topic Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features in Alfresco Archive

100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

johnn — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:40:00 GMT

Open source as a business model is still evolutionary and it is true for Alfresco too. Having had an opportunity to distribute and sell services to enterprise customers, we have come to the conclusion it is not necessary to withhold functionality to have enterprises invest in services and support. T

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

manuelgentile — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:43:09 GMT

It's the right way!

Good Work!

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

mattruby — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:01:25 GMT

It just gets better and better with you guys!!

My 2cents: Why not just go with Alfresco? If there are no functional differences, why push multiple brands/products?

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

hamptont — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:28:51 GMT

Why wait until 1.3 ? Make 1.2 Enterprise available !!!

I can't use the Open Source version of Alfresco 1.2 because I need to be able to cluster Alfresco on multiple JBoss servers. This is a show stopper for me and I am starting to explore products to replace Alfresco. I'm required to use Open Source products for the work I am doing and Alfresco is useless to me without clustering & LDAP support.

I hope you choose to make the full functionality of Alfresco available in Open Source, but I don't believe I'll be able to wait until May to get this.

Tom Hampton
Technical Lead & Architect, ERIC BRC
http://www.ericbrc.org
thomas_hampton@sra.com

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

kevinr — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:40:20 GMT

It just gets better and better with you guys!!

My 2cents: Why not just go with Alfresco? If there are no functional differences, why push multiple brands/products?

I was also wondering about just "Alfresco" as the open source name - it's the name people have come to know and love after all and "Alfresco Certified" or similar for the certified stack version.

Cheers,

Kevin

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

mattruby — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:50:54 GMT

Again, just my opinion here but, I thought from this post that Alfresco was moving toward one stack. Won't all major releases be certifiable? If so, why not just go with Alfresco accross the board. It has that nice ring to it… Alfresco… smoooooth…

Regardless of the name, I think you guys are doing an amazing job.

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

nico — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 17:42:24 GMT

I would also go for just "Alfresco".

This is really great news, because a CMS without groups or clustering is not really interesting…

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

michaelh — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:22:24 GMT

This is the best news after the one concerning the Alfresco project launch

I have no doubt it will helps a lot in "propagating" Alfresco to a large scope of users, and I really hope this choice will help you in making benefits from your hard work !

I have to admit I don't have any idea concerning the vote you propose to us …

None of the proposals sounds attractive to me

Perhaps "Alfresco" is not available to make it available for a commercial use by your company, and it's normal.

What about something like "Alfresco content management" ? ("Keep it simple" way of naming)

It permits many evolution while continuing to be true : web content, enterprise content, documents content, and so … (and the final goal remains possible : managing the whole universe content ).

Anyway, your decision is really a good thing, and I would like to thank you again !

M

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

rdanner — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 04:08:48 GMT

All of the suggested name implies a difference to me – they all sound like names used by companies like sugar that withhold functionality.

It sounds like a number of people here prefer just "Alfresco"

I like the Alfresco moniker by itself as well because it doesn?t imply a difference in the software functionality (I can't read in to it). The support/Doc/etc needs a good branding.

One quick question:
Alfreso has several targets WCM, DM, RM etc

Are these going to be packaged separately and if so how are they going to be branded. In that case is the Alfresco moniker an umbrella moniker like Apache? Better to think of this upfront. I think the Apache foundation missed the boat with the whole Jakarta rebranding and what not… People were lost for a moment there, and even to day we don?t say Apache HTTPD we just say Apache.

I am not a marketing guy… I know jack about marketing but if you have to rebrand later I know enough to know its disruptive.

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

fcorneli — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 07:36:55 GMT

I definitively think opening up the Enterprise code is the only right move.
Even "big" companies like J&J are frantically looking for Open Source systems to replace the existing infrastructure (Linux, Eclipse, …)

…But without a support model, it is hard to introduce it in a company.

We would certainly take an in-depth look to replace our current global Document Management System (you know which, John :wink: )

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

lgr — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 07:47:31 GMT

Hi John,

I won't tell much about your question because i've already given my opinion on this topic.

Just two words :
- in my opinion, the larger the code is open and free, the better it is used, and you can develop a business over it.
- Go !

Thanks for having opened the question.

Laurent.

PS : i also vote for "Alfresco" alone.

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

gdhirajpai — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:30:37 GMT

I totally agree that most enterprise users would still take up a subscription to the maintenance services & the like.

Making the Enterprise functionality available through open source can definitely do no harm, in my honest opinion as it is sure to increase adoption and consequently, spawn a lot more of the paid subscriptions than current.

Think you guys are doing a great job…

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

alarocca — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 15:44:27 GMT

Just a word: great!

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

alarocca — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 15:48:34 GMT

Correct. Start by now!

BR, Alessandro

Why wait until 1.3 ? Make 1.2 Enterprise available !!!

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

rrahman — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 21:53:23 GMT

I'm a IT Project manager for a federal agency considering deploying Alfresco as an alternate to other enterprise software. I feel that there are significant savings in TCO for open source. From what I've seen on the web, Alfresco would be a great product.

If the community edition were to parallel the features of the enterprise edition, it would allow us to run it through a live scenario of our business process. This is extremely important for us. If Alfresco moves in this direction, we would still purchase an Enterprise license. Why? Lot of federal agencies do not have the staff or time to support these products. Even if I could support the product myself, I would not have time. I would want something that was certified/reliable, and supported.

I often share my opinions about enterprise products with a variety of federal agencies, and if I am able to test Alfresco fully I will be sure to share my experience with everyone.

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

michaelh — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 23:08:21 GMT

If Alfresco moves in this direction, we would still purchase an Enterprise license.

This is exactly the same thing for us. Even if Alfresco is fully featured in the Opensourced version, we will continue to promote the enterprise support to provide our customers the level of service we can't provide ourselves as efficiently as the Alfresco Team.

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

davidv — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:28:58 GMT

I personally believe you are making the right decision. Customers are definately more willing to pay for support and services than just for features in any product. There are lot's of examples in the market that prove that already. (RedHat, JBoss, … ). It's also (partially) the reason why companies like SUN, Oracle, IBM etc … are making some of their products 'free'.

From a marketing/branding perspective, I would try to keep the branding as simple and straightforward as possible. There's nothing worse than a product range with too many product names and 'feature comparison matrices'. You need to get your name out, make sure that people associate it with what you're trying to accomplish (be a player in the ECM market?) and then, with some help from the community you've already started to build, the rest will hopefully follow. The name is already out there : 'Alfresco' so I'd stick to that. The support contracts could be under the umbrella of 'Enterprise Services' or something the like.

Our company has been active in content management a long time and I think Alfresco provides the market with a very promising product. I am very impressed by the quality and the speed at which you manage to bring out new versions. You've got some bright people and from what I can tell you're bringing in even more of those.

Keep up the good work ! I for one will be monitoring you closely 🙂

David Van Puyvelde

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

toni — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 02:23:26 GMT

This is amazing news. I am so glad that Alfresco has become a truely open community.
I work for a K-12 education district, supporting Adaptive Technology for students with disabilities and special needs and we currently have a tremendous challenge in delivering and sharing resources not only to these special need students but to all students, teachers, and staffs.

I have inverstigated many open source products and found Alfresco not only will it eliminates our challenges but also will make an impact in the life of these students and the teachers and staffs who use your technology to support them. I was able to show a few staff a demo of Alfresco with samples Adaptive contents like Intellitools, BoardMaker, Video, Audio etc… and with no training they were about to find the content on the web and use it in their native Adaptive applications. In the meeting, when we discuss about planning and implement Alfresco for September 2006 school year they all clapped their hands (first time in the 2 years I've work here).

I would like to thank the wonderfully community here (especially Kevin & Gavin for answering some my naive questions eventhough I took me awhile to get it). I could not have customized Alfresco without your help. And thank you John for making the Enterprise features standard on the open source.

I will difinitely promote the purchasing of support for the enterprise features because we can't do it alone, and we definitely promote your product here at our district of 50+ schools.and also to other surrounding school districts.

My apology for the long post. But just one last thing. I am doing a demo of Alfresco to the CIO and the webmaster and othe IT staff member in about two weeks in hope that they will like the product and approve it. The news about the enterprise feature will greatly helps me in my presentation, and if you have any materials that you can point me too that would be great.

Gratefully,

Toni

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

tomislav — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 12:45:44 GMT

Therefore, we are considering making Alfresco, including Enterprise features, 100% open source in the 1.3 Release of Alfresco in May. There will still be an Enterprise service package that includes support, maintenance, additional documentation, indemnification and warranty.

To be in line with everyone, I also think this was very good business decision. At least here in my company full featured Alfresco will have greater chance to be introduced, and you get payed - which is reason for this decision.

Full featured free version could be our first step, and while it's services become crucial for our processes - us paying for peace of mind will be the way to go..

cheers,
Tomislav

Re: 100% Open Source Alfresco including Enterprise Features

fselendic — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 13:31:13 GMT

Great, great news. I was rather disappointed when I saw your decision to make money by excluding some of functionality from free version, because I had a gut feeling that you guys have such a great product that could generate even greater income just from selling support.

This is wonderfull news. We were evaluating Alfresco in several scenarios, in all of which we would eventually need some of features from non-free versions, and those were priced a little to high for our part of the world and current conditions on our targeted market.

Thanks again.