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Alfresco Labs 3 Beta is Here!

nancyg

All,

Everyone around Alfresco has been hard at work over the past several months on our latest release, Labs 3. We invite you to download it, kick the tires and send us your feedback.

You can find a lot of info in the wiki, the starting page is http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Labs_3, a list of features is at http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Labs_3_Feature_List and the download and install instructions at http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Installing_Labs_3. You can read what John Newton, our co-founder and CTO, has to say on his blog, http://newton.typepad.com/content/2008/07/introducing-alf.html.

Enjoy the new release and stay tuned for more exciting developments!

Nancy

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Comments

jpfi

Hi Alfresco,
Congratulations!
There were several not very positive post about your movement to a more Collaboration centric approach here in the forum and in the "blogsphere".
I'm sure you know that you haven't completely finished your homework, but it is fantastic what you all have achieved in the last months!
Now, drink a beer…or two and have a nice weekend 😉
Cheers,
jan

hvyas

Does this mean that there won't be a 2.9C release for community?

slothrop

What is the difference between a labs release and a community release? Will there be a version 3 community release?

jottley

We have changed names for our community release. Alfresco Community is now Alfresco Labs.

hvyas

ok….Will there be a version 2.9 Labs release in the near future?

jottley

Labs 3 is that release. In addition to the new Share client, you still have the traditional JSF client available as well.

mabayona

After reading and testing Alfresco Labs 3.0, I have a set of questions:

- Are all 2.9x-only features in 3.0? > (quote, multi-tenant, <runas>, …)

- What are 3.0 plans for Advanced Workflow support? (no single mention in 3.0 literature/roadmap/feature list of simple or advanced workflow support)

Any comments from alfresco?

jottley

The features that you saw being developed in 2.9 and that you are familliar with in past versions of Alfresco are all still available in the traditional JSF client. Labs 3 introduces a new (separate) UI that we are calling Share. Everything you saw and loved about previous version of Alfresco or saw being developed in 2.9 is still there in Labs 3. Labs 3 represents our efforts to develop an open alternative to Sharepoint, part of which is an additional UI. Thinks of Labs 3 as the introduction of a third product: our traditional JSF client for document management, our web content management tools and finally the Share interface.

Share is part of our work to close the divide between traditional document management and web content management into the divide of social collaboration. There is more and more demand for alternatives to what Sharepoint is offering and this is the start of our answer to that demand.

The top post by NancyG has the links to learn more about what we are offering in Share. Install it. Play with it. Let us know what you think. If you don't like share ( :8180/share ) the traditional UI is still there ( :8080/alfresco ). It is divided into two war files: alfresco.war and share.war. Don't want share, just delete the share.war. Don't like the Share UI? Skin it. Don't like the components, or want additional components? Build them. Or build your own UI using the SURF Platform. Labs 3 is that flexible.

We are really excited about this new offering and what it represents. We hope that you will be too.

slothrop

What is te appropriate forum for posting questions about 3.0 installation, development, etc?

mikeh

What is te appropriate forum for posting questions about 3.0 installation, development, etc?

Hi,

Just use the same forums as before, but please make it clear in either the subject or body that your questions are relating to v3.0.

Thanks,
Mike

alexr

All,

Everyone around Alfresco has been hard at work over the past several months on our latest release, Labs 3. We invite you to download it, kick the tires and send us your feedback.

You can find a lot of info in the wiki, the starting page is http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Labs_3, a list of features is at http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Labs_3_Feature_List and the download and install instructions at http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Installing_Labs_3. You can read what John Newton, our co-founder and CTO, has to say on his blog, http://newton.typepad.com/content/2008/07/introducing-alf.html.

Enjoy the new release and stay tuned for more exciting developments!

Nancy

Hi Nancy,

Congratulations to all of you for this achievement. Alfresco Share looks great and promising.
I hope Surf and Share will find a quick adoption in our community.

Regards,

Alex

hvyas

Does Alfresco Labs 3 include all bug fixes from enterprise 2.x branch?
Can Alfresco Labs 3 be considered stable equivalent to enterprise 2.x release?

jpfi

Hi,
it is declared as "Labs Beta", so I'm sure that it isn't as as stable as a 2.x enterprise.
Cheers, Jan

zaizi

"Does Alfresco Labs 3 include all bug fixes from enterprise 2.x branch?"

Yes.

"Can Alfresco Labs 3 be considered stable equivalent to enterprise 2.x release?"

No. This is because in addition to all the bug fixes it has all new bleeding edge functionality included. The bug fixes and patches for this new functionality will be available in enterprise 3.x.

hvyas

So there will not be any stable community release that can be used in production. In other words, community release is only for testing for enterprise release. Is that true?

zaizi

You can find the difference between the Enterprise and Labs Products at http://www.alfresco.com/products/networks/compare/.

The Labs is as stable as it gets when it is released. There will be no patch releases or bug fixes. Bug fixes will however be available in the SVN for you to compile and install.

callermd

Again, I wish to register my disappointment with Alfresco for switching to a release model that intentionally cripples the open source branch by never providing a production ready release. To me at least, this is a transparent attempt to effort to force users to purchase the Enterprise version for anything more than playing around. This was not the release model that Alfresco originally billed itself to follow and the change has left some of us high and dry.

I don't mind waiting for Enterprise functionality to eventually show up in the OS version or even having Enterprise only functionality that never is released into the OS version. However not having a production ready branch of community is a really good way to kill any community participation or interest from even larger enterprises looking to widely deploy Alfresco.

Regretfully,

Martin

pmonks

Martin, it's unfortunate to hear that you're disappointed, but there is method to the madness and it's far more mundane than you're imagining. The simple fact of the matter is that with software development (of any kind - open source or otherwise) innovation and stability work at cross purposes - they are fundamentally conflicting goals - yet both have value to different constituencies within the user base.

Like all software developers (whether they're consciously aware of it or not), Alfresco had to draw the line between innovation and stabilisation somewhere, and as the names imply we elected to make innovation the primary goal of the Labs edition, and stability the primary goal of the Enterprise edition. This was based on the simple observation that Labs users are typically more interested in innovative new features, while Enterprise users are typically more interested in stability.

Are there Labs users who favour stability over innovation? Of course, and we encourage them to consider the Enterprise edition. Are there Enterprise users who favour innovation over stability? Of course, and we encourage them to experiment with the innovative new features included in the Labs edition.

The beauty of this model is that no one is locked into anything - it's simply a matter of choice. Compare that to the traditional software vendor model, where typically users don't get a choice, and often don't even know if they're purchasing innovation or stability or a random sprinkling of both (or neither in some cases! 😉

Cheers,
Peter

nancyg

I wanted to point out another wiki resource that has some great info on Labs 3 and may answer some questions, it is the Alfresco Labs 3 FAQ, you can find it here http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Labs_3_FAQ

dozyarmadillo

I have to agree with Martin on this. The Labs releases are basically betas. The Enterprise release are final/stable releases. I can't think of any other Open Source project where you have to pay to get access to the stable code. Even RHEL is available in source code form for free.

xerox

I have to agree with Martin on this. The Labs releases are basically betas. The Enterprise release are final/stable releases. I can't think of any other Open Source project where you have to pay to get access to the stable code. Even RHEL is available in source code form for free.

You can find a blogpost about this: http://nheylen.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/alfresco-open-source-or-not/

andnyg

zaizi wrote: "The bug fixes and patches for this new functionality will be available in enterprise 3.x."

This (again?) raises the question in what pace the patches bug fixes will be available in the Labs version. If this isn't very clearly explained there is an obvious risk that the labs users will be less motivated to report bugs at this point.

/Anders

bgl

Hi,

Could you tell us which svn revision (of public repository of course

) was used to produce this version ?

thank you !

Boris

pmonks

Anders wrote: "This (again?) raises the question in what pace the patches bug fixes will be available in the Labs version."

This has been answered previously (see http://forums.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=8993#p43677 for example).

Cheers,
Peter

mikeh

Hi,

Could you tell us which svn revision (of public repository of course ) was used to produce this version ?

thank you !

Boris

Should be rev 2575.

Many fixes and additions have already been added since then though, so you'd be better off getting the latest if you're testing 3.0

Thanks,
Mike

hvyas

["Are there Labs users who favour stability over innovation? Of course, and we encourage them to consider the Enterprise edition."]

Of course, they favor stable (not supported) code….otherwise what’s the point of experimenting/testing new features and providing valuable feedback.

["Are there Enterprise users who favour innovation over stability? Of course, and we encourage them to experiment with the innovative new features included in the Labs edition."]

Are you kidding ……It seems that sole purpose of the Alfresco lab is to save your enterprise customers of testing new features in the upcoming releases.

I think Alfresco should make it clear that community (Lab) releases are not at all for any production use and is unstable. So that community people won’t mislead by thinking that it is a true open source product like others and can get stable (unsupported) code.

callermd

Peter,

As a model the 'labs open/enterprise closed' model is marginally better than a proprietary model, in that you can examine the source code and make patches; however you are not adopting the traditional commercial open source model - where an identical product (or identical for a given subset of features) is released under a GPL type license with no support, warranty (i.e. If it bursts into a ball of flame and burns down your building - tough luck) and a commercial license is concurrently released which includes technical support, warranties, etc. In your case you have an unstable product under Open Source, never stabilized or tested, and a stable commercial product - so for any given subset of features the products are not identical.

For document management applications, given that the focus is BUSINESS with complex enough processes that require a document management solution, ALL users are interested in stability. Experimental features are nice, but that is why we have Betas. For those of us who started using to Alfresco Community WHEN IT WAS POSITIONED AS A STABLE (NON-BETA), we have really been left high and dry.

There are a few ways to remedy our situation:
1) Alfresco changes gears and does concurrent stable releases between Enterprise and Community editions. Labs continues or not (we don't really care). Best outcome from our perspective (and there is some evidence to suggest that other users on the board feel similarly).
2) Third party forks and creates a stable community release. Better outcome. Even better outcome is getting this branch then packaged and included into Fedora, Debian, etc. so that Alfresco becomes the de facto content management solution for the open source world.
3) We buy enterprise licenses simply to get a stable version. Bad outcome - leaving us not feeling great about Alfresco.
4) We are forced to apply our own fixes and maintain our own branch. Worst outcome.

dhalupa

3) We buy enterprise licenses simply to get a stable version. Bad outcome - leaving us not feeling great about Alfresco.

and you get the source, I do not see what is the problem here. Try buying some Documentum licenses from EMC and see whether you will get a commented source code. It seems to me that you are more interested in getting the product free of charge than in having source code available.

Kind regards,

Denis

fselendic

Documentum doesn't even pretend to be open source

It is not so simple. Let's not mix established players with disruptive newcomers. Well known fact is that in open source world there will be lots of people who don't want to pay for the license. All people want stability (which is why I find Peters damage control post comical), but just some are willing or able to pay for it. And number of paying customers depends more on pricing strategy than on having two versions, stable and broken one.

When someone like Alfresco has strategy based on open source, it is usually because it attacks already formed market, taken by big players. Open source enables to rapidly take and retake parts of that market. It is all about distribution. Which is what worries me with this approach. Basically, Alfresco is opting for 10k installations with 10k paying customers, instead of 1mil installations with 10k paying customers. Not having stable OS edition will do nothing about number of paying customers, but it will slaughter potential huge volume of installations that free (or even non free but much cheaper solution) would have. From what I've seen so far, clever pricing strategies always win against "we are open, but aren't really open" tricks that pop up now and then on open source scene.

Also, you make it sound bad when someone wants Alfresco for free

Alfresco itself uses tons of free and opensource products and components, and wouldn't be possible in this form if they would pay for every single one of them (and especially if every single one of those had same "innovative" aproach to packaging software). Being open source brings some advantages to the table, bug cleansing and testing being the most talked about, but, personally, i think that biggest plus for VC funded company like Alfresco is huge installation volumes, evangelizing and free marketing that it gets from people who don't pay licenses.

After all, biggest acquisitions of open source companies had absolutely nothing to do with number of paying customers, yearly revenue or profit: it is all about market share and presence. This model kills those, and I would like Alfresco to rethink approach once again, because I don't feel right balance is achieved.

Note: I do think Alfresco was more than fair and brave up until now, with full suite GPLed. Even with this model, those who want and know, will be able to manage and take the most out of it. Just am a little bit worried about bad press this decision is already starting to get, and impact of not having stable OS version on installed base.

dozyarmadillo

and you get the source, I do not see what is the problem here. Try buying some Documentum licenses from EMC…

OK you get the code but at no point is the Labs version ever stable - because it's essentially the beta version. It probably doesn't overstep the mark in regards to Alfresco being Open Source but it seems to me that it goes against the spirit of Open Source.

You're comparing apples to oranges. Documentum is closed source. Try comparing to other Open Source projects. Liferay for example maintains a single stable version and makes the code available to all. If you want support, you can buy it from Liferay (which is what my employer plans to do).

The simplest solution to me seems to be to make the Enterprise version available. It's billed as being Open Source as well but how can it be when you have to pay to get it. Sorry to go on like broken record but I really don't see what the problem is with opening up stable code for all.

Regards