Hula (software)

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Wikipedia

Hula
DeveloperNovell (NetMail code base) / Hula community
Operating systemLinux
TypeGroupware
LicenseGNU General Public License
Repositorynone

Hula was an open source mail and calendar project based on open standards announced on February 15, 2005, by Novell.

History

Screenshot of the Hula log-on screen

Hula was an open-source effort sponsored by Novell and developed by Dave Camp, Dalton Valliere and Joe Gasiorek, amongst others.

Hula was derived from an existing product by the same software house, called NetMail, and retained many of the architectural features of that software. However, important components such as the mail store were intended to be re-developed to integrate new functionality (such as search) and new features (such as calendaring, using the calendar server protocol CalDAV).

Hula aimed to expand in three main directions:

  1. A calendaring tool[1]
  2. A web-based rich mail client[2]
  3. A search facility for all mail and calendar information within the server[3]

It came with a web-based client to access information, but desktop applications were intended to be readily supported. Novell Evolution released with Hula support in version 2.6, and other clients were expected to support Hula closer to Hula's release.

On November 28, 2006, Novell announced that it would no longer have anyone work on it full-time.[4] On January 31, 2007, The Messaging Architects announced an agreement to acquire NetMail and take over leadership of the open source Hula Project from Novell.[5] The Hula project website went down in late 2007. Before it disappeared, it announced the transfer to The Messaging Architects, due to the move of Hula from Novell.[6]

With the future of Hula unclear to many, a software fork of the source code was used to create the independent Bongo Project,[7] and the project joined the Software Freedom Conservancy as a member project.[8] Activity on this fork also seems to have been abandoned.[9] Hula/Bongo should not be confused with proprietary mobile phone games Bongo Thinks, Bongo Knows, and Ask Bongo, all of which rely on in-app payments and SMS text messaging.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Calendar Ideas". Hula. 21 June 2006. Archived from the original on 13 July 2006.
  2. ↑ "Rich Web Client". Hula. 21 June 2006. Archived from the original on 24 June 2006.
  3. ↑ "1.0 Architecture Overview:Search Agent". Hula. 17 March 2006. Archived from the original on 21 March 2006.
  4. ↑ Teichman, Peter (November 28, 2006). "Hula Status". forge.novell.com. Archived from the original on 5 December 2006.
  5. ↑ Schick, Shane (31 January 2007). "Montreal firm takes over Novell's NetMail, Hula project". itbusiness.ca. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012.
  6. ↑ "hula-project.org". Hula-Project.org. 2007. Archived from the original on 12 July 2007.
  7. ↑ "Welcome to Bongo". BongoProject. 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2026.
  8. ↑ "Bongo has joined the Software Freedom Conservancy". Alex Hudson. 22 September 2008. Retrieved 15 February 2026.
  9. ↑ "bongo-project/bongo". GitHub. 10 January 2025. Retrieved 15 February 2026.