[OOTB-hive] "Keep SPP IP proprietary"

[Heiko Robert]

Hi Richard,

I absolutely agree. Your ticket / your suggestion addresses different 
points:

*** Closed, Free, Open Source ***

Open Source could be a big limitation if this means to reinvent the 
wheels which already exist but nobody pays for that job to make/rebuild 
them as open source. Especially if the job can't be done in a aceptable 
quality by hobbyists. Most of the end customers don't care too much 
about the open source idea and concepts - they're just happy if 
something is for free. But exactly these end users convert very often to 
open source enemys if their conclusion is after a time that the expected 
quality can only be expected from closed source software vendors. MS is 
doing a very good job in pushing these guys in management departments 
and I see a lot of companies dropping Alfresco for that reason.
Your suggestion should be seen as a template for integrating important 
use cases/high qulity market solutions and open Alfresco as a platform 
for extentions and solutions which do not need to be open source to 
use/consume them.
It is very similar to the linux distributions. There are many drivers, 
apps which are not open source but which are default for a linux 
desktop. Only a few would agree to a linux desktop if graphic 
accelleration couldn't be enabled or sound would not be active. The 
closed source free products are the compromise. I'm not sure if any 
company would vote for EE if just the AOS module has not enough options 
but the message is quite clear and end users and the community have at 
least an option.

*** Office ***

Office Integration is one of the big pain points working with Alfresco 
(both editions). So any success in that direction will be highly 
appreciated! Today there is only the use case of "Online Edit" for CE 
available but most of us know that MS users expect muuuuch more and 
they're used to get more (metadata sync, better integration of office 
functions, dialogs, workflows, ...) from sharepoint.
If the idea is just to allow the "Online Edit" this will keep open the 
business case for better solutions from competitors ...

*** SDK ***

Alfresco SDK 2 is for now a step backwards for this use case. We already 
have a bunch of addons including commercial, closed source libs. We had 
to write our own build environment to allow modules to rely on and share 
other modules and to support different Alfresco versions just to be 
installed by the customers without the need to start maven. By now the 
sdk only supports the allinone and the stanalone amp artefacts - but we 
need to combine different (already existing) modules and libs which are 
to be bought from different parties.

Looking forward to anything in that direction ;-)

cheers
Heiko


Am 16.06.2015 um 08:32 schrieb Richard Esplin:
> Great suggestion. Thank you.
>
> On Tuesday, June 16, 2015 06:25:53 Peter Löfgren wrote:
>> >I hope that those responsible goes for Richards proposal. Clearly better
>> >than the current situation.
>> >What I would like to add is that Alfresco adds extension points and
>> >document those so that the Community can start adding features to AOS. As
>> >we all know Open Source extends its value when the Community can contribute
>> >back.
>> >With this Alfresco Enterprise will have its closed paying customers only
>> >features, but will benefit from the additional features that the Community
>> >can add.
>> >
>> >Peter