Is nuxeo the right choice if I value community driven free software?

I'm searching a Java based free software CMS that is not only open by license but also open by spirit. I like a lot of stuff about nuxeo but two things hold me back to further evaluate it:

The mailing lists are dead, the forum is dead although both are still linked from community.nuxeo.com. So the only communication options left are proprietary social networks and this answers site. In comparison, community free software CMS like drupal or typo3 do have very active development mailing lists where technical discussions happen and the core developers are active and reachable on this lists.

I found the Eclipse Apricot project and really loved the idea and the spirit. But the project is dead since 2012. My email to its mailing list remained unanswered. It looks like a one time marketing effort. Is there any place where discussions about Eclipse Apricot can happen to discuss a revival?

I very much like about Nuxeo:

  • No cripple community version and only the enterprise version is usable (like dotCMS, Magnolia, …)
  • permissive free license
  • source code easy to find on github
  • I like your VCS more than JackRabbit

Can you point out how nuxeo is more open than it competitors? I'd really like to dive deeper into nuxeo.

Do third parties continuously participate in the development of nuxeo or are all nuxeo developers working for nuxeo SA? Do you have a public development roadmap?

1 votes

1 answers

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ANSWER



Hi,

A lot of questions :)

Thank you for pointing at the deprecated footer on http://community.nuxeo.com/, we'll fix that quickly.

Not all mailing lists are dead: the nuxeo-dev one is still usable, even if not very active. Indeed, we offered a lot of ways to communicate (mailing lists, forum, IRC, Q&A, JIRA, …) and finally retained after many years only the efficient ones (easy to watch, properly indexed, …).
Q&A dedicated site (stackexchange.com like) is definitely the best tool for questions and answers.
Even if Google+ is a proprietary social network, it is fully public and the Nuxeo G+ community is a nice place for discussions.
As a user, I hate mailing lists and I think that forums are unadapted but that's another story.

About Nuxeo openness, it's hard to be more open by spirit and by fact.
You didn't mention the huge documentation which is also open and unique (no community vs enterprise).

Did you try to build Nuxeo from sources? The steps are documented and lead you to the same distribution you can download. Try to do the same with our competitors… ;)

We do have a lot of external contributors, some of them are participating to the development of Nuxeo almost since its creation. The roadmap is also public, you should give a look at the Nuxeo webinars, blogs, and of course conference talks.

About Apricot, your questions deserve to be asked on a dedicated thread on that site.

Best regards,

2 votes



rg1
Hi Julien,

I noticed that the NX-ROADMAP JIRA project is no longer visible. I suspect this does not mean that the Nuxeo roadmap is no longer public but rather that Nuxeo has decided to use other means/tools to manage the roadmap, correct? Since some Nuxeo Tech Reports (#5) reference this no-longer-visible project, it might make sense to explain the rational for removing/hiding it. Thanks.

10/17/2013

Hi,

You're right, thanks for pointing at it. We are now communicating more regularly about our tech lead reports and the roadmap evolves accordingly.

I'll let our Community Manager Laurent Doguin give more accurate details and links.

Regards,

10/18/2013

So yes, as you know the main source of information regarding the roadmap are the tech reports: http://www.nuxeo.com/blog/tag/techreport/ Now I now this is not giving you an idea on of what we'll be doing in six months. And I currently don't know why the NXROADMAP jira has been closed to public, I will investigate and let you know. If you have any idea of a tool that could help us display a comprehensive roadmap, we are totally open for suggestion. Cheers
10/18/2013