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Alfresco-Adobe Pact Continues To Strengthen Open Source

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the long-time-coming dept.

rsmiller510 writes "Last week Adobe surprised a few people with the announcement that it was including Alfresco content management services as part of its LiveCycle Enterprise Suite Update 1 package. The surprise was two-fold: that Adobe felt it was necessary to add content management services at all, and that it chose open source vendor Alfresco as its content management partner. I spoke to Alfresco CEO John Powell to get his perspective on the pact and how it can help push open source into the enterprise mainstream. Powell is understandably excited by this arrangement, and one of the main reasons, he says, is because the Adobe partnership gives his company credibility with companies that might otherwise not even sniff at an open source vendor."

64 comments

  1. Perhaps they should consider a Pact with... by Paul+Pierce · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sumatra PDF viewer http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/

    1. Re:Perhaps they should consider a Pact with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm... as fast as Foxit, and open source. Thank you, sir!

  2. Let's Be Brutally Honest. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    ...the Adobe partnership gives his company credibility with companies that might otherwise not even sniff at an open source vendor.

    No, they won't sniff at RMS.

  3. Sniffing? by superslacker87 · · Score: 0

    the Adobe partnership gives his company credibility with companies that might otherwise not even sniff at an open source vendor."

    Perhaps you should take a shower!

    --
    I run Ubuntu skinned to look like a Mac on a PC. Go figure.
  4. Thanks but... by KasperMeerts · · Score: 1, Interesting

    you know what'll really help open source?

    Open Flash.
    Well, in any case, me (and the average desktop user) cares more about it than some content management system.
    Come to think of it, can't we smuggle something into the project that'll send us the sources we need?

    --
    As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
    1. Re:Thanks but... by Doug+Neal · · Score: 2, Informative

      Gnash is getting quite usable these days.

      OK, it's not from Adobe, which is what you meant, but thought it was worth a mention anyway ;)

    2. Re:Thanks but... by strabes · · Score: 1

      Gnash has worked wonderfully on my ubuntu system for the past few months.

      --
      Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
    3. Re:Thanks but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does it play YouTube? If it doesn't play YouTube, it doesn't exist.

    4. Re:Thanks but... by Qbertino · · Score: 1

      It does play Youtube.

      --
      We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    5. Re:Thanks but... by moosesocks · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Honestly, although they haven't yet opened Flash (completely), Adobe have shown some very promising signs lately.

      Encourage them, and give it time. I think that they've actually gotten to the point, where they're beginning to want to cooperate, given that the company seems to have lost its competitive edge over the past few years.

      I doubt flash will go completely OSS, though I do imagine that they'll substantially reduce the restrictions on it. I do believe that a successor to Flash is in the works, however. AIR is a very neat proof of concept, and seems to effortlessly achieve what Java Web Start keeps promising to do.

      If there is a Flash successor, in order to compete with SilverLight, and to avoid the terrible quality of recent Flash releases (100% CPU usage to play a YouTube video!?), the format and player will likely be completely open, with a complement of a for-pay development environment.

      Will Adobe open Photoshop? Probably never. However, I do believe that an open version of Flash and Linux Photoshop will very likely happen in the next few years.

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    6. Re:Thanks but... by moosesocks · · Score: 1

      I could never get it to work...

      It's still got a ways to go.

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    7. Re:Thanks but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Flash specification is now GPL-compliant isn't it? IIRC Adobe wanted to make SWF and FLV GPL.

  5. File servers -- why? by thule · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems to me that with a nice product like Alfresco out there, why would you ever put your .doc files on a file server? Alfresco looks like a ftp, smb, and webdav server. Just copy your documents into it and they get indexed and have version control. Why do it any other way?

    1. Re:File servers -- why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because not everyone needs indexing and version control.

    2. Re:File servers -- why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Because not everyone needs indexing and version control.

      I think they do. They just do not know it yet.

  6. Slightly offtopic by jawtheshark · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Recently I've been charged to evaluate Alfresco (community edition) as an alternative to a propitiatory document management system (which shall remain unnamed) for a large European institution. (Aside from office politics, which made clear that the evaluation should be negative to justify the expense of the propitiatory product), I never managed to get their WAR file to run on a "virgin" installed Tomcat on Debian. Their "bundle" worked as is. Anyone know how to get Alfresco to run in an apt-get tomcat5? Heck a colleague of mine tried in Windows/Tomcat5 and didn't manage, It's probably just me that sucks...

    --
    Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    1. Re:Slightly offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      If the "large European institution" is part of (tax payer financed) European Union I recommend that you discard the office politics and make a real evaluation.

      For heavy duty content management there is also Typo3. It is PHP based and quite easy to install.

      -- EU tax payer

    2. Re:Slightly offtopic by Timbotronic · · Score: 3, Informative

      For evaluations, I'd highly recommend downloading the Alfresco virtual appliance from JumpBox. Saves having to install it yourself.

      --

      One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there

    3. Re:Slightly offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I couldn't get it to work either. I think you need their prof. services to get anywhere.

    4. Re:Slightly offtopic by SpzToid · · Score: 2, Informative

      The GP's experience installing Alfresco seems to mirror mine. And I did then what you suggest now, and yes, just using the demo version made the difference.

      In my case though, I was just trying to get either the latest version running, which was a v5 RC I think. I settled for a much easier to install version that was several Revs older than current, but it worked and certainly didn't affect the evaluation, which was favorable.

      --
      You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
    5. Re:Slightly offtopic by systemeng · · Score: 3, Informative

      I deployed it under the radar scope for a small group at a 3000 person company a year or two ago. I had to build it from source to get around an annoying bug that hadn't been fixed in the release version at the time. It seems like I got it up using their install with a new war because I never managed to align all of the stuff you had to get working. It's a great product once you get it running! It's definitely better than documentum e-room.

    6. Re:Slightly offtopic by Morky · · Score: 1

      VMware has an Alfresco appliance available for download that might be appropriate for you if you are just doing an evaluation.

    7. Re:Slightly offtopic by jawtheshark · · Score: 1

      Well, I have some news for you: being a consultant is pretty much the same as being a whore. You either do what your customer instructs you, or you say "no". It's really that simple, but I have a mortgage to pay. Guess what I do?

      If you want to save EU taxes, then start by cropping the institutions themselves. These people are paid up to 2x market rate (and more!) and have additional tax advantages and can't be fired. Yet, they hire a Consultant to do their jobs. Don't you find that funny?

      Also they could simply stop this crap by mandating open source everywhere, but no. They really do prefer opening their wallet.

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    8. Re:Slightly offtopic by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      You mean OUR wallet! Another EU tax payer

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    9. Re:Slightly offtopic by jawtheshark · · Score: 1

      Yes, *our* wallet. I'm usually an open source advocate, but unless I want to lose a client, I'd better do what they ask. For the moment those taxes pay my wage, so whatever they ask they will get.

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    10. Re:Slightly offtopic by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      As if there were any relation between what the government wants and what the people want ;)
      Didn't work for communism, does not work for democracy, will not work as long as the interest of the ones governing differs from the interest of those being governed. (Hint: Make them the same and simplify trough automatation --> metagovernment.org)

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    11. Re:Slightly offtopic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must really love your job. The fulfillment it brings to your life.

    12. Re:Slightly offtopic by jawtheshark · · Score: 1

      You nailed it. I need money, that's why I work. You don't get paid to do things you like.

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
  7. Adobe is poised to take over the world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    Adobe's got the entire internet stack (from their award-winning, world-class ColdFusion enterprise application development platform, to their Flex RIA app, and everything in between) in their stable.

    ColdFusion makes enterprise-class web engineering so easy, it puts hard-hitting best of breed application development within the hands of junior level developers. If I were a Java advocate, I'd be shaking in my boots right now.

    The flash player has animated the web, and they hold the world record for downloads (billions, just this year!)

    Once again, we see Adobe strengthening its position in the open source (note I didn't say "free") software community.

    I'm proud to say that I can't code a line of C, C++, or Java, but my CF skills have kept me in high demand as a software engineer, and that knowing any other language is basically suplurfulus. If you haven't checked out CF and the rest of Adobe's products lately, now's a good time to get involved.

    Go adobe!

    1. Re:Adobe is poised to take over the world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm proud to say that I can't code a line of C, C++, or Java, but my CF skills have kept me in high demand as a software engineer

      You're not a software engineer. You're a codemonkey. There's a difference.

    2. Re:Adobe is poised to take over the world by jocknerd · · Score: 1

      And obviously an employee of Adobe.

    3. Re:Adobe is poised to take over the world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get back to work, Adobe employee.

    4. Re:Adobe is poised to take over the world by bigman2003 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      God I hate these ignorant statements.

      Engineering of software doesn't really have anything to do with the language used, it has to do with an intelligent plan, architecture, systematic solution to problems, etc. etc.

      Using the cool language of the day doesn't mean that the outcome will be the best.

      In fact, the decline of ColdFusion as the language du jour means that the people who are using it now are much more likely to have the experience to make the right decisions that would lead to a well constructed application. I've been using ColdFusion for 9 years, and I know the right way to do things, and the wrong way to do things. I have expert skills in a very mature language/platform, so the software I produce now is rock-solid.

      I run into a lot of situations where I meet a programmer who gives me a lot of shit for using ColdFusion. Typically it is someone who has less than 2 years of real-world experience. They're working on the latest and greatest language/platform and suddenly they think they have all of the answers.

      These guys never really get a chance to mature in their skills. Sure they can job-hop, but I've seen the messes they create - because I've cleaned a lot of them up. If I was running a business, would I really want to trust my mission critical applications to people who have been using a programming language for two years or less? No. (Amazingly, people do this all the time because the buzzwords sound so cool! (Ruby On Rails will change the WORLD!!!) )

      I'm very comfortable with my decision to keep my programming team on ColdFusion. It is my job to make sure that good maintainable software is created, and that's what we're doing.

      --
      No reason to lie.
    5. Re:Adobe is poised to take over the world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I'm proud to say that I can't code a line of C, C++, or Java, but my CF skills have kept me in high demand as a software engineer, and that knowing any other language is basically suplurfulus.

      This entirely negates your attempt at insight, however that spelling of superfluous is the funniest thing I've seen on Slashdot today.

      If I had mod points today, you would be getting a 'Funny' mister AC. I imagine your post is an elaborate joke anyway. Someone who understands the difference between Open Source and Free software and reads Slashdot is unlikely to be a Cold Fusion developer and nothing else.

    6. Re:Adobe is poised to take over the world by cerberusss · · Score: 1

      It is my job to make sure that good maintainable software is created, and that's what we're doing.

      It's not your only job; amongst others, it's also keeping your team members up to speed on current technologies. Just sayin'.

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    7. Re:Adobe is poised to take over the world by tigersha · · Score: 1

      He is working! He is marketing his product. In fact he deserves a bonus.

      --
      The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
    8. Re:Adobe is poised to take over the world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I code CF (and I love it!) but it doesn't make me a software engineer. The best programming language in the world won't save you from horrible engineering decisions.

      Adobe is in a very good position, but I hope they keep on going in the right direction. With competition from all around (Microsoft, Google, etc...) they need to be open to the community and I'm very pleased how far they had gone in the past couple of years. Now I hope Adobe improves their Flash player for the Mac and Linux and focus more on optimizing it and securing it.

      Anyways, enough said....

  8. Interesting by backdoc · · Score: 1

    The timing is a coincidence. Our organization has about 3000 employees. We had Adobe reps in this week to demo some of their solutions. They didn't demo Alfresco because they said it won't be out until next month. But, I can say that looking strictly at an Open Source app is not something I would expect from our organization. Not that we are dead set against it, it's just that it hasn't been presented to us in a cohesive manner from a reputable company like Adobe. Interesting....

  9. good choice by teaDrunk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Alfresco has recently replaced various other doc mgmnt systems across different departments in our company. After a quick evaluation done for my team, I recommended Alfresco over other comparable inhouse-built and OTS software that were in consideration. alfresco was the only open source one being considered ( that was an influence too )
    It is a good decision on Adobe's part to have selected Alfresco, and that could have gone really wrong if you consider some proprietary ones out there.

  10. Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by HRbnjR · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Alfresco does not supply source code for releases!

    The Community Edition release binaries don't come with source and would be impossible for a "community" member to (re)create! The release SDK's don't have source for nearly the whole server either! The only complete server source code available is unstable SVN trunk - where they provide (delayed) merges from their private internal branches! No public access to their stable branches/tags or anything!

    http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=9932
    http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=12610

    1. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good catch, HRbnjR

      I'm not trolling, but honestly hoping to get the straight scoop on how all this stuff works.

      I think there's something fishy afoot with the way these people (and probably others) seem to be running with the GPL. They *say* they're releasing software under the GPL and even have it up on their site, but there's a dark side to the way they're doing it.

      Am I wrong?

      From the GPL:

      For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

      Compare that to what's in your first link, where these alfresco guys say "we distribute stable binary copies of the program to people who pay for it, and eventually those changes/bugfixes/enhancements will find their way to the delayed community releases."

      I don't think the text or the spirit of the GPL has any place for that kind of mentality. They're using the GPL as a way of attracting developers who will work for free, and at the end of the day, they're trying to get money (or get bought) as their business plan.

      "What's better than outsourcing?" says the old white man in the boardroom.

      "Getting all these college kids and hippies to do the work for free! Ha ha ha! *chomps cigar*"

    2. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      No Alfresco developers work for free. All development is done in-house. Whether you consider that to be true "Open Source" or not is up for debate.

    3. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, I did not know that--thanks for pointing that out.

      If no community contributions are accepted then (I'm guessing), I'm wondering what the benefit to them being called an "open source" company might be (my understanding is that the benefits of open sourcing are precisely the army of willing developers at your disposal).

      Perhaps I will go read wikipedia's article on dual-licensing. Or have a beer. Or both.

    4. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by wrook · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'll say it up front to get it out of the way: IMHO Dual licensing in order to keep a closed version and an open version (which are different) is a bad idea in almost every case. Note: dual licensing to maintain compatibility to a wide variety of licenses is a *good* idea if you want lots of participation.

      Having said that, I think I understand why companies choose to dual license (one closed, one open). They want to maintain a competitive advantage over their potential competitors, but don't trust their development team to give it to them. This often happens when they have structured the business side of the deal to get paid after the fact rather than before it. They do the traditional: decide what's good for the customer, build it, convince the customer that what they've built is good.

      Open source software development (IMHO) works better when you get paid up front: get a customer, ask them what they want, build it. That way you are relying on your ability to outperform your competitors in *development* rather than product (even if what you are doing is integrating products that you didn't build).

      So why would a company building in a proprietary fashion open up their code? I think it has a lot to do with the perception that open source people are "hobbyists". They allow their customers to tinker with the internals to do something cool, but hamstring them so that they can't make a product out of it. They think this will give them a cool "open source community" without having to give up the family jewels.

      However, the reality of the situation is that people will either just ignore you or freeload off your open source version. In fact, most enterprises (which I think are the defacto customer you want to target) don't like to upgrade more then every 18 months or so. And they don't mind being 6-12 months behind the times. And if you refuse to allow them to contribute, they will happily not give you any code *or* money.

      Anyway, this is my impression of it all. Surely there's more to it, but in the end I tend to stay away from projects like this simply because I don't trust them to stay around for too long...

    5. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by 2Bits · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's exactly the problem with Alfresco, and it's amazing how they can claim to be 100% open source, and yet, only a crippled version is available.

      It's a nice product, but that model has alienated quite a few who could be excellent contributors.

      Besides, if you want to build a business model around open source software, I would think that you want to give the best first impression possible on people who try it out. And yet, you only provide a crippled version with all kinds of critical bugs. How do you expect people to pay for support, if the bloody thing does not even work when the potential customer is trying out?

      Bad move for Alfresco. Bad bad move. Should take a lesson from Red Hat.

    6. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do you expect people to pay for support, if the bloody thing does not even work when the potential customer is trying out?

      Bad move for Alfresco. Bad bad move. Should take a lesson from Red Hat.

      A little harsh, but I do see where you're coming from. However, far from being "crippled" the SVN source available to the community is often more feature-rich than the Enterprise version.

      A "real" potential customer will have no hesitation signing up for the (free) Enterprise trial. This is *exactly* the version you'll have support for, so Alfresco are pretty damn sure the bloody thing *will* work!

    7. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      That sounds strange. I built Alfresco from scratch several times during the last 3 months using the SVN HEAD sourcecode and a simple ant command ('ant build-tomcat' in my case).

      The revision number in the release notes in case you search for it : http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Release_2.1#Important_Notes

      I agree with you on one point: they should use tags instead of using only revision numbers. But on the other way I promise that if I can (re)create Alfresco from source, everyone can :)

      Do you use http://svn.alfresco.com/repos/alfresco-open-mirror/ ?

    8. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by HRbnjR · · Score: 1

      There is a source revision in SVN for the initial 2.1.0 release, sure - but then after release, they immediately bumped it and started pushing code for the 2.9/3.0 features - you don't have any way to retrieve a tag for any follow-up branch minor releases like 2.1.X or even 2.2.X. Sure, you could try to back-port fixes from those branches which were eventually merged onto the trunk - but the trunk differences might prevent them from even being applicable, and without actual source access, there is no way for you to know exactly what went into the real branch release before being merged to trunk. This basically makes it impossible to use the open source version for production use.

    9. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is open source. It is just not open development. And I consider that a good thing for a "business" product like a document management system. Its the same with for example MySQL, PHP or to some extend OpenOffice.org.

    10. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by HRbnjR · · Score: 1

      Feature-rich??? No "real" enterprise customer prefers to run a production server based off an untested SVN trunk for extra features, instead of the stability of a tested branch!

      Any project that doesn't supply source code and security/bug fixes for stable releases is absolutely no good for production use and might as well not be open source!

    11. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by HRbnjR · · Score: 1

      If a member of the community can't access the source code to recreate the "Community Edition" release, how is that possibly open source?

      And anyone who thinks "not open development" is a "good thing" just flat out shouldn't be involved in the Free and Open Source community at all. You just plain don't Get It.

    12. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've just answered your own question. A "real" Enterprise customer is going to want an officially supported system. Alfresco don't claim the Community releases are suitable for Enterprise use. Hence the naming.

      Do you really want *your* Enterprise CMS being supported by *your* in-house Java developer? What happens when they leave?

    13. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well now you're just contradicting yourself and are dangerously close to malicious trolling.

      There is a source revision in SVN for the initial 2.1.0 release

      then

      a member of the community can't access the source code to recreate the "Community Edition" release

      Let's be very, very clear about this: ALL Community Edition releases come with associated source code. All of them. All the source code. Your specific problem is with the patching system, which could be revisited. However, shouting about your particular issue on both the Alfresco forums and Slashdot isn't exactly going to endear you to the company, is it?

      Maybe you should try constructing a reasoned, rational post detailing your specific problems and requirements. If you behave like a professional, you'll be treated like one.

    14. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You're right, the open source version is almost impossible to manage after being installed.What's more, they did not release anything 'stable enought' for almost one year.Disturbing.They're open source, but just enough to claim it.Not enough to get real value from their community of users - so far there's no interest at all in contributing - they're rewarding system is so traditional software school.I'll not be surprise in case they decide to switch to a more closed model one day.This day,I'll search another tool or some forking partners.Yes Alfresco,we keep watch over you.

    15. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by HRbnjR · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, I was running on the incorrect newbie assumption that there would be (perhaps delayed) follow-up point releases for the Community Edition in the case of critical bugs or security vulnerabilities. Thankfully, you have brought to my attention the total lack of recent Community Edition point releases, and the fact that there probably never will be further stable releases (ie, 2.2) because, as you say, it's not meant to be "suitable for Enterprise use", and that, with no public stable branches in community SVN, it's pretty much impossible for you to make such stable source releases at any point where that doesn't equate to SVN trunk.

      So, I wasn't "malicious trolling", I just honestly still somehow had my expectations too high.

      Now, before I continue, posts on your forum from a company email address are one thing, but posts on here from my personal address are my own opinion, not necessarily that of the company I work for. That said...

      You really attempt to frame this as "my particular issue" and "my specific problems and requirements", yet I linked to 20+ threads on your forum from many other people asking about basically the same thing.

      "endear me to the company"? I had this crazy impression that The Company is paid to serve the needs of The Customer, and if anything, The Company is the one who needs to do the endearing. Maybe that's just another one of my newbie assumptions.

      As for characterizing my posts as not being "reasoned", "rational", or "professional", anyone is free to read the postings in this thread and form their own opinion about why you would want people to think that.

    16. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by HRbnjR · · Score: 1

      Ok, I think I understand now...

      - Releases of the Community Edition have open source (GPL'd) code available, but those releases receive no timely stable branch bugfix or security updates, and thus are not supported for enterprise use.

      - Releases of the Enterprise Edition do not have open source (GPL'd) code available, but those releases do receive timely bugfix and security updates, and thus are supported for enterprise use.

      So, in summary, one can choose between unstable Community Edition with GPL'd source, or stable Enterprise Edition with no GPL'd source.

      Since, as we both pointed out, no real enterprise customer is going to want a system which isn't supported - that basically narrows the summary down to:

      There is no GPL'd source code available for releases suitable for enterprise use.

      Got it. Thanks for helping clarify. Err... nevermind the fact that is exactly what my original post said.

    17. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately, you're completely wrong.

      As an Enterprise customer, I can (and have) requested access to the entire SVN repository - all Enterprise customers are invited to do this. Hence I have the entire source tree available to me, as well as an excellent support channel.

      I honestly don't know what you've personally got against Alfresco - they're far more open than many other "Open Source" projects I can think of.

    18. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had this crazy impression that The Company is paid to serve the needs of The Customer

      Interesting - exactly how much have you paid?

      P.S. they're not *my* forums...

    19. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by HRbnjR · · Score: 1

      The company I work for *is* an Enterprise customer, and we do have access to the private SVN repository.

      And that has nothing to do with this thread.

      Is that code GPL'd? Can I package up the SVN branches from the private repo into SRPM's and send updated packages to Fedora/RedHat then? Can I share it with my friends? Can I ship a new product based on it and charge for support myself? I think not.

      This is exactly why I dislike the term "Open Source". Just because one can access the source doesn't mean they can do anything with it. Free Software for freedom.

    20. Re:Is it really "Open Source" with no source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that code GPL'd?

      I sure hope so - most of the java classes have the GPL header on top.

      Can I package up the SVN branches from the private repo into SRPM's and send updated packages to Fedora/RedHat then? Can I share it with my friends? Can I ship a new product based on it and charge for support myself? I think not.

      Yes, as long as you maintain Alfresco's copyright and trademarks. This is how we understand the whitepaper here: http://www.alfresco.com/legal/licensing/whitepaper/
      The only (somewhat obvious) thing you can't do is to share your license with your friends, so they're only going to be running the 30-day Enterprise trial if you choose to send them that version.

      I get the impression we're arguing the wrong points. I think we both agree that Alfresco should make Community patching much easier. Other than that, I don't see any difference between Alfresco's model and that of MySQL or even Red Hat themselves?

  11. Should have chosen Apache products by smooth123 · · Score: 1

    Adobe should have gone with Lenya. It seems that Apache is making huge strides towards Content Management with Lenya, Jackrabbit and Sling.