Open Source Sharepoint possible project

FRM

I am currently looking at implementing an Open Source alternative to Sharepoint.

For the right person this would be a paid project subcontracted out to them. Anyone got any exposure or skills to Open Source alternatives to Sharepoint?

Drop me a PM.

Cheers
FRM

ve

OSALT suggests this: http://www.alfresco.com/ as an alternative to Sharepoint.

croo

To be honest I don't know much about Sharepoint having dropped windows a few years ago now. It strikes me though that Sharepoint functionality is a definition of the solution rather than of the problem. That is to say it provides some functionalities that a company could use to solve some issues, but what are those issues? To my knowledge there is no project that is a replacement for sharepoint per se as say open office might be for MS Office. But I would think most problems have been addressed; some projects might be better for certain aspects of what Sharepoint offers knowing what is the underlying problem to be resolve is would allow us give a better answer?

Alfresco is highly regarded OSS document management okay, but again I have a question. Why are you choosing Open Source? is it purely to reduce costs or to perhaps to ensure no vendor lock-in or are there other reasons? I ask because in the world of open source there is a trend to what is being called "commercial open source". Companies in the "commercial open source" world do indeed release source code but in such a way that you cannot really move away from them .. these companies typically have a community versions and enterprise versions. The community versions are bug ridden and often little more than beta versions which the hope the community will help them debug. Alfresco is a company in this area! Now I do not wish to scare anybody from FOSS as I'm a big believer in it, but I just say this so you are have all the facts. This is an interesting read
http://www.h-online.com/open/The-Open-Source-Enterprise-Trap--/features/112992

Zimbra is also worth a look if collaboration is the key to solving your problem. Again though this is another commercial open source company.

Personally I agree with the author in the above link ... if vendor lock-in is a key reason for you choosing open source then I would look for projects with strong vibrant communities that drive the project rather than a company selling product. The fact they have community & enterprise versions is a good indicator.

As I said if you provide more detail (PM me if it's sensitive) about the problem then perhaps I can suggest projects to consider.

ve

+1

Good post croo, well said

FRM

Croo eh im a bit confused on your use of the word 'projects'.

I basically have a client who don't want to spend the cash on Sharepoint at the moment. To be honest the implementation of Sharepoint can be an ongoing task which just eats into money.

I am looking at what other OS alternatives to Sharepoint are out there but I have little exposure to them myself. If anyone has good exposure to implementing thisand is customer friendly I'm willing to sub contract the job to them.

They want to use the calendar, intranet and document management areas intensely of something 'sharepoint like'.

Anyone for anyone?

croo

Croo eh im a bit confused on your use of the word 'projects'.

Sorry FRM, I was trying to distinguish between a Product and a Project. A Product is something you sell but in Open Source we are not selling Product but Services. To me this is the essence of FOSS; a move from selling Things to selling Services. People work on software for fun or study, or more commonly now as a paid Service provider. When they extend functionality or fix a bug for a client they share that and so the application evolves. After all if it was for fun they've had their fun if it was for pay well they've been paid for their time already - so why not share!? To me what is important is the "project" around which people share rather than a "product" per se. It's this that enables the application to improve in terms of functionality & quality, it's this that creates the market place where services (implementation, customisation, support etc) can be acquired... so it's this that delivers on the real benefits of open source. It's the Services not Things; Project not Product. If you have a single company speculatively developing a Product well they will have to be paid somehow... so expect to find some kind of lockin re the link in my last post so they can recoup their investment.

So my point was though look closely to any solution you find & consider, with open source you really want a strong community to offer support and ensure an open market in services. There are many companies who employ "Open Source" as a marketing tool. As you see from the blog link in my last post, you can be sure once you are hooked this company will get their money - either that or it will cost you more in the long run when you must migrate away. As the author in that link suggests - the likes of Alfresco offer free beer not freedom. Their open source "Community Edition" is there to attract you but when you try to upgrade (very important with web based applications for security reasons) then you may find you cannot with the community edition! The bottom line is Alfresco only suggest this version as a demo - no for actual business use - for that you should (they suggest) buy their Enterprise version but it is not open source! No matter what it says on their website! Now that's not to say it would not still be much cheaper than sharepoint .. if you go that way they will most likely be able to offer the services needed to implement!?

If the workflow aspects of the document management are not vital you might try some groupware solutions. OpenGroupware always looked good but there doesn't seem to have been a release in a while. It mixed the shared calendar, email etc of zimbra with some simple document management.
"Simply Groupware" http://www.simple-groupware.de/cms/ also does the same and is GPL - it is however a one man show so might be risky. There seems to be a good community based around their google group however. So it might be worth a look.

These are xAMP based and XAMPP has made it very easy to install this technology stack... certainly from my experience with the likes of Joomla, sugarCRM & vTiger (both of which offer many groupware functionality themselves but are more Sale Force Automation), which are all xAMP based, this has made life very easy. As has the server version of Ubuntu which can simply be configured as a LAMP server as an option from the very install.

so I hope I didn't confuse more ...