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The OSI edition of Connect is great for certain uses... not all 

I thought I'd take a moment and talk about the way we license ConcourseConnect, and why.

Connect is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License Version 3 (AGPL), which is OSI approved, and very similar to the GPL3. It is a "viral" license, in that any modifications you make to the code must also be redistributed under the AGPL, and the same applies if you provide Connect to users over the network.

We chose the AGPL because it provides the most freedom to the community and insures that all improvements and bug fixes are shared and can become a part of the main distribution. All users and providers of the system realize the benefits.

What this means to you as a provider of the application is that the AGPL requires that the complete source code of your version be made available to any network user of your version of Connect . Of course this does not apply to content, but it does apply to themes, portlets, workflows, new modules, plugins, or any other code changes to Connect. You assume the burden of making all your code changes available, but you also receive the similar benefit of using the improvements made by Concursive and other users of the system.

The only possible downside to you, the provider of Connect, is that the license does not permit you to provide proprietary additions to the application without also redistributing them. But in fact, there is a commercial licensing scheme that provides you exactly what you want: a fully supported version of Connect, with major functionality additions designed for production Connect systems, and the ability to add your own modifications without restriction.

To learn more about the Affero GNU Public License V3, follow this link:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html

To learn more about the different versions of ConcourseConnect, follow this link:

http://www.concursive.com/show/concourseconnect/wiki/Versions

NORFOLK, VA (May 19, 2009) - Concursive Corporation (www.concursive.com), a leading developer of open source business software, today announced the launch of ConcourseConnect, a solution that enables the rapid creation of dynamic online communities -- with applications ranging from social networking sites to business directories and collaborative intranets.

After attending a moving presentation from Don Tapscott (of Wikinomics fame) at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, almost two years ago, I felt encouraged about the work Concursive was doing with centralized tools for businesses.  The CRM had the right features for sales force automation and document management, and managers were happy seeing daily roll-ups of opportunities and action planning. Don had convinced me that there needed to be more collaborative elements in the business process, "a paradigm shift."

We're excited to announce the launch of six live sample sites based on common use cases for our ConcourseConnect product.

We've set up six fully functional sample sites to provide an interactive way to learn more about ConcourseConnect and to provide inspiration for your projects by illustrating some key use cases.

Each of the sites highlights a different implementation of the platform while illustrating the six default configurations available with ConcourseConnect. These configurations include variations in layout, functionality, selection and location of various content portlets, etc.

Visit our Solutions page to access the sites and view a short description of each.

In addition, our Early Access Program is now live. This program gives the community a chance to access the beta version of ConcourseConnect. To learn more about the program, read a more detailed blog post here.

I encourage you to visit the sample sites, and if you want to do a deeper dive, join the Early Access Program. As always, we look forward to and appreciate your feedback as we continue to refine our product.

Jeff

Open means different things to different stakeholders.  What it means to me.

The Open Solutions Alliance recently celebrated its first anniversary. It's been a busy year and as a group we've seen ongoing market traction and expansion.

If you picked up a copy of The Wall Street Journal today, or checked online, you might have come across an article featuring Concursive employee, Chris Pearsall.

Today Concursive is proud to announce that it has become a part of the ZipTie Open Network Alliance (ZONA). ZONA is an alliance committed to several key areas which we have been continually dedicated to, including interoperability, standardization, best practices and the creation of value-added tools. In November 2006, many of these same reasons fueled our drive to become a founding member of the Open Solutions Alliance, a group dedicated to those very ideals in open source software.

In hindsight, it almost feels inevitable that after countless anti-trust lawsuits and reticence towards third-party developers, Microsoft has opened up its major APIs. Following the likes of Google, a company that strongly encourages community development on its products, Microsoft's move seems a bit overdue but ultimately quite logical.

More and more software focus is turning away from desktop computing towards web applications and services. The SaaS phenomenon is one example, as is the increasingly visible open source movement.