'Conflicts' between Open Source community and Alfr

[kirby]

We are currently working on Alfresco (the Open Source version) to add Group support.
We have not yet decided if release the source code as Open Source, but what happens if we do?

As far as I know, there's already an implementation of Groups in Alfresco (probably quite different than our), but only in "Commercial" versions; we have two probable scenarios:
1) The patch will not be accepted by Alfresco. This means that the Alfresco Open Source edition is just a "light" version of the commercial edition, and that Alfresco is not really interested in creating a developer community.
2) The patch will be accepted by Alfresco, and will become part of Alfresco "Open Source". The commercial version will retain the current Enterprise implementation. This is a better scenario than the first one, but this means that the (probably better) Enterprise implementation of groups will never see the light on the Open Source edition. This means also that the migration path between Open Source and Professional/Enterprise edition will be much tough, as they have incompatible group data.

This is not a flame post: we like a lot Alfresco, and we want to help its development too, but we need a better understanding of the "community process" around it.

[lgr]

Hi,

In my opinion, Community edition is only a light version of the pro version which includes groups support. The goal of Alfresco Company is not to maintain two or more different distributions with the same functionnalities, but instead to provide a common core which has more functionnalities in the commercial distributions.

There is already a question about that matter in the licencing forum (http://www.alfresco.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=615). Perhaps should we have to followup there.

Laurent.

[kirby]

I read the previous post, but the matter is different: I don't want to know if implementing it is permitted by the license, or if it's possible, but to know how Alfresco is currently managing the Open Source edition: as a simple "light" version, with no commit allowed from the community, or as a "full fledge" open source project, supported also by the community.

If it's the first scenario, we'll just "fork" Alfresco, and work on it without giving anything back; if it's the second one we might consider committing our changes back to the community (it's a win-win solution: Alfresco and the community get the improvements, and we have not to spend time re-integrating our changes with each Alfresco release).

I'm waiting for answer by the Alfresco team.

[lgr]

You're right.
In fact, two matters are discussed, and the post was only about the 1st one. You have no clear answer about that in the forums or wiki. Anyway, Alfresco is under MPL licence (http://www.alfresco.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=121), and all that i've read around the forum or wiki shows that Alfresco company is releasing a core, that can be modified by its users, and redistributed among these users, but nowhere is there any reference to Alfresco committing community patches to the core.

But i think that this should be discussed in the Licencing forum (http://www.alfresco.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=20).

I'll post a question there because your question is very interesting. (here is the post : http://www.alfresco.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2641)

Laurent.

[davidc]

I've posted a response in the licensing forum.