Alfresco 2.0 Available - now GPL with FLOSS

[paulhh]

We would like to announce that the V2.0 Community Release of Alfresco is now available.  This release introduces a number of new features, including:

- GPL with FLOSS exception
    - Web Content Managment 1.0 with:
   
- Web Project Wizard
        - Forms Management Wizard
        - Website Development and Staging
        - XML Content Authoring
        - FreeMarker, XSL and XSL-FO transformations
        - Virtualization and In-Context Preview
        - Workflow for change sets

    - Federated Search
    - OpenSearch support
    - Add-on Module Management
    - Tree Navigation (AJAX)
    - Multilingual Services

The licensing change to GPL with a FLOSS exception brings a whole new world of opportunities to projects wnating to work with Alfresco.  Details about the implications of the change will be on our web site here:
http://www.alfresco.com/legal/licensing/

The default configuration for all the bundles is HSQL.  There are instructions that can be found after installation that explain how to easily revert to MySQL.

The installer bundles have more configuration options for selecting which type of database you wish to use, and locations for storing content and indexes.

The open source version is available to download at: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=143373

Release notes for V2.0 can be found in our wiki here: http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Release_2.0

Please see http://www.alfresco.com if you are interested in the Enterprise Network edition.

Thank you again for your continued support,

The Alfresco Team.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It seems to take at least 24 hours for SourceForge to update its mirrors for the downloads to become available!

[flin]

Congratulations guys!

I'm becoming a fan of Alfresco now that I'm working with it every day

[]'s

[miguel_gil_mart]

Congratulations!!!!!   Good job!!!! I am sure Alfresco is about to be a "killer application". Everybody is going to use more Java, more FLOSS, more "Community Knowledge", more freedom… Congratulations!!!!

[adepue]

Doesn't the move to GPL mean that a commercial vendor can no longer integrate Alfresco into their product without either releasing their own source code or getting a commercial license of Alfresco?

[jimisola]

Hi,

In another thread I wrote the following:

I'm currently evaluation Alfresco, but the Community edition has some major drawback:

- patches (bug and security fixes) are not available according to comparison (http://www.alfresco.com/products/ecm/comparison/😞 I want an install that I don't have to upgrade every other day other than bug and security fixes every now and then
- read that security was missing from the open source version, but it seem to have changed. correct?

Assuming that the rumour of the license change to GPL is correct, how will it affect the above?

I can now gladly confirm that 2.0 is licensed as GPL

However, I am unable to find answers to my actual questions. I read that Community Network is unsupported - in what way? Human/helpdesk support? Bug and security fixes?

Alfresco seems to be a great application, but not being able to get bug and security fixes renders it "I don't want to say use-less, but troublesome". Maintainence will take too much time then.

It would be very helpful if you can provide more information as this is a showstopper for us (I'm evaluating the software for a minor student union and alumni site).

Regards,
Jimisola

[ejml]

Congratulations folk, this is great!!

[jmliege]

Congratulations!!!!!   Good job!!!! I am sure Alfresco is about to be a "killer application". Everybody is going to use more Java, more FLOSS, more "Community Knowledge", more freedom… Congratulations!!!!

Your forgot to mention : "more support, "…. :wink:

[paulhh]

Hi Jimisola

The Community version is only supported through this forum, by the community, which does include the developers.

Alfresco employs its staff, so it needs to pay them - if an organization wants support, it pays for support.  There are support discounts for academia and charities.  People on paid support get direct access to our support team and intermediate stable bug-fix releases.

In an ideal world, we'd all wander around the shops and pick out our free iPods and then download our fav band's music for free on our free Internet connection 🙂

Cheers
Paul.

[jimisola]

Paul,

I think that you misunderstood me, perhaps I was not clear enough.

I fully understand that if an organization wants non-forum support concerning installation/configuraton/etc for a product it pays for it.

That was not the issue, the issue is that there are no security and/or bug fixes for the Community Network edition of the product and this is not (what I call) support.

What does this mean? Is Community Network merely a beta and I might have to end up running an unsecure software for weeks/months? Am I always able to upgrade from one Community Network edition version to another? The documentation is not clear on this.

Feels like I should have chosen a different forum/thread for this. Feel free to move it.

Regards,
Jimisola

[mjasay]

jimisola writes…

That was not the issue, the issue is that there are no security and/or bug fixes for the Community Network edition of the product and this is not (what I call) support.

This is not quite true.  We do provide bug fixes for Community (No one would have interest in Alfresco if it was so buggy that it didn't work), but it is true that we work on our Enterprise bug fixes first (just as MySQL does - see http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/supportpolicies/policies-03.html#q01). 

Ideally, we'd like to see our community self-heal, as it were, the Community code.  It's not much of a community if Alfresco does all the work.  Nor is it much of a community if non-Alfresco developers do.  We're looking for a happy medium, and welcome your feedback as to what that "medium" is. 

Net net:  we feel strongly that our growth will continue to be tightly aligned to the growth and interest of unpaid Alfresco usage.  We just need to make sure we keep honest with our community and also make a living.  I have four kids to feed, after all.  🙂

So, the bits are free, the service (support, immediate bug fixes, certification of third-party apps, etc.) is not.  But you should feel comfortable giving Community a try - there are 6,000+ active installations of it worldwide.  It works very well (sometimes too well for the sales guys among us :- ). 

Matt