OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

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Snowmanko
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OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by Snowmanko »

Hi,

I've heard there will be no more Community Editions of OTRS released in future and all versions will be payed.
Can someone confirm this info? Is it true that there will be no now upcomming releases available as Community Edition?

So this means OTRS 6 is last available version for public as opensource and that means OTRS is practically dead? No OTRS 7,8,9 in future?

Thanks.
BR!
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by zzz »

Hey,

The current CEO of the xxx announced that new features will be implemented into the Community Edition around two years after the release of a new major version (source in German).

That'd be Nov 2020. I can't tell you if it will be called OTRS Community Edition 7 or if they'll just add new features as an update and keep the current name.

There's no other public information I am aware of. Where do you have your information from?

- Emin
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Snowmanko
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by Snowmanko »

Hi,
thanks for joining this topic.

I've opened chat at official site otrs.com. See attached conversation. Vitor (person in chat) is sales representative working in xxx I suppose - this is Linkedin info.

This is really confusing and I it concerns me in order to decide if I am going to use OTRS CE for newly spawned/installed Service Desk projects/solutions or not.BTW I am using OTRS for more than 12 years.
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by zzz »

Thanks for sharing the conversation.

He is not only talking about the last public OTRS version but also about discontinuing the Community Edition, which would mean no more (security) updates.

It's hard to tell if he's talking about commercial support for the Community Edition or the general end of open-source OTRS.

Only an official answer can provide clarity.

— Emin
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cordeos
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by cordeos »

OTRS Gmbh has basically killed any open source version of OTRS after Community Version 6. They will not allow outside contributors and will not releasing any open source versions... possibly against the GPL license they 'should' be tied to. The OTOBO helpdesk project looks like it is taking off from where OTRS Gmbh sold out the open source community who helped build the platform. OTOBO seems to have a better, updated interface, is based directly off OTRS Community Edition 6 and you can migrate to and from OTRS and OTOBO.
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by jojo »

First of all please do not crosspost to different language forums and don't hijack other topics.

The xxx (OTRS GmbH changed it's legal form abbout 10 years ago) was and is code owner of OTRS. OTRS since the bbeginning was commercial open source so the majority of the code was written by employees or paid freelancers working for OTRS. Which means that the xxx invested over the years several million of Euros in the development and maintenance of the software.

Free software never meant free in the sense of free beer and you should carefully read the GPL and it's meaning.

There are some forks of OTRS all over the years, some already disapeared (like the italian fork which happened during OTRS 1.x) or have no ongoing maintenance. So perhaps some of the forks will survive, some perhaps not....
"Production": OTRS™ 8, OTRS™ 7, STORM powered by OTRS
"Testing": ((OTRS Community Edition)) and git Master

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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by zzz »

cordeos wrote: 22 Aug 2020, 17:16They will not allow outside contributors and will not releasing any open source versions... possibly against the GPL license they 'should' be tied to.
Hey,

That's just speculation to be honest. The annual report from 2020/06/30 is still talking about a 2-year release plan for the Community Edition.
Even though I share some criticisms, you can't expect a company to release free features without accepting their rules.

— Emin
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by cordeos »

There was no mention by anyone - other than OTRS aligned people - in this thread about FREE. It was not part of the original post or other replies. The comments were in regards to the community editions and contributing... the time-honored process and real strength of 'open source' software. Which OTRS definitely is no longer.

Many other teams, outside OTRS GMBH, have invested 100s even 1000s of hours over the past ten years test, bug fix, report, recommend, post. OTRS GMBH was very happy to absorb this help for a decade, improving the product, securing holes and finding bugs.
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cordeos
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by cordeos »

I dont even know what this means:
First of all please do not crosspost to different language forums and don't hijack other topics.
if you are going to complain about a post - please be specific and clear so someone can at least understand what the rules are so they may be followed.
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grin
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by grin »

…aaaaaaand here we are!

https://portal.otrs.com/external/c/otrs-6-end-of-life
OTRS 6 has reached end of life and there will be no further security updates from JAN 1st, 2021. Previous OTRS versions have reached end of life already. OTRS Group will no longer provide service and support for your implemented OTRS version. Please be aware that your used OTRS version contains several severe security vulnerabilities, which could lead to GDPR related resource claims for you, when used.
While xxx "have promised" that the second oldest version will always be opensourc and free it seems to me that now version6 is killed and version7 is not opened. Right now community version does not exist.

It would be prudent to make an official statement, either that
  • version 7 will be available as open source, or
  • otrs community version is officially no more, good bye and thanks for all the work.
(ps: especially a nice touch is the "we do know that our version is containing severe security vulnerabilities".)
root
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by root »

Hi,

even if there is no official announcement here is another one: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=42228

- root
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by nilskm »

Are Znuny and Otobo related or are they two completely different organizations?

The big question for me is if I should "upgrade" to otobo version or go with Znuny version. But I guess no one really knows the answer to that today?
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by root »

nilskm wrote: 12 Jan 2021, 16:13 Are Znuny and Otobo related or are they two completely different organizations?

The big question for me is if I should "upgrade" to otobo version or go with Znuny version. But I guess no one really knows the answer to that today?
Hello,

They are different organizations. think anybody will provide you an answer. Especially me, I'm biased ;-)

Znuny will provide bug and security fixes to keep your version 6 safe and stable. New features will be available as already know via add-ons from the community, others, and Znuny. Open-source and commercial. An upgrade to version 7 from the xxx may be possible.

Otobo is a fork from version 6 introducing new features. I don't know if an upgrade to version 7 from the xxx may be possible.

- Roy
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by nilskm »

root wrote: 12 Jan 2021, 16:20
nilskm wrote: 12 Jan 2021, 16:13 Are Znuny and Otobo related or are they two completely different organizations?

The big question for me is if I should "upgrade" to otobo version or go with Znuny version. But I guess no one really knows the answer to that today?
Hello,

They are different organizations. think anybody will provide you an answer. Especially me, I'm biased ;-)

Znuny will provide bug and security fixes to keep your version 6 safe and stable. New features will be available as already know via add-ons from the community, others, and Znuny. Open-source and commercial. An upgrade to version 7 from the xxx may be possible.

Otobo is a fork from version 6 introducing new features. I don't know if an upgrade to version 7 from the xxx may be possible.

- Roy
Thank you, that clarifies things for me! I will probably to go with Znuny 6.0.31 when it's released. At least for starters. But we'll see, maybe otobo will the perfect choice in the future.
alexus
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by alexus »

((OTRS)) Community Edition - what next?​
Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace


A long-long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away … … the first sub CreateTicketDB was written.
From an e-mail handler OTRS has evolved into a powerful ITSM solution. For a long time, the system used to be the only free open source solution certified by ITIL.

Due to its features and zero license cost the system won well-deserved popularity all over the world. In 2015, xxx announced the OTRS Business Solution. In fact, it was the same OTRS with a set of commercial add-ons developed by xxx previously. New versions of free OTRS and OTRS Business Solution were released simultaneously.

When xxx renamed OTRS to ((OTRS)) Community Edition in 2018 and OTRS Business Solution became just OTRS, questions and bad sort of feeling had appeared among many people. However, the official statement clearly said — we will transfer all new features to the Community version in a few years. There was even a more certain promise from the CEO of the company Andre Mindermann — in 2 years.
We accepted that with understanding and respect. It was even better for us — our free and commercial Community Edition add-ons would get a longer lifecycle. And we continued our work — we launched a marketplace, developed the world’s only native agent mobile application for ((OTRS)) 6 Community Edition.

Episode 2 — The Empire Strikes Back

In March 2020, xxx announced the release of OTRS 8. That meant that the release of OTRS 7 was ending its cycle. And everyone thought that a public version of the 7 would soon appear. Everything looked logical – the version 7 was already 2 years old, and a new version 8 was released.
However, there was no news about the new Community Edition. But at the end of the “wonderful” 2020, in which it was not easy for everyone, on December 23, xxx publishes a security release — OTRS 6 and ((OTRS)) 6 Community Edition are insecure. And from January 1, 2021 there will not be any security updates anymore, despite promises in official releases and forum posts.

Tam-tam-tam … Tam-tadam … Tam-dadam …

Episode 3 — A New Hope

The time for such a release was the most inappropriate. Most of Europe and the United States went on Christmas break. Many, I’m sure, even missed this message in the mailing lists.

But already in early January 2021, many independent developers reacted to this situation. The reaction was predictable — everyone was outraged. Community Edition users also did not stand aside — people asked questions «what’s next?»

The hope that the free and open version has a future was given by several companies at once. They said they would fix bugs and make security releases, and announced a migration to version 7 Community, if released.

Episode 4 — The Force Awakens

Radiant System has been on the OTRS market for over 10 years. We were one of the first to join the OTRS partner program in 2010, and have been partners for 5 years. Despite all our efforts, we could not agree on mutually beneficial cooperation and decided to go our own way. Within these years we have strictly followed the strategy of our favorite product — OTRS, not in its current commercial sense, but in its original spirit. We have helped a large number of our customers save time and money and improve their business efficiency.

Due to the latest news from xxx regarding the ((OTRS)) Community Edition we would like to declare support for the ((OTRS)) Community Edition. How we see it:
  • • creation of an open fork ((OTRS)) 6 Community Edition — Radiant. Repository — https://github.com/RadiantSystem/radiant
    • compatibility support for Radiant c ((OTRS)) Community Edition versions 6 and 7, if released.
    • support for the Radiant fork for at least 2 years — bug fixes and security update
    • we plan to release of an open version of Radiant 7 in 2021 is in our plan
    • we plan to release of a commercial version of Radiant 7 Service Desk in 2021
    • initiation to create an alliance of developers ((OTRS)) Community Edition for the sustainable development of the product
    • development of the marketplace https://rs4otrs.com
    • release of new free and commercial add-ons for ((OTRS)) 6 Community Edition
Episode 5 — The Last Jedi

We believe the spirit and principles of open source software cannot be a subject of demagogic manipulations. Keeping our promises is the foundation of ethical business.
We share the initiative of all independent developers to support Community Edition and are ready to take an active part in the development and support of our favorite product.

We also offer, as written above, to bring together all developers and create a common strategy for collaboration and support. We understand that for the majority this is business, not charity. But we are sure that the developing community is the key to our success.

May the Force be with us!
Alexey Yusov

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((OTRS)) Community Edition - what next?
alexus
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Re: OTRS 7 / 8 vs Community Edition

Post by alexus »

https://otrs.com/product-and-service-life-cycle/ - the picture looks strange and does not correspond to the statement made
Alexey Yusov

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((OTRS)) Community Edition - what next?
StefanRother
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Official Statement on OTOBO – Rother OSS GmbH

Post by StefanRother »

Dear OTRS Community,

At this point I would like to publish an official statement regarding OTOBO and try to answer some of the questions that are currently being discussed.

My name is Stefan Rother and I was one of the first employees at OTRS GmbH (today’s xxx). I remember Martin Edenhofer and me going to Ikea, buying two chairs, desks and a potted plant, and starting off full of verve in the Start-up Centre in Straubing.

Our focus was always that OTRS should be 100% open source, free of charge and have a strong community behind it. Unfortunately, this was no longer possible when OTRS GmbH changed into xxx for various reasons, even though we (especially Martin) really tried everything back then.

Martin and I left OTRS about the same time to continue supporting and consolidating the free OTRS version with our own companies – Rother OSS and Znuny GmbH.

This was about 10 years ago. In the past few years the future of the free OTRS version became more and more uncertain and the path of xxx increasingly intransparent. That’s why we decided to go our own way at Rother OSS in the end of 2019, and started to develop OTOBO on the basis of ((OTRS)) Community Edition v6. Martin was here to visit us at the time of the decision, and gave us his blessings and also some good advice.

We built a completely new customer interface and incorporated a multitude of so-called business functions into OTRS 6 CE, and OTOBO 10 was released in summer last year. Since then, it has seen a development that was previously unthinkable for me. Feedback and enquiries from all over the world show that we have done something right.

In the following, I will try to answer the most important questions:

1. Will there still be security updates for OTOBO and is there any dependency on OTRS?
Of course, updates are published by our security team as needed. There is no longer any dependency on OTRS 6 CE, we will go our own way of further development in the future.
If we find bugs or security gaps in OTOBO that also affect OTRS CE, we will report them to Znuny for their LTS Fork, or provide patches if desired.

2.) What is the philosophy behind OTOBO?
With OTOBO, we went back to a 100% free open source ticket system. OTOBO is and will remain open source and 100% free of charge. We are happy about any cooperation from the OTOBO community. We want to collaborate again and make OTOBO great together.

3.) Why did we build OTOBO as an independent fork and didn’t go for extension packages like Znuny does?
We thought about this for a long time, but we couldn't and didn't want to accept the technical and organisational restrictions any longer. The OTOBO customer interface alone has changed a lot, down to the basic structures. Furthermore, we developed a Docker container that uses a high-performance Perl web browser (Gazelle) as a basis and only uses Nginx, Apache2 or Traefik as a web proxy. To maintain this further development with OPM packages would simply not be possible.
Performance has been greatly improved by these changes, however, and we are free to continue using new technologies in the future.

4.) Is there a possibility to contribute to OTOBO?
A clear YES – we are very happy to hear from you. We take all issues reported seriously and process your pull requests as quickly as possible, that’s promised. Translations are already being added from all over the world at https://translate.otobo.org. There will be Community Events and we will have fun together and create something great. In our forum, we help where we can. All custom developments that make sense for the OTOBO standard will be included in the standard.

5.) Is there any possibility of an OTOBO partnership?
Yes. We are receiving partner requests from all over the world and will support any partnership that makes sense for OTOBO. The partner concept is nearly finished and will be published very soon. Please get in touch if you want to get notified.

6.) Is it possible to migrate from OTRS to OTOBO?
Yes, a migration from OTRS, OTRS Business Edition, OTRS KIX, ((OTRS)) Community Edition v6 is possible without any problems.

I hope I have managed to answer your most important questions.

In my eyes, there are currently two "right" ways to proceed – one is to use the Znuny LTE Fork, the other to migrate to OTOBO. In both cases, the focus is on open source, with open sources on Github and good cooperation for a better future.

It was hard for me to let go of OTRS, but the way xxx deals with their customers, the formerly strong community and their partners helped a lot. OTRS and everything we associated with OTRS a long time ago will live on in OTOBO, I promise.

Best regards from Leiblfing, stay healthy,

Stefan Rother
Team OTOBO
https://otobo.de/
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