I'd *love* to see Designer on my Mac, but I'm a realist, and I can do simpe math(s, for the UK contingent).

  1. 27  Andres Gorostidi  | 5/14/2006 4:46:22 PM

    @24,

    David, i do not understand you. It is true that IBM has a comminment on Linux, and it is true that is enforzing a client on that platform. In fact, it is going a step ahead. It is enfozing a client based on an open architecture (see eclipse)...

    I am one of the 30,000 IBMers that actually is using Linux to work. And I am doint it using latest version of Notes pluging internal beta (it is working fantastic, for both my maul and my Notes applications) and latest version of Sametime 7.5... and I really can say that I am not missing Windows at all..

    You said that IBM had to do that several years ago... let■s be realistic.... Was the world ready for Linux some years ago ? Do you think that invest on having a identical client on Win & linux some years ago, when there was not way to share code (i.e graphical interface) between platforms ? Where there was no "eclipse" framework that facilitates a common code for different plataforms ? Where there was not a Open format document that allowed you to standarize office suite (note that OpenDoc has obtained ISO aproval just some days ago) ? Where J2EE was a unkown player ? Let■s go step by step... Is the only way to reach the moon.....

  1. 28  David Vasta david.davidandkelly.com | 5/14/2006 10:02:29 PM

    @ Andres Gorostidi

    I get that you might think I am some wacko, but we don't hear about the 30K user @ IBM who use Linux, and you are using a beta linux plug in but the rest of are not....what I dont like is the We Hate Microsoft, now use thier products stance the all of the docs to get Notes running on WINE are so old and out dataed that it takes me days to get it working. Can someone at IBM work with the WINE crew and get that updated so that it runs on Linux, I still think the Linux movement from IBM is half assed ---take a look at Client Access for the iSeries that runs on Linux, it looks bad and is way behind where it should be. I think from where you sit at IBM Linux looks like it is everywhere, but from where I sit it does not.

    @ED

    I do want Hanover to be everything Lotus has promised and more but as an end user and a invoice signers who gives IBM and Lotus over 5 million every 3 years. I would like to see a Admin and Designer Client for MacOSX and Linux, I don't care how you deliver it just do something please.

    Still can't wait to meet you in August....it should be a livley evening.