Apache Open For Business (OFBiz) Release Branch 9.4

Target Date: Tuesday April 14th, 2009

Final PRC Text

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Sally Khudairi
+1 617 921 8656
sk@apache.org

THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES NEW VERSION OF LEADING SOFTWARE FRAMEWORK FOR ECOMMERCE, ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING, AND CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS

Forest Hill, Maryland – 20 April 2009 – The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) – developers, stewards, and incubators of leading community-driven Open Source projects – announced the newest release of Apache Open For Business (OFBiz), a leading non-commercial enterprise software framework.

Overseen by a Project Management Committee (PMC) that is responsible for all code released under the Apache OFBiz name, OFBiz Release Branch 9.4 marks the first major release in nearly two years. OFBiz comprises mature eCommerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, and Customer Relationship Management functionality with a general enterprise software framework and a set of base and special purpose applications.

Today, OFBiz is one of the top enterprise software packages in the world, with hundreds of experienced service providers and thousands of live production instances.

"As an ASF Project, no single company owns and markets the software exclusively," explained David E. Jones, original OFBiz co-creator and Chair of the OFBiz PMC. "Its meritocratic, community-driven nature results in software that is designed to be flexible and applicable to a broad range of real-world business needs, while at the same time freeing users from licensing fees and lock-in from both vendors and service providers."

Many of the Project's code contributors develop custom OFBiz solutions professionally; a key benefit to its users is that the software can be easily adapted to the needs of any organization and includes functionality applicable to real-world business. By employing well-established Open Source technologies and standards such as Java™, J2EE™, XML, and SOAP, OFBiz applications can be used as-is, although they were designed to be customized to suit the needs of each end-user organization. As such, in addition to being supported and maintained by its PMC, the OFBiz community continues to grow its number of individual committers, as well as breadth of organizations using the software.

Enterprise-grade Enhancements
New functionality includes highly configurable enterprise-grade accounting; project management, human resources, and sales force automation applications; enhanced asset management and maintenance; eCommerce enhancements to meet the demands of today's online retail environments; visual theme and configurable portal support; a Web-based point-of-sale application; business intelligence tools, and various new reports. The release also features major improvements in overall production stability, quality, and security, including protection from vulnerabilities common to Web-based software; enhancements to marketing and content management functionality; as well as support for eBay and Google Checkout™ payment and billing service.

Revised Versioning
Traditionally the Project released updates every 1-2 years using the sequence-based software versioning scheme (the previous branch version was 4.0); however the Project now employs a time-based version system based on the date of release, similar to the Ubuntu Linux version numbers. As such, the latest version is known as "release9.04" because it has branched from the main code base (the "trunk") in April 2009.

Additional resources for those getting started with OFBiz as well as those seeking to become more deeply involved are now available at the Project's newly-redesigned Web site at http://ofbiz.apache.org

About The Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
Established in 1999, the all-volunteer Foundation oversees more than sixty-five leading Open Source projects, including Apache HTTP Server – the world's most popular Web server software. Through The ASF's meritocratic process known as "The Apache Way", nearly 300 individual Members and 2,000 Committers successfully collaborate to develop freely available enterprise-grade software, benefiting millions of users worldwide: thousands of software solutions are distributed under the Apache License; and the community actively participates in ASF mailing lists, mentoring initiatives, and ApacheCon, the Foundation's official user conference, trainings, and expo. The ASF is funded by individual donations and corporate sponsors including Google, HP, Microsoft, Progress Software, SpringSource, and Yahoo! For more information, visit http://www.apache.org/

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© 2009 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved. Apache, the ASF logo, Apache OFBiz, are trademarks of The Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. Java and J2EE are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Google Checkout is a trademark owned by Google Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Original Press Release Text

Apache Open For Business (OFBiz) Releases New Version

The Apache Open For Business Project, commonly known as OFBiz, has created a new long term support release branch.

Apache OFBiz provides mature eCommerce, ERP, and CRM functionality with a general enterprise software framework and a set of base and special purpose (process- or role-oriented) applications. While the applications can be used as-is, they are meant to be customized to suit the needs of each end-user organization.

New functionality since the last release branch includes: highly configurable enterprise-grade accounting (with auto-posting, multi-organization, multi-currency), new project management and human resources and sales force automation applications, enhanced asset management and maintenance, lots of new ecommerce functionality to better support modern online retail, visual theme and configurable screen (portal) support, a web-based POS application to complement the POS desktop application, and business intelligence tools and various new reports. There are also significant enhancements to marketing and content management functionality, and support for eBay and Google product listing and checkout.

In addition to improvements in these areas there have been significant improvements in production stability, quality, and security (including protection from XSS, XSRF, and other vulnerabilities common to web-based software). A new web site and more accessible project resources have been created to help people get started, or more deeply involved, with OFBiz.

Apache Open For Business is one of the top enterprise software packages in the world, with hundreds of experienced service providers and thousands of live production instances. As a non-commercial, community-driven open source project, no single company owns and markets the software exclusively. The community-driven nature of the project result in software that is designed to be flexible and apply to a broad range of real-world business needs, while at the same time freeing users from licensing fees and lock-in from both vendors and service providers.

This release branch and others like it are meant to be long-term stable versions of OFBiz that are supported and maintained by a sub-community of the project and are released every 1-2 years. Because these release branches are time-based the version numbering will now be based on dates, much like the Ubuntu Linux version numbers. This branch will be known as "release9.04" because we are branching from the main code base (the "trunk") in April 2009.

For more information about Apache OFBiz see the web site at http://ofbiz.apache.org. Please direct press inquiries to the Apache Software Foundation PRC at: prc@apache.org.

Brainstorming

• Short description of release plan and where the branch fits in
• Information about previous release branch (release4.0) and branch version numbering pattern change (ie why go from 4.0 to 9.4?)
• Overview of scope and included functionality in OFBiz (super-high level)
• Selection of new features since the last release branch
  • Can select from things on Main New Features
  • Improved/expanded framework tools (plus selected details)
  • Security related info
  • New business level features
• Apache OFBiz "non-commercial" model and how it fits in the commercial world