Alfresco, a bit like Quickr but Bettr
Quickr, for those who are lucky enough not to know, is the morphologically challenged relative of Lotus Quickplace. In reality it is Quickplace with two new themes, two new placetypes and two versions of dojo dumped on the filesystem to make things look a bit more “Web 2.0″ and some windows-only integration with Microsoft only applications. So why I am I telling you about proprietary software here on “The Open Sourcerer”? Well I have a bit of a background in the IBM/Lotus area and I have been developing corporate themes for Quickplace since sometime in the last millennium. It hasn’t changed much, but there is a very serious Free and Open Source alternative now.
In brief, Quickr is a website creating tool, each site is known as a “place” and within a place you can have folders and rooms. Rooms are like sub-places, they can have their own access control rules and a different style. They can contain rooms as well so you can have a hierarchy of places. It looks quite pretty, and 10 years ago it was 5 years ahead of its time. It has now got a client install, which integrates with some legacy Windows applications, more on that later.
Alfresco is an Open Source Enterprise Content Management System, which runs as a J2EE application on Linux and other platforms (I would stick to Linux+Apache+Tomcat+MySQL for preference). Like Quickr you create areas for storing stuff, in Alfresco they are called “Spaces”. Spaces can contain files, folders and more spaces.
Inheritance of security to sub-spaces/rooms
So in Quickr you create a place, you add members to that place, you create a room within the place, you carefully check the checkbox labeled “inherit members from parent place” as you create it so that all the members of the place can get into the room. Lovely. Now add another member to the place. You would expect them to be able to access the room wouldn’t you?
No. Inheritance is a one shot deal when you create a room, it just copies the access control list from the parent room as it creates the subroom. Now imagine an place in an enterprise with 100+ rooms and managing user access to this lot. It gets messy.
In Alfresco, inheritance works just like it should. You can set a space to inherit from the parent space, and override it at will. Nice, friendly and fit for the enterprise user/administrator.
Access as a file system
The big new feature in Quickr (the pretty skins don’t count as they are only skin deep) is the Quickr Connectors. This Windows only program installs as a Windows Explorer extension and sits alongside the network neighbourhood, it sort of works like a filesystem.
You can’t do linked spreadsheets (OpenOffice.org or Symphony, or the other one) because the files don’t reside at a resolvable UNC path.
Folders are deeply broken. You can create folders, and nested folders, but they look rubbish in most of the web themes which are designed for a single level of folders. If you do use a web theme with a hierarchical folder tree and then use the web interface to move folders between rooms, they break in the connector. Moving them in the web doesn’t update some important UNID field somewhere, I couldn’t figure out which, but I reported it as a bug.
Personal spaces (aka Quickr Entry) were supposed to be a wonderful thing, when you send an email with an attachment from a proprietary email client (Lotus Notes or the other one) it asks you if you want to store the attachment in your Quickr place and send a link instead. This sort of works. With no security. Your place is public, anyone can see stuff you put in it (with a lame security-by-obscurity option which I haven’t figured out how to get to yet). So you want to organise your space, putting stuff in folders etc. well you can’t. Folders aren’t allowed in personal spaces. Tough.
So how does file system access work in Alfresco? Well it will act as a WebDav server or a CIFS server or both. There is no mucking about with locally installed connector clients and Windows Explorer extensions to make it look a little bit like a network filesystem. It is a network filesystem. WebDAV is well supported on Linux and Mac and it works on Windows too. Once you connect to your server via WebDAV it just looks like another bit of your filesystem. You can drag and drop documents into and out of it, double click things to open them etc. Linked spreadsheets work fine, and in fact every application that expects to be storing or accessing data on a regular drive works just fine with your remote content management system. It isn’t just any remote drive though, it is still a content management system, if the business rules for a space where you drop a file dictate version control then that is exactly what happens.
Version control
So lets say you have a document in Quickr created with a form set up for optional version control (which is a bit of a sloppy concept in itself). You are doing some edits and what started as correcting a few typos turns into a major re-factoring session. You now want to save your document as a new version. Tough. Too late. You have to create a new version before you start editing it, otherwise you are just editing and overwriting the existing version. Quickplace always had a published version + working draft system, it now has a sort of revision history stuffed into it. The two models don’t seem to like each other very much.
Version control in Alfresco is somewhat more thought out, it has a very powerful Advanced Versioning Manager, which can track back not just individual files, but directories, it can show you the state of the whole repository at a particular point in time. Very useful for the multiple linked spreadsheets example. It can do way more than this, it is configurable as
So what does work Bettr in Quickr?
Well Quickr has a truly sickening theme/skin engine. It only works in Internet Explorer with ActiveX and you can upload 6 files (stylesheet + 5 HTML files) which it scoops up along with any referenced images. The HTML files basically duplicate each other, or you can upload just one HTML file and have it guess what the others should look like. There is no community site to share and sell Quickr skins that I know of, unlike Joomla! and WordPress etc. However, rubbish as the theme engine is, it is better than Alfresco which doesn’t yet have a skinning capability (you can edit the stylesheet and all the .jsp files, but that isn’t the same as a facility for uploading a package of skin elements so that places can be individually styled.)
Quickr isn’t just for storing files, it has a nice calendar that can show custom forms on it. I haven’t yet seen a calendar view for Alfresco. The Gantt chart view in Quickr isn’t very sophisticated at all, I wouldn’t miss that, but the calendar is useful.
When uploading files though the web interface from some Microsoft Office applications it does an ActiveX/COM control thing that gets the application to save as HTML as well as the native binary format and it uploads both the HTML version and the native format. It then serves up the HTML version to browser clients, which would be a nice trick. If it worked a bit better. It doesn’t do this trick if using the windows explorer integration, so if you use a mixture of the Quickr connector and the web client you get a great big muddle and a mess.
In conclusion
If I had to do a 15 minute sales demo, on Windows, I could easily make Quickr look fantastic, but when comparing Quickr against Alfresco as a serious tool for long term use in a modern business, Quickr falls short and Alfresco is the one I would choose.
Formal Appeal against OOXML filed by South Africa
Things are really hotting up again… Just when I thought we could get on with our day jobs we have Microsoft doing the biggest U-turn since – well – since the last massive U-Turn, and now we have SABS, the South African Bureau of Standards (The NB to you and me) lodging a formal appeal regarding the proceedings.
I don’t have much time today but here’s a link to the article I picked up from Google Alerts and it contains a scanned PDF of the original letter.
This will, irrespective of the outcome of the appeal process, create a quite lengthy delay to any formal publication of the standard according to the rules I’ve read before. Of course the rules have been broken, and just ignored throughout this whole fiasco so we have to wait and see.
But “Hat’s off to South Africa”.
OOXML gets dumped… By Microsoft!
If true, this is a quite startling turn of events in the OOXML/Office 2007 saga (emphasis mine).
Today, Microsoft announced that it was making new commitments to document interoperability within its Office product line for Windows. Office 2007 Service Pack 2 will add native support for OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.1, PDF 1.5, PDF/A and XML Paper Specification, an XML-based fixed-document format created by Microsoft.
Just read that again… Office 2007 will add native support for ODF (IS26300) the format used by OpenOffice.org, IBM’s Lotus Symphony, Koffice and others…
And more importantly Doug (the ssssnake) goes on to say:
Mahugh stated that Microsoft would not implement the final ISO version of OOXML until Office 14 ships at an unstated date in the future.
So what the **** has gone on here? Anyone got any suggestions?
[Update: 23:00] Having just read Microsoft’s press release, it appears to be true. Blow me down with a small and lightweight feather. One quote that immediately caught my attention is this (again emphasis mine):
“We are committed to providing Office users with greater choice among document formats and enhanced interoperability between those formats and the applications that implement them,” said Chris Capossela, senior vice president for the Microsoft Business Division. “By increasing the openness of our products and participating actively in the development and maintenance of document format standards, we believe we can help create opportunities for developers and competitors, including members of the open source communities, to innovate and deliver new value for customers.”
Blimey. This language is unusually opaque for M$. Since when have they ever wanted to “help create opportunities for competitors”??? I can only guess at what has been going on here but I bet it has something to do with the EU 
WOW. We do really live in interesting times.
Microsoft and Vista’s continued infections: “It’s the user’s fault”
So here we have it. It isn’t Microshaft’s fault that all your PCs keep getting infected with nasty viruses. It’s YOURS.
Some M$ fanboy or paid spokesman called Michael Kleef really does take the biscuit here.
If I, despite all prompting and consent behaviour, choose to go to a (probably dodgy) website, accept the ActiveX control prompts to download (probably dodgy) code and I actually choose to execute that code then I’m hosed. I’m now at the mercy of whatever code I’ve chosen to run – and in many cases its running under your local shell integrity level. The anti-virus vendor is now the last line of defense and you need them to help get the malicious code off the PC.
Now, I’m sure that many of the people who complain of virus attacks will really resent being told they are stupid. And I for one am sure that they aren’t. Naive they maybe but to try and pass the blame for crappy software and a crappy architecture onto them is frankly pretty outrageous. Not only do M$ take your cash, give you rubbish products in return, but now they blame you for their failings too! Why does anyone continue to use their crap? Someone tell me please?
If only people would realise that if you use a decent Operating System, you don’t suffer from these problems. At all.
For pure amusement, I had to copy and share with you a bit more of Mr Kleef’s prose. If he only knew just how hilarious this stuff sounds to a non-windows user…
And its not like the application developer community didn’t know about writing for least privilege. We made it pretty clear over a number of years not to write to protected parts of the OS. Our logo certification reflects this!! UAC is designed to enforce least privilege and for the most part applications do work nicely and behave properly running under UAC without any prompting whatsoever. So far today I’ve run Office, run Camtasia, even Command and Conquer Generals….all without a single prompt.
He He He He He He He – Oh no - I’ve got to stop before I…..
Too late.
Digistan.org
Please welcome a new foundation to aid the cause of freedom and open standards: Digistan.
The Digital Standards Organization (Digistan) seeks to promote customer choice, vendor competition, and overall growth in the global digital economy through the understanding, development, and adoption of free and open digital standards (“open standards”).
I first came across the group via a post on Glyn Moody’s blog the other day which in turn led me to this piece written by a chap who calls himself Dennis Byron (I can only assume that he has no relation to the famous poet). To be frank, he must be either very stupid, or on the payroll of a large software company the world’s largest convicted monopolist. To make the comments he does shows such ignorance that it quite beggars belief…
Let’s start with the opening paragraph shall we? (highlight mine)
Another anti-Microsoft (MSFT) front group has emerged in favour of “free and open standards,” hyping what it calls the Hague Declaration and making some absurd connection to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The propagandists, partially funded by publicly traded companies, have a little trouble describing what that term “free and open standards” means (or even using it consistently), but the group has no trouble indicating its political stripes. Unbelievably it calls itself Digistan, apparently to identify with the fascist terrorists based in countries and regions using the Farsi-based suffix “stan.”
Honestly. Where the f*** did that come from? Stan means “place of” or “land” for pete’s sake. And “Digi”, well I’m sure you can guess. How you get from Digital Standards to Fascist Terrorists is really just too much for my simple mind to comprehend.
All of these front groups percolate around about two dozen individuals, mostly European. The vast left-wing conspiracy of George Soros works around the edges of their mostly web-site-only organizations…
So, let’s see. Dennis now draws what must be one of the world’s largest generalisations by tying all groups who support freedom and Openness to just 24 people and somehow manages to ink in George Soros and Left Wing (Socialist by inference) politics. Blimey, I must say, having read the Digistan Mission and the Hague Declaration I didn’t see any of those conspiratorial links at all! Just for the record I’m a Tory (Conservative, Capitalist) voter and supporter of free and open source software and open standards. I see no conflict there at all. And neither do the Conservative Party who are quite vocal in their support for Open Source software; unlike our current Labour (left wing) government. So how would I fit in with Byron’s analysis I wonder?
I’d also like to educate our very ignorant Mr Byron about Left Wing politics in Europe: there isn’t much of the kind he seems to imagine. Our socialist and left wing governments and opposition parties are, in the main, capitalist by nature and support free market economics: they wouldn’t get in the EU if they didn’t. This is unlike the Government of the USA for example who engage in and condone market distorting activities such as allowing convicted monopolists to go unpunished, or using embargoes and punitive import tariffs to hinder free trade with anyone who doesn’t pay the right homage to Uncle Sam.
And how did George Soros come into this absurd rant? From the Wikipedia we read:
“George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become ‘open societies,’ open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but – more important – tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior.”
Ahhh now I see. Mr Byron clearly feels extremely jealous of George’s speculative skills and also seems to hate anyone who is interested in protecting or advocating freedom and openness. (Who is the terrorist now Mr Byron?)
I love this…
If only these lefties could be time warped back to the last century so that they could ‘fight the right’ in Spain (or sit in the Les Deux Maggot and talk about fighting the right in Spain). Then the rest of us could avoid having our tax dollars wasted and our share values diminished.
I wonder if Mr Byron has ever been to Spain? Do you think he might like to ask some of it’s inhabitants about General Franco and whether they prefer fascist dictatorships to democracy, freedom and membership of the world’s largest free trading community? I like the “Les Deux Maggot” reference but can only guess as to what he really knows about it.
And why has Digistan got anything to do Mr Byron’s Tax Dollars? As for his portfolio, rather than bleating on about his dwindling share value in a tired and very last-millennia software company monopoly that is finally getting some serious competitive pressure from the left-field that is really hard to attack (since it is free), he’d be much better dumping his M$ stock and looking for the “new money”, especially in some of the highly successful and rapidly growing Open Source software companies.
The rest of his rant continues in much the same vein. No research or facts to support his claims and little argument that makes any sense anyway.
But, having said all the above, I must thank you Mr Byron for introducing me to Digistan. I signed the declaration immediately after reading it and will now be contacting Digistan to see how my company can help to support and grow their campaign to fight for freedom and open standards.
If I were you Mr Byron, I think you probably need to retire to the golf course…
Becta refers its interoperability complaint to the European Commission
Oh goody!
Becta are once again proving to be a particularly spiky thorn in the side of Microshaft.
You may recall that they reported the evil empire to our OFT (Office of Fair Trading) back in October last year. We’ll today they have announced the following further development:
Following discussions with the OFT, Becta has now referred its interoperability complaint and related evidence to the European Commission in support of the Commission’s wider investigation. At a recent meeting with the Commission Becta set out its key areas of concern and their impact on the UK education system.
Becta believes that impediments to interoperability limit choice. In the context of the education system this can result in higher prices and a range of other unsatisfactory effects which have a negative impact on wider policy initiatives, including improving educational outcomes, facilitating home school links and addressing the digital divide.
Commenting after the recent meeting with the Commission to discuss Becta’s detailed concerns, Dr Stephen Lucey, Becta’s Executive Director of Strategic Technologies, said:
“It is not just the interests of competitors and the wider marketplace that are damaged when barriers to effective interoperability are created. Such barriers can also damage the interests of education and training organisations, learners, teachers and parents.
I therefore very much welcome the decision by the Commission to conduct a wide ranging investigation.”
Basically they are helping the EU Commission in their investigations of anti-competitive practices and particularly their awful and proprietary OOXML file format. It is so good to hear a respected and influential publicly funded body actually articulating the real problems with proprietary software and especially when it is used to support and extend an existing monopoly position.
And in a rather nicely worded conclusion that would work really well in a thriller movie…
Dr Lucey confirmed that the other aspect of Becta’s complaint, which relates to Microsoft’s School Agreement licensing model, remains under active consideration by the OFT.
This is in relation to the terrible contract Microshaft have managed to tie our schools into where they will be purchasing subscription licenses for software that they could never use… Here’s the original piece.
At least there are some public organisations in the UK which seem to have understood the threat that M$ poses to all of us. Shame that the current Government and our Standards Institute haven’t.
Roll on the next election…
