Contributing to OSS in a commercial non-OSS environment

Contributing to OSS in a commercial non-OSS environmentMike Taczakmtaczak@mailtrust.com25/11/08Mailtrust, a division of Rackspacewww.mailtrust.com | www.rackspace.comOverview□What is Mailtrust□What OSS does Mailtrust use□How has Mailtrust contributed to Funambol□Design challenges□Review of integration strategies2□Formerly Webmail.us□Now a division of Rackspace◊ Recently went public□Business-class email hosting□Noteworthy Webmail◊ Full-featured AJAX-y webmail application◊ Competitive collaboration suite3Mailtrust and Open Source□Heavily Used□Main Contributions◊ PHP◊ Funambol◊ mySQL◊ Dovecot◊ Hadoop◊ Postfix◊ amavisd◊ policyd◊ Many others4Contributions to Funambol□DS-Server◊ Webmail Connector□Outlook Client◊ Support for 'custom fields'□Blackberry PIM Client◊ Initial development in-house◊ Now part of Funambol's core clients□iPhone client◊ 2 weeks in Italy5Goals for Sync Service□Synchronize shared data◊ Read-only□Give back to open source community◊ But keep proprietary systems private□Focus on a few highly refined clients◊ Outlook◊ Blackberry◊ Windows Mobile6System Architecture Evolution, Part 1Initial design:● Very Simple● Connector hit DBs directlyWebmailWebmailDatabaseDataWebmailDS-ServerAModuleuthenticationUserDatabase7System Architecture Evolution, Part 1Lessons Learned:● 2 code bases to maintain!● Data validation duplicated● Proprietary DB schemas in open source code!Webmail●We could not launch with this architectureWebmailDatabaseDataWebmailDS-ServerAModuleuthenticationUserDatabase8System Architecture Evolution, Part 2Introducing the Webmail-Sync API● Implementation of SyncSource interface in API form● Data parsing now in php●Implemented a large Vobj libraryWebmail●Hope to open-source it!Database● Uses existing structures and validation● HTTP + jsON●Connector generic enough for other uses● Clear separation between Funambol and WebmailWebmailDS-ServerAPIWebmailModule9System Architecture Evolution, Part 2Lessons Learned● PHP has an execution time limit●Don't do too much at once●Know your technologies intimately● Distance mattersWebmail●Reliability, speed deterioratesDatabase●Retry failed requests● getSyncItemByKey is slow●Page calls and cache dataWebmail2000DS-ServerAPIWebmailModuleMiles!10