From a developers perspective, whats the long term strategy? Is it to piggy back on the community for modules, and put a scaled down version as the “ce” then keep all the good stuff in the for sale version? If so, whats different from sugar?
There is not and will not be any paid for versions of SuiteCRM,
The initial version is taking the latest version of Sugar CE and the Best Open Source modules available
The long term plan is to build on this to make the Best Open Source CRM
So different from sugar!
I think your asking what’s in it for us?
Our business (Sales Agility) is based on carrying out bespoke customisations to SugarCRM CE for clients, if Sugar drops CE then we wont need to worry. Also there is paid support contracts available for SuiteCRM should you need it.
Great. As long as there is only one product, available to all, im ok. I totally understand the whole concept of paid integration, paid support, etc. i just find it unfair for organizations to have a community version of software, which then they use to pick good stuff from and incorporate into their pro, paid for versions, whose license model is closed…
Im in.
Frm +254 with love. 
will SuiteCRM be like a Centos and Redhat?
- Packages for Sugarcrm will work for SuiteCRM ?
- Will security updates from SugarCRM CE work for SuiteCRM
thanks B)
Hi mrbarletta,
This is correct, for now. The fork is in early stages so currently most modules compatible with SugarCRM CE should be compatible with SuiteCRM.
Thanks,
Will.
I’m sure this has been answered, I’m new to the SugarCRM/SuiteCRM market:
How was Sugar able to take SugarCRM closed-source? Doing some quick googling, it was GPLv3 then AGPL.
The long term strategy is to continue to release all code under GPL3.
There may be various versions to suit various uses. So, there may be a SalesSuite, a MarketingSuite - each of which contain the modules required to support the function.
BUT, in each version, all the code will be GPL3.
There may even be a time when we charge for various components - but all project code will be released under GPL3.
It’s open source, not trojan horse.
They OWN the software before is released under any license.
The copy of the software they release is under GPL/AGPL but before they release it as such its copyrighted material. Thats why every time you contribute to any open source software project managed by a private company they make you sign some copyright paper.
I read once that there was an offer to make the kernel closed source … of course was an insane proposition but doable, go to every contributor and make them sign they give away the code they did under another license.
SugarCRM code in SuiteCRM will always be under this license, thats how copyleft was designed.
Thankfully Sales Agility is very community concious
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SugarCRM did not “take” anything closed source. Much of their code was always closed source and published under proprietary licences. They have simple stopped investing in the open source code and are focused on a business as usual proprietary software course.
That’s their right. We happen to think that they’re wrong and that the future is open source and not proprietary. Time will tell who is correct.
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First: they want a lot of people to start using their SuiteCRM,
Second: they will make a very small bug and you will never know the solution,
Last: you will go and buy their support for crazy money to solve the problem for your company
And always remember: THE FREE ONE IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE
You are clearly either a very stupid person or have an agenda.
If there is a bug it is visible to everyone and any of the developers that hang out here can resolve it.
Please go and be stupid somewhere else.
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Thank you for your gentle response, I know that its always hard to hear the truth.
Calling people stupids only comes from professional people, that I am sure you are one of these.
Fadi, I’m going to assume you’re not trolling - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet) If you are trolling, please leave and I’d encourage the staff to ban you.
I assume you have no experience with open-source software. If a bug is introduced, anyone can compare the 2 versions and find the bug instantly. Anyone can also correct the bug with any involvement from anyone else. That is so much better than commercial software. If Microsoft would introduce a bug into Windows, would you know?
I don’t see where Sugar CE users have any choice but to move to Suite (assuming they want to stay on the Sugar platform.) If Sugar takes CE to end-of-life (EOL) next year that would mean there would be no security updates, right? Well who wants to take that risk? All the added modules of Suite are nice, but we’re here because we think SalesAgility can keep the system secure.
I expect that Suite will peel off a huge number of Sugar CE users when CE hits EOL… unless Sugar sells a seat license for something really low… like $10 USD a year per user to small biz (5 or less users) for the Sugar 7.x system. I doubt Sugar will price it that low.
I think Sugar wants to be an ‘enterprise’ product and will be very happy if all of their small-biz users whom they make no money off of come over to Suite.
The big question is who will Suite make money? Will they want to dedicate staff and time to fixing bugs and answering questions, etc. I guess the answer lies in how much in the way of resources did Sugar dedicate to CE vs. their other paid products?
How will Suite make money?
SalesAgility has prospered for the last 5 years by being an open source services company. We will continue to be so. We’re successful, profitable and damn good at building solutions for our customers. The revenues from these projects pays the salaries of the full-time development team and is re-invested into building new SuiteCRM functionality.
As far as development and support in the future is concerned: Increasingly we expect to share the load of development and support with the community and are developing a number of strategies to help us execute on that.
The major challenge for us and the SugarCRM/SuiteCRM community for the next 12 months is to re-build confidence in a community that has been badly bruised by SugarCRM. We intend to do that by continuing to deliver excellent support, to continue to add to SugarCRM functionality, to continue to release everything as open source and to earn a reputation of being great and trusted stewards of the project.
If we do all of that, then we can truly build the greatest software. Galvanised open source communities are the future of software development and we intend for SuiteCRM to be a central part of that future and the SuiteCRM community to be the most important component of it.
That was a good explanation.
We’re ‘all in’ with SuiteCRM and will be running it in parallel with Sugar CE for the next week or so to see what jumps out and bites us on the backside.
If it works as well as it has so far (after one day of use!) two weeks from now, we’ll cut the Sugar cord and blog about Suite to our followers (we’re known in the book publishing business.)
I think that if you find a way to offer some kind of secure hosting that it would be a popular option for many small biz operators… so long as you can keep the cost down to something like $10 a month or less… maybe sell adv. space on a $5 a month platform… sort of what freecrm.com does.
What convinced me to abandon Sugar (besides the fact that I have no choice!) is that you (or someone who looks like you!) has been so helpful (to us!) on the CE forums over the past six years we’ve been on the Sugar platform.
I don’t know if you folks can pull this off biz-wise, but tech-wise you seem to really know the internals of Sugar.
Others have tried the “Cathedral and the Bazaar” model and have failed, but perhaps you are in a better position because you can inherit many thousands of users who already like the product and want to continue with it.
I think that if you make a sustained pitch for donations and willing to accept $20 a year from each user, that you can at least come close to supporting at least one full-time staff person to coordinate community efforts to enhance the product. The NeoOffice people do something like that and have been around for years and years.
Thanks again for the excellent answer. We’re all on your side.
I think I’ll go and be stupid somewhere else as well.
Good luck on your project.
We all know that SugarCRM is a mish-mash of code added to over the years by the community often in an less than structured manner.
Are there any plans being discussed by SalesAgility to either re-architect the CRM or maybe just re-write it so that it is more maintainable?
One of the drawback of a fork is that you get some really old code. But one of the advantages is that the code is well-vetted. So it’s a trade-off.
I’m comparing SuiteCRM to the X2 Engine which I understand to be all new code… some of it is very slick, but some of it is very buggy.
What is SA’s thinking on all of this?
I would also like to know in regards to ‘long-term’ support and choice of platform, are there any legal issues that remain to be resolved in regards to this fork of CE?
i.e. could Sugar pull the plug on this project legally??
thanks