Open-source replacement for Microsoft Project on its way (Linux-Watch)

Posted Aug 2, 2007 21:10 UTC (Thu) by skitching (subscriber, #36856) [Link]

Well, how topical.

The license is exactly what this week's LWN "badgeware" article was about.

The app starts with a "click-through" license screen. The license is Mozilla Public License with an additional attribution clause.

The attribution requires the projity logo to be displayed on every user screen, in a specific location with a specific size. And when clicked it must start a browser with a specific url - projity.com of course.

Oddly, they say both that the logo *must* be displayed on all screens, and simultaneously say that no rights to use trademarks is granted. I'm no lawyer but that seems quite contradictory.

So basically, no derivatives/forks can in practice be made of this code.

At least the terms are clearly stated in plain English.

Here's the full text:

II. Projity and logo. This License does not grant any rights to use the "Projity" or "OpenProj" trademarks even if such marks are included in the Original Code or Modifications. . This License does not grant any rights to user or the "Projity" or "OpenProj" logos even if such marks are included in the Original Code or Modifications. However, in addition to the other notice obligations, all copies of the Covered Code in Executable and Source Code form distributed must, as a form of attribution of the original author, include on each user interface screen (i) the "Powered by Projity's OpenProj" logo and (ii) the copyright notice in the same form as the latest version of the Covered Code distributed by Projity, Inc. at the time of distribution of such copy. In addition, the "Powered by Projity's OpenProj" logo must be visible to all users and be located at the very top of each user interface screen. Notwithstanding the above, the dimensions of the "Powered By Projity's OpenProj" logo must be at least 106 x 23 pixels. When users click on the "Powered by Projity's OpenProj" logo it must direct them back to http://www.projity.com In addition, the copyright notice must remain visible to all users at all times at the bottom of the user interface screen. When users click on the copyright notice, it must direct them back to http://www.projity.com

Posted Aug 2, 2007 21:29 UTC (Thu) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link]

> an inexpensive, open-source project management program like OpenProj.
> [...]Projity customers can download OpenProj for free

Inexpensive is not the same as free (gratis). The free (gratis) download seems to be only for Projity _customers_, who presumably have paid money for something.

And as the above poster points out, it's also badgeware, which isn't free in the other sense.

I'm all for alternatives to MS Project, but this doesn't quite seem to be it. (Indeed, at the moment I'd settle for something (free) that can just read the .mpp files people keep sending me.)

Posted Aug 3, 2007 5:35 UTC (Fri) by mbottrell (guest, #43008) [Link]

OpenProj looks excellent for features.

You can play and download it here: https://www.projity.com/openproj/

Whilst I'll need to go over the license a little more (based on the concerns raised by others), it does now allow me to open those crazy MS-Project files that PMs keep throwing my way on my Linux desktop. ;-)

I'll be interested to see how this moves forward.

Licensing details are here: http://www.projity.com/PPL/license.html

Posted Aug 3, 2007 9:45 UTC (Fri) by drkwolf (guest, #42740) [Link]

there's already a complete OpenSource solution based on qt : http://www.taskjuggler.org/

Posted Aug 3, 2007 11:45 UTC (Fri) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link]

If folks actually want to 'collaborate' on project management. (A bad idea I say). There are much better tools out there than MS Project, or a MS Project clone.

dotproject comes to mind. There are others, but dotproject is very nice.

I've sorta been of the opinion that MS Project is the problem, not a solution. Coming up with ways of spreading this bad idea across more platforms for less money seems counter productive.

That said, we all have had to interact with firms who have locked themselves to the tyranny of the gantt chart, and have to follow suit.

In these cases, it certainly would be nice to have a tool that is as least as powerful of MS Project in creating/editing gantt charts as MS Project, that could cleanly import and export the MS Project.

There has been a really good discussion of gantt chart stuff on Tufte's site that has been running for years. Worth a read;

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?usca_...

Posted Aug 3, 2007 18:20 UTC (Fri) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link]

I'm surprised Steven J. Vaughan Nichols was taken in by a badgeware licence (as he's a good writer and usually more attentive), and a little disappointed in Larry Augustin's quotation, since he knows better.

Meanwhile, I maintain a list of all known project-management options for Linux: "Project Management" on http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Apps.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

Posted Aug 4, 2007 14:02 UTC (Sat) by jejb (subscriber, #6654) [Link]

It's called planner (formerly mrproject). It's now a gnome tool and is part of every distribution I've looked at:

http://live.gnome.org/Planner

I've been using it for project work since 2002 (when it was admittedly little more than a gantt chart editor). In 2006 it finally reached the stage where my Director of Engineering threw out msproject on windows and replaced it with planner (running via the gtk windows interface) to manage our last multi-developer project. Realistically, planner has all the features you need for project management apart from resource levelling (although this feature is supposed to be included for the next release).