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IBM about to open source eight Core Templates on OpenNTF

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IBM has planned to contribute on Monday 10/12/09 the following eight templates to OpenNTF under the Apache license 2 (ALv2):

- Mail
- Personal Address Book
- Teamroom
- Domino Blog
- Notebook
- Widget Catalog
- Eclipse Update Site
- Doc Library

These templates are the same versions as in Notes/Domino 8.5.1 with the only differences that they will be available under ALv2 and signed with another id.

The main purpose is to allow the Notes/Domino application development community to extend these templates with value added solutions or to reuse parts of these templates in custom applications. The Apache license defines the legal foundation to allow this.

In addition to this one time contribution IBM is evaluating whether future versions of these templates can be contributed as well to allow the community to update their future solutions based on these templates with future template versions.

The eight templates are the English versions of the templates. Once the internationalized templates will be available, the Notes/Domino community can request open source versions of other languages.

For these eight templates IBM has no concrete plans to take extensions by the community back into the product. Contributions to these eight OpenNTF projects will not be allowed. Instead developers can create their own projects where they extend the templates. However with the new OpenNTF Alliance IP (intellectual property) model based on ALv2, IBM, as well as any other company, has the right to take community contributions back to blend with future releases.

The releases can be downloaded from OpenNTF but defects tracking and support questions on the unchanged templates will not be handled via the OpenNTF project infrastructure. Instead consumers are asked to follow the usual IBM processes (e.g. PMR, IBM support, etc.). Also the Apache license doesn't change IBM's positioning on handling of undocumented APIs (e.g. see Technote 1101582).

These templates are planned to be made available as open source in addition to the discussion template which has already been communicated earlier. In difference to the eight templates above however the goal is to extend the discussion template via the OpenNTF community.

All statements regarding IBM's plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice.

Comments

Gravatar Image1 - The DDM template is another one I'd like to see open-sourced, since it has a fair bit of useful UI bits that I have integrated into SuperNTF.

Another idea would be to open source all image resources used in all IBM templates, since I know those are frequently mined for other applications, including SuperNTF. So if some of the templates as a whole cannot be open sourced easily, at least making all the graphical goodness available.

Gravatar Image2 - Oh, and by the way, AWESOME NEWS! Emoticon

Gravatar Image3 - Great news!! I hereby request a german version of the templatesEmoticon

Gravatar Image4 - So it seems IBM have documented the undocumented @Functions. So does that mean they are now documented @functions?

Gravatar Image5 - Great news for Lotus Foundations customers and partners, too :)

Cheers
Robert Baehr
The Unofficial Poster Child for Lotus Foundations, Lotus Notes, and Domino

Gravatar Image6 - metin2 yang
metin2 yang

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