Community Edition vs. Enterprise Edition

[nilas]

Hi all,

hope this is not off-topic. I read the following thread in the "Installation" forum:

http://forums.alfresco.com/viewtopic.php?t=2059

I understand Kevin's reply but I don't agree with him. We all know that the community release is "no support, no certification, no maintenance, no warranty and no indemnity".

That's what I clearly explain to my customers, that's why I always get them buying the Enterprise version.

Nevertheless, NTLM authentication for CIFS is not something new, but a well established and working feature of the previous release. This means I have no chance to test the new release, because I have no way to make my already implemented features working in the new community release.
Moral: this is not something new or experimental. In my opinion, that is a bug.

As I can't test it, my customers will wait a while before upgrading to the 1.3E

Nevertheless, I want to be clear: Alfresco is an outstanding products and a very smart solutions for many companies. I really do appreciate your work and efforts.
I'm really in love with Alfresco. And sometime, you know, lovers are very demanding people.  :wink:  :wink:

Thanks.

Nicola

[tcordova]

I would like to second this with the caveat that I am attempting to convince my company that Alfresco is a better solution than Sharepoint.  That means that I am attempting to do a proof-of-concept project at this time.  Once I can prove that Alfresco can be the solution we're looking for, I shouldn't have any problem convincing senior management to shell out the relatively low cost for the Enterprise Network version, but until I can get a single-sign-on, CIFS version up and running under our JBoss environment, then Sharepoint will continue to look better to them.

It's very disheartening to read posts on the forums in which people basically say things work in one environment but not another and no response is given to indicate if or when it will be fixed.

[rdanner]

I would like to second this with the caveat that I am attempting to convince my company that Alfresco is a better solution than Sharepoint.  That means that I am attempting to do a proof-of-concept project at this time.  Once I can prove that Alfresco can be the solution we're looking for, I shouldn't have any problem convincing senior management to shell out the relatively low cost for the Enterprise Network version, but until I can get a single-sign-on, CIFS version up and running under our JBoss environment, then Sharepoint will continue to look better to them.

It's very disheartening to read posts on the forums in which people basically say things work in one environment but not another and no response is given to indicate if or when it will be fixed.

I just want to add the context here.  This is a response to kevin's post

http://forums.alfresco.com/viewtopic.php?t=2139

Eventually all bug fixes from the Enterprise Network will be rolled into the Community version. With the Community version you get the latest cutting edge features but we can't always guarentee they will work 100%! Smile The Alfresco Enterprise Network is the way to ensure you have a stable, supported build with a known set of functionality and fixes with specific platform certification. It allows us to make sure that commerical companies using Alfresco can be sure they have a stable build that they can feel happy deploying in a production environment. I'm sure you appreciate and understand the reasoning behind this.

Thanks,

Kevin
_________________
Senior Software Developer
http://www.alfresco.org

I don't think this message indicates a lack of commitment to support the community.  It indicates a prioritization that seems reasonable. The enterprise version means that the functionality is certified to work for certain known configurations.  Alfresco can?t certify every configuration, paying customers support the effort. The community version does not give this guarantee.  This seems to make sense. 

Clearly, Alfresco has an incentive to support the non-paying customers using the community version because non-paying customers represent potential revenue.  The non-paying customer is not paying for a reason, we need to find out what the need is and capture that market.  It?s a pity to loose a potential customer because they aren?t able to evaluate the product.

As the community it is our responsibility to support the community version of alfresco.  The quality of the community version is a burden that is on our shoulders as much as, if not more so then on the shoulders of Alfresco.  Remember, in a different universe Alfresco software would not be available unless you contacted a sales rep, requested a demo, made an RFP, and eventually a big purchase.

Nothing stops us from fixing bugs, or creating our own certifications in the forge.  This is the power of the community and it is symbiotic with the commercial objectives of Alfresco and all other open source communities and vendors for that matter. 

Also, remember that the number one thing that open source code provides is transparency.  Transparency indicates a willingness to communicate.  SO Communicate.  Let Alfresco know when when you need help closing a deal.  They are your partners, and they will support you. 

It would be helpful if someone at alfresco can explain how the code and bug fixes flow through the source base.  Are they available in the nightly builds? Has the community had a chance to put a piece of code through the hurdles before it?s included in the enterprise version?  If not are we missing out on real world testing that would give the code credibility and a diverse set of eyeballs looking at the code?   WCM code is being developed, can we see that as it is developed or do we have to wait for a release?

[kevinr]

You are quite right, there is complete commitment to support the community and with serious bugs like this they will be moved from Enterprise down to HEAD as soon as possible. You can expect a fix to this issue for the community version shortly!

Thanks,

Kevin

[rdanner]

You are quite right, there is complete commitment to support the community and with serious bugs like this they will be moved from Enterprise down to HEAD as soon as possible. You can expect a fix to this issue for the community version shortly!

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin,

It would be really helpful if you could explain how software is currently developed at alfresco.  Take for example WCM.  Is publicly available at the moment? I assume its on a branch. 

How does it proceed from branch what are the steps and levels of visibility along the way to head?

Seems like a really good wiki page for an open source company to have ..

[mjasay]

Paul or someone else can provide detail on our development process.  I thought I could at least provide a high-level overview (using WCM as an example).

Our goal is to get code out as fast as possible.  We don't, however, want to drop code on our community that is worse-than-useless.  So, as with WCM, we wait to release it until we have something worth the community hacking on.  We expect the full production release of Alfresco WCM in September, but will have a preview and beta release before then.  (Details TBA.  I don't yet have them.)

Once the code is "out there," we heartily welcome community involvement, both in the development of new code and in the improvement of existing code.  We're a new project, but we've had great involvement on both counts from Russ and others.  We recognize the need to have more visibility into the process as we move along - Paul (or someone else from Alfresco Engineering) can provide more details.  Needless to say, we're working on building out processes to facilitate community involvement so that "outside development" feels less "outside."

As Kevin notes above, it is our intention to provide critical bug fixes to Community.  But it should also be underlined that for Alfresco to work, we can't be the source of all bug fixes.  That's why we try to rely on our community to fix problems in Community.  It's not that we can't do it, but rather that it sends the wrong message (and encourages the wrong behavior) if we fix everything.  Open source is about communal development and code improvement. 

So, we focus on core development and expediting fixes to our Enterprise customers.  This provides clear value to our paying customers.  At the same time, we're cognizant of the fact that our non-paying customers also provide real value:  bug fixes, QA, and even the occasional forum rant.  🙂  All incoming involvement - cash or otherwise - is valued.  But for us to get more of the non-cash donations (time, expertise, etc.), it's not healthy for the Alfresco community if we solve everything.

So, yes, you will see more permeability fro Alfresco.  We're trying to figure out the best way to do that, and continue to appreciate Russ' and others' critiques when we fail.  But you should also expect to see our continued efforts to have the Alfresco community grow and support the Community product.  It's in everyone's interest to see this happen.

Matt Asay