Effective immediately, contribs.org and the development and support of the SME Server will be handled by Lycoris. There will be a Lycoris commercial release available within a very short period of time. Elsewhere, Red Hat plans to release the Netscape Enterprise Suite as open-source software in a bid to expand beyond its core product.
Lycoris takes over contribs.org; Red Hat on AOL’s Server
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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how long do you honestly believe that lycoris will provide any kind of viable support to the free version of sme server?? take a long look at their track record, of promises made only to be broken, of very poor communication with the community, and think to yourself whether this move is really in the best interest of sme server (i get the feeling they didn’t have much choice…..)
Yeah, looks like that’s it for SME server.
What self respecting Linux user would trust a company that makes an evaluation version of Linux and doesn’t include basic software to compile code on Linux.
They do, but they call it “deluxe” version. What a joke.
I didn’t like SME server anyway, tried it for a while but it just felt kind of strange.
I don’t think it will be free for long. Lycoris does not offer free products, and are not obligated to. I’m sure they had to pay for sme server, and developement will cost money. I see nothing wrong for charging money for a quality product, even if it’s based on free software. What I do see wrong is the company policies changing on the fly, lying to users about release dates, locking, editing and deleting forum threats because they don’t like the truth to be said about their policies/actions. Another thing I find strange is that they tie your hardware info into the registration process for IRIS, similar to what MS does and have a per seat licenses. What about emailing users about statues on their orders that some have made as far back as June, yes June…their answer, “It will not happen”. That’s just plain wrong IMHO. They have good products, but questionable tactics. I think being more open to their users/customers would go a long way of making this company great.
I have been using SME Server for 6 years, ever since it was called E-Smith. If they start charging for it, I’ll use something else.
According to Lycoris, they will be keeping the unsupported community version of SME. As for their policies, that’s up in the air. We’ll have to see what comes of this.
E-Smith tried keeping that before they were chomped up by Mitel Systems.
I am hoping that they don’t take any of the exsisting features and make them paid. (Being that the agreement for Contribs.org to handle SME was for them to keep a free version)
If Lycoris adds new features or if they migrate everything to Redhat Enterprise Server (It’s based on Red Hat 7 now) then I would pay for it (If it’s not too high and the features are nice)
I have been watching this development, and it looks like a good thing. Not much development on the distro has been done (see NewsForge for more) as of late. It looks like the distro got stalled, and Lycoris is going to rescue it. Commercial money backing up the community sounds like a good plan to me.