topic Enterprise version in Alfresco Archive

Enterprise version

uf766086 — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 23:43:41 GMT

Hi all!! Maybe I'm a bit disoriented but I cannot find the way to checkout Alfresco Enterprise source code. Is it possible?? Or the only Open Source versiÃ³n it's Community version?Thx in advance

Re: Enterprise version

gavinc — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:19:02 GMT

You can only check out the community version from SVN.

Re: Enterprise version

uf766086 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:45:15 GMT

Ok, thanks. I thought all versions were Open Source, and Alfresco sells support, something similar to Liferay business model.

Any plan to open all the platform in near future? :wink:

Re: Enterprise version

gavinc — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 12:17:19 GMT

The only way the enterprise edition is different is in bug fixes, the functionality and features are exactly the same, so by purchasing the enterprise edition you get a more fully tested, stable and QA'ed version plus all the services and support as you mention.

Re: Enterprise version

uf766086 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:03:52 GMT

Hi again,

So if the functionality is exactly the same this infoon the wiki should be wrong

Also, within Alfresco Workflow JavaScript, the following "root" objects are available:

1.4 Enterprise only:

person
Node (type cmerson) representing the person who is executing the script.

userhome
Node (type cm:folder) representing the home folder of the person who is executing the script.

On that paragraph it seems that some functionality is only available on Enterprise version.

Thx in advance

Re: Enterprise version

davidc — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:39:55 GMT

All the "root" objects are available in 2.0 community & enterprise.

I'll fix up the WIKI.

Re: Enterprise version

uf766086 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:40:44 GMT

Thx for the flash response

Re: Enterprise version

edgar — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 19:26:05 GMT

Hi Gavin,

The only way the enterprise edition is different is in bug fixes, the functionality and features are exactly the same

just to understand your license model better: are you saying that these bug fixes do not make it into the Community Edition? You seem to be saying that the functionality and features are the same in all versions, yet you only fix bugs in the commercial editions? So you guys will not have any bugs that impact functionality and features? 😉

What I can imagine that you guys would do is something like creating a separate branch in Subversion for the commercial Alfresco releases starting from the HEAD version (= the Community Edition) and do all the bug fixing on that branch. This branch would not be available for public usage in the Alfresco Subversion repository. And at some stage you guys would merge these bug fixes back onto the HEAD and thereby fixing these bugs in the Community Edition as well.

Am I close? Am I right in assuming that bug fixes would become available sooner to the commercial editions of Alfresco then for the Community Edition?

Re: Enterprise version

kevinr — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 10:13:08 GMT

What I can imagine that you guys would do is something like creating a separate branch in Subversion for the commercial Alfresco releases starting from the HEAD version (= the Community Edition) and do all the bug fixing on that branch. This branch would not be available for public usage in the Alfresco Subversion repository. And at some stage you guys would merge these bug fixes back onto the HEAD and thereby fixing these bugs in the Community Edition as well.

Am I close? Am I right in assuming that bug fixes would become available sooner to the commercial editions of Alfresco then for the Community Edition?

You are exactly right with your assumptions on how we perform the branch, bug fixing and merge back to Community HEAD - all bug fixes make it into the Community version at a later date.

Thanks,

Kevin

Re: Enterprise version

paulhh — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:31:31 GMT

There are also maintenance updates to the Enterprise releases, so if a significant issue is found, then we'll fix that on the Enterprise branch and make it available to support subscribers. That keeps the Enterprise side stable while new stuff is happening in the Community code line.

Cheers
Paul.

Re: Enterprise version

uf766086 — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:43:18 GMT

all bug fixes make it into the Community version at a later date.

and "later" is measured in days, weeks, months, years, eons ??
:wink:

Re: Enterprise version

gavinc — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:08:47 GMT

It's typically a few weeks

Re: Enterprise version

jenglert — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 19:27:19 GMT

If a client has a Enterprise license they want to customize, where can they find the 'enterprise' source code. Is modifying the source code generally ill advised? Should all modifications be handled through the use of patches and configuration extension? If I was going to start creating a set of customizations today for a client whom is an Enterprise customer of yours, how should I proceed? Are there any documents that outline this procedure?

Thanks in response for your quick response!

Re: Enterprise version

derek — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:02:05 GMT

Hi,
Modifying the source code is not ill-advised, but it is better to do it via the extension mechanism. A recent example of where that was done was with the Multilingual extensions. We put code in to support the necessary extensions for the client. This can't always be the case, but if there are things we can do to enable a better integration, then we do it and release an Enterprise revision.
If you are going to be doing this kind of work on a regular basis, then you'll want to sign up yourself. Otherwise you'll forever be clinging to the forums for advice and relying on your customers to give you the necessary bits of code, if they're even allowed to. Just contact info@alfresco.com.

Regards

Re: Enterprise version

jenglert — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 15:47:58 GMT

Thanks for the information Derek. I really appreciate it. We actually do have a partner account. I personally prefer to ask questions and learn from an open community style environment (i.e. forums) rather than through support emails. If you don't mind, I have some follow up questions;

1) Is it best, if possible, to extend the alfresco jars (using AMP) rather than edit the actual source files?

2) What do you mean by release an 'Enterprise revision'? If we made several custom web client changes, say adding a 'Create URL link' button to the source, could we get the code officially built as some sort of official revision?

3) Where can one find the enterprise source code? I've looked all over but I can't seem to find a link. partners.alfresco.com seems to only have binary distributions, unless I missed something. One of the se11ing points of the Enterprise edition over the Community edition is that the Enterprise edition states it is validated and supported. Wouldn't customizations to the code base would void that validation and make support very difficult?

Thanks alot and goodluck. I sure hope Alfresco succeeds in a big way. Sure beats working with other ECM systems.

*I had to spell se11ing se11ing to avoid the spam filter.

Re: Enterprise version

derek — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 16:13:29 GMT

Hi,
For the source access, just email support@alfresco.com. Also, let them know your forum user ID - then you can have a nice icon next your name and the developers know who to concentrate our forum efforts on.

The extension mechanism itself is and example of our efforts to make the system as configurable and overridable as possible. It drives the community and ultimately allows the product to be used in ways that we just don't have resources to cope with. If you wanted to extend or override some behaviour, and it wasn't possible to do without modifying the actual source and building a release yourself, then we would, within reason, add the necessary mechanisms into our code to allow simpler extensions.

When it comes to getting your extensions in, use the amp mechanism, for which there is now an SDK sample.

Regards

Re: Enterprise version

jenglert — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:23:02 GMT

Thanks for the quick response Derek. I still have a number of questions mostly pertaining to making customizations to the current version of the code and then applying those changes to the next version of Alfresco. I'm going to post those questions in a separate post after I have gathered my thoughts.

Thanks again!