Man, I don’t miss delivering solutions on top of Documentum. After reading Laurence Hart’s post on Documentum Developer Edition, I’m reminded how much I take for granted working exclusively in the open source content management world.
Laurence’s post was intended to discuss the ins and outs of Documentum’s efforts to make it easier for developers, and, as usual, he’s done a good job of that. But it also underscores the benefits enjoyed by those who work in open source land. In case you don’t know how good you’ve got it, my open source brothers and sisters, check it out:
Developers working with closed source ECM vendors have to pay to get the software
As Laurence points out,
“There are lots of independent consultants out there that have trouble keeping-up with the technology because they can’t afford to become partners for the requisite fee.”
If you are a developer looking to go deep on closed source software, you have no choice but to pay. There’s no other way to get access to the software. Sometimes you can’t even get access to the documentation or the bug database without a paid-up partner account (or a client that lets you use theirs).
[UPDATE: Jerry Silver, from EMC, points out that the Documentum Developer Edition is a free download. My original post made it sound like you had to be part of the partner program to obtain the download.]
With open source, the barrier to entry is much lower. You pay nothing to get the software. It’s all about the time and energy you put into learning the product and implementing cool solutions.
To be fair, commercial open source vendors often charge partner fees as well, but the bottom line is that it costs nothing to get started with the code.
Developers working with closed source ECM vendors struggle with giant developer footprints
I feel sorry for Laurence’s laptop:
“The complete Development install calls for 3GB of RAM (after a 1.7+GB download). That is no small thing for a development laptop. It needs to be on a newer machine. If you can move the database service to a different box, that will make your life easier.”
Oh dear. A 1.7GB download for a developer setup? Am I downloading a VM image or a content management server? Let’s look at Alfresco for a comparison. Assuming you are starting from scratch, and assuming you are going to go full-on with the Alfresco platform, your total download is right around 300MB. That includes:
- Alfresco SDK
- Alfresco WAR
- Alfresco WCM (Deployment listener and add-on to core repo)
- Apache Tomcat
- Sun JDK
- MySQL (Server and connector)
All of which runs comfortably in 2GB of RAM and won’t even cause your fan to kick on in 4GB.
Developers working with closed source ECM vendors have less choice
Optaros consultants are now split fairly evenly in their choice of OS across Windows, Mac OS X, and some flavor of Linux. Some people prefer MySQL and some prefer PostgreSQL. Mostly we use Eclipse for Java development but everyone’s got a preference. I use Tomcat for everything locally while others like JBoss. The point is, developers want to use their tools the way they want to. It’s not a stubbornness thing it’s an efficiency thing.
Within my CMS I want the same flexibility. I want to tweak settings. I want to name my database what I want. I want the flexibility to deploy across as many (or as few) nodes as I need to. From Laurence’s post, it sounds like Documentum clearly falls down here.
Developers working with closed source ECM vendors can’t see the code
It’s obvious, I know. For developers that work with open source it is extremely natural to use the CMS source code when debugging or for reference. You don’t even think about it–it’s just there and you use it. Imagine the frustration of someone who works with closed source CMS who has to routinely decompile classes to figure out what’s going on. That truly sucks. What good is a “Developer Edition” that doesn’t come with source code?
Partner defections from closed source are on the rise
I’ve seen recent announcements from multiple partners who were previously exclusive to closed source vendors but are now adding open source to their partner list. This is a reflection of increasing demand by customers who are realizing the business value of open source, especially in tough economic times as well as partners’ desire to make up for sagging demand in the proprietary world. But could it also be that more firms are realizing how much more productive and pleasant it is to work with open source content management?
Help your employer/client see the light
Open source ECM technologies like Alfresco, Drupal, Liferay, Lucene, and many others, are now at or beyond their closed source equivalents. If you are a developer who’s sick of the shackles closed source CMS places on you, why not suggest exploring open source alternatives?
I was at a recent ECM training session. All attendees were running DCTM via VmWare on their laptops. Nearly everyone had performance problems running the training image. It’s a good job that I didn’t have to open up Eclipse as the laptop would’ve just packed in… Alfresco definitely appeals but how easy would it be to switch from DCTM (not in terms of technology but employment opportunities)?
The openness that makes it easier for *you* to get started also makes it easier for *everyone* to get started, so theoretically, there’s more competition in the job market for people looking for open source ECM jobs.
I think ultimately there will be more available positions around open source ECM than closed source but I have zero data on where we are on that curve.
I am starting to see more and more postings from people looking for “Alfresco” and “Drupal” expertise specifically when in the past they might look for solid Java/Spring/Hibernate (Alfresco) or LAMP (Drupal) skills and then train for the specific platform. So that’s a good sign.
To set the record straight, part of Lawrence Hart’s post is to point out that the Documentum Developer Edition is *free*. You’ve quoted him completely out of context. Developers don’t have to pay to get the software, and there is excellent support provided via the Documentum Developer Community at http://developer.emc.com/documentum.
Your comments on choice also misrepresent the post and the product. It’s unlikely that you’ll find too many systems with the same flexibility and choice that you’ll get in Documentum. To simplify the install, the Developer Edition has a number of preset options; as Lawrence says “Very cool for those Developers that just want Documentum to work and don’t care about the details…I could change many settings behind the scenes if I wanted since I know how, but what would be the point? I just want it to work.”
Jerry,
Thanks for the comment! As I mentioned, I’m not taking anything away from what Laurence said. Anything that makes Documentum developers’ lives easier is great and not everyone can choose to use an open source alternative to Documentum.
The point of my post was that as I read Laurence’s, it conjured up memories of what a headache it could be working with Documentum as a developer, and how much easier it is when working with open source CMS.
I’m glad EMC is making improvements to its developer tools. As Laurence mentioned, it is long past due. But Documentum (and other closed source ECM providers) have a long way to go yet.
Jeff
I was a DCTM Developer before claiming on the alfresco train. I absolutly share your & Laurence opinion.
The only thing i miss in alfresco is dql!
But alfresco is doing their homework!
Of course, for a 100MB package from Day you get:
* WCM
* DAM
* Social Collaboration
* Apache Jackrabbit
* Apache Sling
* Apache Felix
* Apache Pluto
* Apache Shindig
* Apache Lucene
* Apache Tikka
* Apache FOP
… and a complete servlet engine and integrated repo. Double-click install … and run. Nothing to set up, nothing to configure, nothing to install and no hardward if deploy using CURL commands to AWS.
Also runs in 64MB heap space. No kidding.
Kevin
Kevin – How well does Jackrabbit scale? Just wondering as the one criticism that I’ve read is that it doesn’t compare with DCTM re scalability, etc. Apologies if this is untrue but I’ve never been hands on with Jackrabbit.
Regards
For customers looking for massive scalability, there’s a few additional items to consider other than raw performance data of the underlying Jackrabbit repository implementation. Massively scalable sites also require simple high-availability (for fail-over), simple on-demand clustering, including heterogeneous clustering across on-site instances and cloud-hosted instances, and support for elastic storage and asset handling of discrete content items (a SKU, for example) and large binary assets (for example, a raw TIFF with multiple renditions for web-ready assets to be used in an eCommerce site). Also, simple on-demand hot back-up and disaster recovery also come into play for truly scalable deployments (if backups and disaster recovery cannot be simply managed in a scalable deployment, the deployment IMHO isn’t really scalable).
CRX is the enterprise version of Jackrabbit that “adds” simple high-availability, clustering (on-site, cloud-based, or a combo for on-demand peak load handling), optimized large binary handling, simple hot-backup and disaster recovery. It is also thoroughly put through the paces for both performance and scalability – supported billions of content objects handily without degradation in system performance.
At Day, we sell our enterprise-ready version of Jackrabbit (plus Sling, Felix, Lucene, etc.) – CRX. That is the version that we thoroughly test to ensure that it is the highest-performance and most scalable JCR implementation. Of course, CRX’s core is the base Jackrabbit repo implementation (currently 1.4, migrating to the new JSR-283-compliant 1.6+ later in the year).
Hope that helps. And yes, CRX is free for developers and can be downloaded and installed in minutes for you to test all of the above very quickly (I suggest the online screencasts to learn how to use the GUI for things like clustering, back-up, and disaster recovery, or just explore as it’s relatively simple to discover).
Kevin Cochrane
CMO, Day Software
Kevin, where do I get the 100MB package from Day that gives me “Double-click install … and run. Nothing to set up, nothing to configure, nothing to install and no hardward if deploy using CURL commands to AWS”?
The CRX download can be found here:
http://www.day.com/content/day/en/products/crx/download/registration.html
(NOTE: This is only for our ECM platform. This is not for our WCM/DAM/SoCo suite)
Our webcast highlighting Amazon deployment can be found here:
http://www.day.com/content/day/en/registration/discover/library.html
Let us know if any questions!