- Veronika Mazour
- September 12, 2022
eXo Platform community edition is back with eXo Platform CE 6.3
Content
What is included?
The community version is generally based on the enterprise version and includes most of the same features, allong our four major functional pillars – use cases : communication, collaboration, knowledge and productivity. It is a comprehensive digital workplace.
A LOT is new compared to the previous community version (eXo Platform 5.3) – new design, new features, modernized framework. Since releasing our 6th version, which was the first to provide a comprehensive comprehensive digital workplace, we pursued our efforts in that direction. The new version provides a superior user experience and a great functional cover that you can discover on our website.
Where to get it
Licensing option
As previously eXo Platform CE 6.3 is distributed through a AGPL license, that you can consult HERE. In a nutshell, you can package eXo in any product for your own use or bundle and distribute in in other open-source product under AGPL license.
eXo Platform EE (enterprise edition) vs eXo Platform CE (community edition)
The feature cover is mostly the same with the following exceptions.
First, the community version does not include any connectors to third party commercial software (Microsoft, Google etc).
Second the community version does not package free third party software. However, the connectors are part of the edition and you can install and package the software by your own means.
Indeed, eXo offers deep integrations to several tools for a seamless user experience. The most used are co-editing and videoconferencing.
eXo provides online editing feature thanks to the OnlyOffice software. Our enteprise version packages and distributes OnlyOffice in its commercial edition, which naturally cannot be part of our community version. However, a community open-source version of OnlyOffice exists and the connector works for both, so that you can package it and obtain a great user experience on your open-source free package.
In the same way, you will need to package the Jitsi software to enable videoconferencing capabilities if you need them.
Third, the community version does not include any of our advanced application security features – antivirus connectors, multifactor authentication, data leak prevention etc.
On the services level, eXo Platform CE does not get our provessional level support, maintenance or on-demand services. With occasional excpetions, we do not release maintenance versions for the CE edition.
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What about Meeds?
Meeds is an independant open source project and eXo Platform (both EE and CE editions) are based on Meeds at their core.
Originally, we planned to contribute to Meeds and promote Meeds as the replacement for our community version. Indeed, we did not issue a community version since our 5.3 version and the Meeds launch.
However and following market trends, the Meeds project increasingly focuses on employee recognition and engagement rather than the digital workplace use case. At the same time, requests for an open-source digital workplace are stronger than ever. In that context, we decided that it was important to adress that demand.
Therefore, we a free open-source digital workplace solution with our eXo Platform CE 6.3 and will continue to do so in the future. The Meeds project continues and we (eXo) continue to contribute to it and use it as our core.
What about free grants ?
With eXo Platform CE 6.3 general availability, there appears to be no further need for free grants. If you are a holder of such a grant on a previous version, the grant remains valid. If you want to upgrade, we encourage you to upgrade using the CE version.
What’s next?
The community version is here to stay. Exceptionnaly we will be releasing a maintenance version in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned. The next version after that would be available following 6.4 releases next year.
I hope to have covered all the possible questions. If not, feel free to leave a comment and I will answer directly.
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- Tags: eXo, Digital workplace, Open source, Collaboration
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