Topic: Lycoris to take over contribs.org

[jcoleman]

Great News for contribs.org and the SME Server!

Over the last few months there have been many questions as to the future of the SME Server. Today we'd like to announce that we have been able to secure answers to these questions and to assure the future development and success of the SME Server and contribs.org.


Effective immediately, contribs.org and the development and support of the SME Server will be handled by Lycoris (www.lycoris.com and www.lycoris.org). Lycoris is a successful Linux company that has developed a reputation as a world-wide leader in Desktop Linux Operating Systems with their Lycoris Desktop/LX product line.

We believe that our association with Lycoris will provide many benefits to the SME Server community:

- Professional development and support for the SME Server by a successful Linux company

- An affordable commercial product with upgrades and support at an affordable price

- A commitment to continued GPL development and availability

- A worldwide presence and marketing to build and grow the SME Server presence

- Tier 1 hosting for contribs.org

What's next?

Over the next few days we will be moving contribs.org to the Lycoris hosting facility in a Tier 1 colocation in Seattle.

Within a very short period of time (you really didn't expect us to pre-announce a date, did you :>) Lycoris will roll out a new version of the SME Server that will include some version updates and the bug fixes and errata that have been resolved by the community and others.

About the same time there will be a Lycoris commercial release. While pricing has not yet been finalized I can tell you that it will be very affordable for small business, and Lycoris will be welcoming resellers on a world-wide basis. The commercial release will include an automated update feature and will eventually have some very nice plugins (or Packs in Lycoris speak) that will be available for automatic download and installation.

Lycoris is committed to the GPL side of the SME Server and will work to enhance contribs.org in order to provide a venue for support and development for the open-source side of the SME Server.

As we worked with the folks at Lycoris to come to this agreement we have learned to really respect the knowledge, honesty, and integrity that the people at Lycoris have brought to the picture. We are very excited about this opportunity to take the SME Server to the next level with these good folks in both the commercial and open-source communities.

We'll let you know about any new developments and details as quickly as we can. Let's declare victory and work towards a smooth transition and the ongoing success of our favorite server operating system!

-jeff
On behalf of contribs.org

[dmay]

Very exciting news Jeff.

Glad to hear the Lycoris team has stepped up to put their leadership, support and marketing resources behind the SME Server.

[guest22]

A very BIG thank you (Merci Bien!) to all of you out there for the support that contribs.org recieved from you all during the past year(s) and efforts dedicated to and done by the community!

I guess we (RonM who gathered all stuff and published it, thanks Ron!) need to add some stuff to this page:

http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php/SME%20History

Contribs.org' 'old' staff really appreciated working with you and hopes that your enthousiasm will continue and grow now that the Lycoris staff is stepping in. Please support their efforts as well or even better as you have done so in the past.

As you will understand there are some practical 'issues' involved in this transition. So please bear with us (contribs.org + Lycoris) while we do our utmost best to take care of all things involved as smooth as possible. We will try to keep you as up to date as possible on this.

Thank you all.
'Now let's ROCK!'

Kind regards,
RequestedDeletion

ps.
[personal]
I'm glad and very happy that Contribs.org gave me many new friends!
[/personal]

Could someone from the French forums translate this and post in the French forums please? I won't even try myself Merci!! (J'adore toi )

[RonM]

OK, I updated the page ;-) Odd to do "History" within 24 hours of the original announcement!

Congrats on your accomplishment BTW! It looks like this change could be a great fit. I'm looking forward to it!

RonM

[Rus]

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to introduce myself here.  You'll see me over at the Lycoris Greenhouse quite a bit, and I'll be over here as well.  I've got my roots in the community, and they always stay there.

And I'll warn you early - I can be wordy.  

One of the things that I am excited about is that contribs.org has a French forum.  One of my personal goals is to get our Linux projects into as many languages as possible.  I know there are some avid German, French and Spanish-speaking Desktop/LX users in our community, and some people have sites devoted to Desktop/LX up in many different languages.  I'll follow RequestedDeletion's lead and ask if anyone would please translate this into the French forum as well - I speak not a word of it.

I've been delighted to work with Jeff as this transition is taking place, and RequestedDeletion has also been nothing but professional.  I've had a bit of contact from a couple of you so far, and I look forward to meeting many more of you.  We're all really excited at Lycoris about the transition of this project.

Look for me more here in the forums!

Rus

[Robbie_n]

Well since Rus has introduced himself so well, I might as well do it too

I am the Community Liaison at Lycoris. That's a fancy word for "first point of contact". Basically, if you are a community member and want to talk to Lycoris about something other than sales - which Rus handles - you'll be talking to me.

My email address is rbnorton@lycoris.com. You are more than welcome to contact me directly; I tend to be online fairly sporadically at times, but almost always have access to my mail.

[byte]

Welcome Robbie & Rus...

Thanks HF and Jeff and everyone else involved, glad to see SME living longer as it is a great product, I've known e-smith since there very first release and have been using it since too and i can honestly say its been the most reliable server  

I remember we needed some work done on our sever and Joe Morrision actually ssh'd in and sorted out believe we were one of the first 10 to use e-smith and im glad its grown to where its at today and i can only see that lycoris will only make it better and give it a direction

[spaaz9]

I figured I'd pop my head in over here and say hello.  I'm a moderator over at The Greenhouse (the Lycoris community site, ( www.lycoris.org ) and I do other odd jobs around the Lycoris house.  I'm just learning about
SME, but it seems like a great project, and the community seems very tight knit.  Welcome to they Lycoris family.  

[meanpenguin]

I not trying to cause problems but just would like some clarification.

It seems that Lycoris only has a non evaluation (good for 45 days) and a commercial version.  Nothing like the "unsupported - and feature limited" SME verion.

Can anyone on the Lycoris team clarify their policy on the GPL in respect to using the Linux base and other GPL applications and restricting the license to only 45 days.

Will there always be a "unsupported" version?

This needs clarification as their announcement

I was heavily involved in the acquisition of contribs.org and the SME
Server product, and I'll continue in that vein.

seems to imply that somehow they own the SME Product.

Sincerly,
Ed

[Mjohnson]

Me thinks the Penguin is on to something......

So what exactly is the deal??  

Committed to continued GPL can mean what??  Mr. Coleman's post is a bit vague on these important points.  

I frankly have been quite impressed by the community spirit here...I would hate to lose that.  That is what makes SME such a wonderful project.

[grand-pa]

Could someone from the French forums translate this and post in the French forums please? I won't even try myself Merci!! (J'adore toi )

Hi,

You can now see a french translation of the announce in this thread (would it be possible to make it "sticky", please ?)
I hope i didn't do to much mistakes in this translation.

A copy of this translation is also available on my personnal website dedicated to SME : SME-Fr.

[Robbie_n]

I don't seem to have the necessary administrative rights to make the the French thread sticky, unfortunately. Thanks for the translation.

With regards to the licensing issues, Lycoris is committed to the letter and spirit of the GPL, in addition to this community. I would point out that as SME Server is a GPL product, we could have launched our own server product based on SME Server code, with no reference to Contribs.org. However, we chose to work with the Contribs.org community instead - we won't be throwing the community away having just worked so hard to acquire it

[cydonia]

Wow.  what a great surprise:D!  I had absolutely no idea anything like this was in the pipelines:).

Look forward to the continued development of SME server, be it in commercial, or GPL arenas.

As long as the Commercial version is reasonably priced, it would definately be worth it to pay.


Congratulations to the committed team at SME, as well as the very helpful community!  Lets hope it marks a new and glorious era for SME:).



Cheers,
Tristan

[ngomes]

Ok, I must admit that was an intelligent move. Thanks for all of you involved in the deal, Jeff, RequestedDeletion, Rus, Robert Norton and Mike Honeyfield.

From my point of view this “acquisition” of Contribs.org by Lycoris (and not the acquisition of the SME product…) will have the following major benefits:

1. A more quickly and focused Core Development

2. An efficient update and bug fix service for the Core Modules

3. Worldwide exposition through the Lycoris websites and the press

4. A real opportunity to develop a Server/Desktop solution based on SME Server and Lycoris Desktop/LX

But my main concerns (and the concerns from all other people here in Contribs.og) are:

1. This deal was simply announced without any discussion with the Contribs.org members. Will Contribs/Lycoris continue with this BAD BAD BAD procedure in the future?

2. Will it be a Community version (with no fees and no trials involved) of the Lycoris SME Server?

3. Will the Lycoris SME Server continue to use the Perl template system?

4. Will the Lycoris SME Server continue to accept the several Contribs Applications that already exist?

5. Will the next version of the Lycoris SME Server be based on the recent dev work on CentOS (http://lordsfam.net/SME70)?

6. How many developers will Lycoris allocate to the SME development?

7. Is there any roadmap for the next version of the Lycoris SME Server?

Hope someone can answer these questions for all of us.

Best regards for all of you,

Nuno Gomes

[guest22]

Hi,

Thanks for the 'praises' and comments. Please allow Lycoris a bit of time to finalize their plans. Like pointed out before, the 'demands', 'wishes' and requirements just takes a bit of time to work out and meets the Lycoris standards of professionalism.

After all, the speed of this transition falling through, happily surprised us all a bit

Thanks for your patience,
RequestedDeletion