dovecot - Oct 2022 - The end of Dovecot Director?

Most small/medium servers do not need director. You can use replicator get a
pri/bu pair.

Only the director part is being removed, rest of Dovecot remains. For the next
major release we are also removing certain deprecated parts that have a
replacement in elsewhere of the code.

The mail server functionality is going to remain 100% open source and free.

Aki
> On 20/10/2022 21:37 EEST Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>
wrote:
> 
>  
> I'm top posting because I can't make heads or tails of this thread.
> Does this thread mean that Dovecot will no longer be Free Software? 
> 
> It appears that only Dovecot Director will be taken proprietary, but if
> all of Dovecot is in jeopardy, I need to switch to another local IMAP
> server program. Any suggestions will be welcome.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> SteveT
> 
> 
> Aki Tuomi said on Thu, 20 Oct 2022 13:02:38 +0300 (EEST)
> 
> >> On 20/10/2022 12:24 EEST Steff Majeur <afamiliartaste at
proton.me>
> >> wrote:
> >> 
> >>  
> >> I recently stumbled upon the following commit on the Dovecot core
> >> Github repository:
> >>
https://github.com/dovecot/core/commit/4a187116dc2311804be22724007d357323005358
> >> 
> >> Apparently, Dovecot Director is going to be removed in the next
> >> major version of Dovecot and the commercial Dovecot cluster
> >> architecture will be its successor:
> >>
https://github.com/dovecot/documentation/blob/a85b742ec4fc2744db30a6943b3c25f004e46720/source/admin_manual/cluster/index.rst
> >
> >Yes, this is going to happen.
> >
> >> This would be a huge blow for many organizations around the world
> >> that are currently using Dovecot with Director in a shared storage
> >> environment.
> >> 
> >> Can anyone of the Dovecot developers maybe enlighten us about the
> >> future of Dovecot?
> >> - Will there still be the Director feature in the next community
> >> release of Dovecot?  
> >
> >Next 2.3 CE release will have a director.
> >
> >> - If not, will there be a community feature that is on par with
the
> >> current Director feature?  
> >
> >There will be more information about this closer to new major release,
> >that we are working on. Director is still present in
> >https://github.com/dovecot/core/tree/release-2.3
> >
> >> - For how long will Dovecot version 2.3 still be supported
(security
> >> fixes, bug fixes)? Is there any EOL plan? 
> >
> >This will be informed later, but as general rule, once we make a new
> >major release, 2.3 will go into maintenance mode, and will receive
> >only select bug fixes and CVE fixes.
> >
> >> Thanks for any clarification!
> >> Steff  
> >
> >Aki
> 
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt 
> Summer 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm

> Most small/medium servers do not need director. You can use replicator
> get a pri/bu pair.
> 
What is small?

Aki Tuomi said on Thu, 20 Oct 2022 21:41:53 +0300 (EEST)
>Most small/medium servers do not need director. You can use replicator
>get a pri/bu pair.
I've never needed to use replicator. I don't even know what a pri/bu
pair is. I just have fetchmail feed to procmail which delivers messages
into my Dovecot maildir, and then access the Dovecot IMAP server with
an email client. Hopefully I'll be able to continue doing it this way.
>
>Only the director part is being removed, rest of Dovecot remains. For
>the next major release we are also removing certain deprecated parts
>that have a replacement in elsewhere of the code.
Is there a document on the deprecations and their replacements? I'd
like to read it.
>
>The mail server functionality is going to remain 100% open source and
>free.
The preceding sentence is a huge relief for me. Thanks!

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Summer 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm