User:Richard Thiemann/Project-open

The correct title of this article should read as "]project-open[". The current title has been applied due to technical constraints.

]project-open[ is a free software program intended for use by businesses that operate mostly according to  project management or service management principles and require extensive internal/external employee collaboration. The majority of the source-code is released under the GPL License.

OverView
]project-open[ is an example of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software used principally by commercial business needing to coordinate work on projects. Another large aspect of ]project-open[ is customer relationship management (CRM)). The combination of these two services makes the software especially useful for service providing companies as opposed to firms more concerned with inventory or material management of goods or raw resources, who tend to use SAP_AG style software solutions.  ]project-open[ is targeted towards small and mid-size service providers and project-oriented departments of large enterprises involved in IT, Consulting, R&D, and Marketing.

History
Following the Dot Com Crash of the early 2000's which led to the subsequent loss of his job, German-born computer programmer Frank Bergmann began work on the core intranet system of ]project-open[. His decision to pursue an ERP style software solution was largely motivated by witnessing the administration problems his then wife was experiencing while working for a translation agency. His work relied heavily on the OpenACS community system to develop ]project-open[, a trend that has continued today as ]project-open[ is still developed on the OpenACS platform. The first stable release of ]project-open[ was V2.0 on March 2004.

Licensing
]project-open[ is not licensed as whole, rather, the license may differ according to the component. While ]project-open[ is open-source, several add-on functional software packages are sold under a commercial license, that still allows the end-user to modify and extend the code. All redistribution of the code however is strictly limited only to parties that have first agreed to become "partners" of ]project-open[. Partner status entails a contract signing which sets guidelines and agreements on the commercial exploitation of the software. Besides the commercial license, code is also released under the |project-open free license. All other code (the vast majority) is released under the GPL License.