I was also curious as to whether there was a schedule for the 4.0 OSS release -- also as to whether there was a public CVS/SVN (or other) code repository somewhere -- the SF.net one doesn't seem to have been updated in over 13 months...
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We are waiting for 4.0 OSS release as well. We were going to install 3.5 OSS but I believe it has limited video chat. Only 1 per meeting. In 4.0 Editions it has teleconferencing and 2-way video chat plus more mics per meeting. this is what we are waiting for.
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Apparetnly Open Source DIMDIM is just for "hobbyists" and is not scalable i.e. is not the real product - it is crippleware.
THis project should be REMOVED from sourceforge.
Here is a message received today:
The Dimdim community supports the Open Source Edition while Dimdim Inc supports the Enterprise Edition. I would suggest that the hardware configuration given below should be ok for the Open Source pack to be installed:
ES-50: ( Supports 50 Simultaneous Users )
Core Duo 32 bit Processors (e.g. AMD Opteron Quad-Core Model 2354)
4 GB DDR-2 RAM
1x copper 1 Gbits NICs
1x 80 GB Hard Drives
Dimdim does require a dedicated machine.
The Enterprise Edition is a truly scalable and reliable piece of software while the open source version is typically meant for hobbyists and for trying out the software and not so much for professional enterprise usage. It is not expected to scale well beyond a couple of simultaneous users while the Enterprise Edition can support thousands of simultaneous users.
..... some deletions here.....
Regards,
Sundar Subramanian
Co-Founder and Director of Business Development
sundar@dimdim.com
Tel: +1 617 297 2350
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Dimdim Open Source Version 3.5 "Eagle" does have most of the same features, including video chat, with none of the limitations of prior releases. But since we also have a free hosted version that gets used by thousands of people every day we can get immediate feedback and make improvements as we go. Simply put, we're making daily improvements to the hosted code and that way we can release the improved source code and the VMWare appliance with all these fixes. We have tried to do this coincident with the hosted version and that resulted in a poorer open source product. It typically takes us 6-12 weeks to iron out the bugs and release the source code. We recently decided to jump directly to 4.5, as we've add some significant new features and we WILL release the latest source code coincident with Dimdim 4.5 when we launch that product in the next 5 weeks and come out of beta permanently. After that time we will try to drop open source releases preceding the commercial releases so the community can help us with bug fixes, feature enhancements, plug-ins and extensions that can be made freely available to all.
Bear in mind that Dimdim's Community Edition uses certain components that utilize freely distributable code bases, such as Red 5. Dimdim Enterprise uses certain commercial components like Flash Media Server which cannot be distributed. So while there are component level differences, there are currently no feature-level differences - but that may have to change. For instance, the Dimdim portal includes scheduling, recording playback, and email integration components that may not be part of the open source releases in the future but our open API encourages users of the community edition to build themselves. We encourage the creation of embeddable meeting start/join widgets, for instance, which will make the process of registering, attending, and communicating a web meeting trivial and more fun. Finally, Dimdim's SaaS hosted services provide for enterprise-class reliability and scalability that would need to be matched by users of the open source versions. It can be done of course, but not by "hobbyists", and would require a data center similar to the one we've built which has now served nearly 7 million minutes of live meetings.
One thing I hope clarifies our stance on Open Source: we have been working hard to listen to and improve our understanding of the needs of the community. We've eliminated feature differences, improved the install process and even created a single VMWare appliance to ease installation. I wrote about this back in May: http://dimdim.typepad.com/dimdim_blo...ource-use.html We'll continue to listen and hope for your patience as we innovate quickly and try to balance the needs of all our customers. We're even hiring a full time community manager to help us with the open source user needs. Anyone out there interested?
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I suspect there's a misunderstanding in terms of how many of us in the open-source community expect to be able to engage and participate in open-source development.
If I mention that it is disappointing that more current source isn't available, it's not a request or demand for a fully polished 4.0 release. I think most developers are savvy enough to understand that building from tip/trunk of any project is an inherently risky proposition.
What I *would* expect from an open-source project however is the ability to see, check out, try to build, and test the source as it evolves towards a stable release. So many of us are likely frustrated at not being able to assist in the testing, debugging, and validation of any release. Broad brush (and insulting) statements like:
> It can be done of course, but not by "hobbyists",
demean both your community members (who quite frankly are potential customers/partners) and display a tragic misunderstanding of the level of software engineering available in the open-source community.
What I'd propose from a company that wants to both build a rapport with open-source contributors, and distinguish yourself from your competitors is:
* open development -- if the codes unstable/unfinished, that's par for the course. Tags or releases are the preferred way of communicating that though, not "we're holding the source until it's done"
* engagement -- working for a group that builds integrations focused on Higher-Education (a potentially large market for your company) I'm much more interested, and able to justify from a business perspective in engaging with a project that allows for participation
* timeliness -- most open-source companies (RedHat, MySQL to name a couple) do the exact opposite of your current proclamation, the community supporting the cutting edge releases, with the hosted/enterprise products being the more stable/verified releases
* communication -- where are the forums? mailing lists? wikis? blogs? If you're an open-source company, where's the open source community?
Jason
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I've been trying to contact anyone working on open source version of DimDim and haven't got a reply yet. Is this open source project still alive and kicking? Anyone out there?
Please send me an email!
Chris
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It's coming. We'll announce the full source-code drop in the next 3 weeks. We're jumping over 3.5 and 4.0 releases and providing the source code coincident with our new 4.5 launch. Stay tuned, I think you'll be delighted.
Steve
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What did you think of jayshao's email above? If you tell me any concerns with being more open in your development model I can try to address them as best I can.
I don't think the open source community expects perfectly polished source code bricks every few months from the DimDim cathedral. Rather, we'd like to help DimDim create these releases in the first place!
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at the TU München (Technical University of Munich) we have a research group for computer-supported education and eLearning.
We would like to use your new version of DimDim 4.x for our seminars and help you to enhance the tool with our students of informatics.
Do you think you will be able to publish your new source code before the end of the year?
Thank you in advance.
Matthias
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looks quite good, thank you very much!
In the moment we do an evaluation of DimDim 4.5 with our students to get a list of experiences and ideas for further improvement.
If we find students to do programming work, we can stay in contact and we could help you to continue improving DimDim.
Matthias
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Did company strategy changed? Or other reasons?
thanks
pigsign
I was also curious as to whether there was a schedule for the 4.0 OSS release -- also as to whether there was a public CVS/SVN (or other) code repository somewhere -- the SF.net one doesn't seem to have been updated in over 13 months...
We are waiting for 4.0 OSS release as well. We were going to install 3.5 OSS but I believe it has limited video chat. Only 1 per meeting. In 4.0 Editions it has teleconferencing and 2-way video chat plus more mics per meeting. this is what we are waiting for.
Apparetnly Open Source DIMDIM is just for "hobbyists" and is not scalable i.e. is not the real product - it is crippleware.
THis project should be REMOVED from sourceforge.
Here is a message received today:
The Dimdim community supports the Open Source Edition while Dimdim Inc supports the Enterprise Edition. I would suggest that the hardware configuration given below should be ok for the Open Source pack to be installed:
ES-50: ( Supports 50 Simultaneous Users )
Core Duo 32 bit Processors (e.g. AMD Opteron Quad-Core Model 2354)
4 GB DDR-2 RAM
1x copper 1 Gbits NICs
1x 80 GB Hard Drives
Dimdim does require a dedicated machine.
The Enterprise Edition is a truly scalable and reliable piece of software while the open source version is typically meant for hobbyists and for trying out the software and not so much for professional enterprise usage. It is not expected to scale well beyond a couple of simultaneous users while the Enterprise Edition can support thousands of simultaneous users.
..... some deletions here.....
Regards,
Sundar Subramanian
Co-Founder and Director of Business Development
sundar@dimdim.com
Tel: +1 617 297 2350
Dimdim Open Source Version 3.5 "Eagle" does have most of the same features, including video chat, with none of the limitations of prior releases. But since we also have a free hosted version that gets used by thousands of people every day we can get immediate feedback and make improvements as we go. Simply put, we're making daily improvements to the hosted code and that way we can release the improved source code and the VMWare appliance with all these fixes. We have tried to do this coincident with the hosted version and that resulted in a poorer open source product. It typically takes us 6-12 weeks to iron out the bugs and release the source code. We recently decided to jump directly to 4.5, as we've add some significant new features and we WILL release the latest source code coincident with Dimdim 4.5 when we launch that product in the next 5 weeks and come out of beta permanently. After that time we will try to drop open source releases preceding the commercial releases so the community can help us with bug fixes, feature enhancements, plug-ins and extensions that can be made freely available to all.
Bear in mind that Dimdim's Community Edition uses certain components that utilize freely distributable code bases, such as Red 5. Dimdim Enterprise uses certain commercial components like Flash Media Server which cannot be distributed. So while there are component level differences, there are currently no feature-level differences - but that may have to change. For instance, the Dimdim portal includes scheduling, recording playback, and email integration components that may not be part of the open source releases in the future but our open API encourages users of the community edition to build themselves. We encourage the creation of embeddable meeting start/join widgets, for instance, which will make the process of registering, attending, and communicating a web meeting trivial and more fun. Finally, Dimdim's SaaS hosted services provide for enterprise-class reliability and scalability that would need to be matched by users of the open source versions. It can be done of course, but not by "hobbyists", and would require a data center similar to the one we've built which has now served nearly 7 million minutes of live meetings.
One thing I hope clarifies our stance on Open Source: we have been working hard to listen to and improve our understanding of the needs of the community. We've eliminated feature differences, improved the install process and even created a single VMWare appliance to ease installation. I wrote about this back in May: http://dimdim.typepad.com/dimdim_blo...ource-use.html We'll continue to listen and hope for your patience as we innovate quickly and try to balance the needs of all our customers. We're even hiring a full time community manager to help us with the open source user needs. Anyone out there interested?
Steve,
I suspect there's a misunderstanding in terms of how many of us in the open-source community expect to be able to engage and participate in open-source development.
If I mention that it is disappointing that more current source isn't available, it's not a request or demand for a fully polished 4.0 release. I think most developers are savvy enough to understand that building from tip/trunk of any project is an inherently risky proposition.
What I *would* expect from an open-source project however is the ability to see, check out, try to build, and test the source as it evolves towards a stable release. So many of us are likely frustrated at not being able to assist in the testing, debugging, and validation of any release. Broad brush (and insulting) statements like:
> It can be done of course, but not by "hobbyists",
demean both your community members (who quite frankly are potential customers/partners) and display a tragic misunderstanding of the level of software engineering available in the open-source community.
What I'd propose from a company that wants to both build a rapport with open-source contributors, and distinguish yourself from your competitors is:
* open development -- if the codes unstable/unfinished, that's par for the course. Tags or releases are the preferred way of communicating that though, not "we're holding the source until it's done"
* engagement -- working for a group that builds integrations focused on Higher-Education (a potentially large market for your company) I'm much more interested, and able to justify from a business perspective in engaging with a project that allows for participation
* timeliness -- most open-source companies (RedHat, MySQL to name a couple) do the exact opposite of your current proclamation, the community supporting the cutting edge releases, with the hosted/enterprise products being the more stable/verified releases
* communication -- where are the forums? mailing lists? wikis? blogs? If you're an open-source company, where's the open source community?
Jason
I've been trying to contact anyone working on open source version of DimDim and haven't got a reply yet. Is this open source project still alive and kicking? Anyone out there?
Please send me an email!
Chris
Chris,
It's coming. We'll announce the full source-code drop in the next 3 weeks. We're jumping over 3.5 and 4.0 releases and providing the source code coincident with our new 4.5 launch. Stay tuned, I think you'll be delighted.
Steve
Steve
What did you think of jayshao's email above? If you tell me any concerns with being more open in your development model I can try to address them as best I can.
I don't think the open source community expects perfectly polished source code bricks every few months from the DimDim cathedral. Rather, we'd like to help DimDim create these releases in the first place!
I'm also curious. Its been 4 weeks.
Steve
at the TU München (Technical University of Munich) we have a research group for computer-supported education and eLearning.
We would like to use your new version of DimDim 4.x for our seminars and help you to enhance the tool with our students of informatics.
Do you think you will be able to publish your new source code before the end of the year?
Thank you in advance.
Matthias
Dimdim 4.5 released today, with source code.
Thanks!
-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing / www.dimdim.com
e: kevin@dimdim.com / twitter: @meetdimdim
Kevin
looks quite good, thank you very much!
In the moment we do an evaluation of DimDim 4.5 with our students to get a list of experiences and ideas for further improvement.
If we find students to do programming work, we can stay in contact and we could help you to continue improving DimDim.
Matthias