If you have met with us in any of the recent months, had a look at the roadmap or visited our conference you probably already heard about one of the products we’re currently developing: Kopano Documents. On April 12th, we officially announced the public availability of the first puzzle piece that will be part of the Documents offering: Kopano-built packages for LibreOffice Online, which make it even easier to get started with online collaborative editing. So what would you need to know to get started?
Kopano Documents: Future Developments
Kopano Documents is currently in the first stages of development. Kopano has joined the advisory board of The Document Foundation (TDF) and will be building and packaging its own, Kopano branded version of LibreOffice Online. Kopano Documents will be a service that glues the existing storage solutions and the Kopano branded LibreOffice Online together. We will make use of modern technology such as OpenID Connect for authentication.
The first steps will consist of building the ‘framework’, focusing on a single distribution and a single storage solution, bringing it all together and exposing the functionality via an API. The Kopano Files plugin for WebApp will also play a role, as we aim to make the transition to Kopano Documents as smooth as possible.
Future versions of Kopano Documents will support various types of storage solutions. These can be in your own control, such as network storage or ‘smart storage’ – e.g. Nexcloud, ownCloud and Seafile – or they can be cloud hosted. Connected to Kopano Documents, they can be used with the same functionality and integration options. It will provide an API that exposes file access, sharing and collaborative editing for each of the storage solutions. This API will be used to integrate Kopano Documents in other Kopano services and can be used to open and synchronize data to your local devices.
Which Flavors Will Be Available?
Community
First of all, community packages have been made available in the ‘libreoffice-online’ repository. These repositories are publicly available for everyone to use in their environment.
This version is not officially supported by Kopano (we also have commercial builds available) and it comes with some limitations. There is a maximum number of simultaneous documents that can be open at the same time, as well as a limited amount of simultaneous connections (number of documents being edited at the same time). A message about (support) limitations is displayed when the community packages are being used.
Supported
The supported packages are available under the name kopano-documentseditor. Everyone with a valid Kopano subscription (basic, pro or enterprise) currently has access to these packages. They are officially supported builds without the limitations and warning message you can find in the community packages.
Read on to learn about how Kopano will support these builds.
Supported Linux distributions
LibreOffice Online depends on libraries and features offered by modern Linux distributions. This set is different from what Kopano supports for other products:
- Debian 8
- Debian 9
- SLES 12
- Ubuntu 16.04
- Ubuntu 18.04 (not yet for download, soon available)
How Will Kopano Support These Packages?
Kopano supports the packaging of the LibreOffice Online software with the kopano-documentseditor packages. We support the installation and updating/upgrading of these packages, and provide information about the configuration of LibreOffice Online.
LibreOffice (Online) and its features are not supported by Kopano itself. Issues with the product itself or feature requests should be made known by appropriate channels at this time. We can assist in finding these channels if needed.
What Is The Price Tag? Will This Change In The Future?
Community packages for LibreOffice Online are (and will be) available for free for everyone.
The commercial kopano-documentseditor package will be part of the paid offering of Kopano Documents. Pricing details are still being worked on at this time, but it will be available as a product separate from the Kopano Groupware offering.
For a limited time after Kopano Documents is introduced, there will be a special offer available for customers that have been testing the kopano-documentseditor packages and provided us with feedback.
When Will The Next Piece Of Kopano Documents Be Available?
Kopano Documents is currently in design and development. The documents app will be able to add sharing features, collaboration features to your existing storage solutions, which can be local in your network, but (private and public) cloud services will also be supported. Kopano Documents and its feature set are described in more detail in our roadmap.
More details about Kopano Documents, such as a description of the first features that will be available and a first glimpse of the look & feel of the application(s) will be made available over the course of the summer – we expect the beginning of July.
I Want To Give It A Try. How Do I Start?
To use the LibreOffice Online packages or the Kopano Documents Editor packages you need some files to get started with. Documents is not yet available for use, but you can try the feature set with any application that supports the WOPI protocol, such as Nextcloud or ownCloud.
Want to give it a try? Check out the instructions for installation and configuration, which are available here. We welcome your feedback, so please share your experience via our Forum or the regular feedback channels.
