OpenProj

OpenProj is an open source project management software. It intends to be a complete replacement for Microsoft Project. OpenProj running on the Java platform, thus it can be run on a variety of different operating systems.

On SourceForge, it was announced that Project Libre OpenProj has replaced and is its replacement.

History and current status

OpenProj has been developed by Marc O'Brien, Howard Katz and Laurent Chretienneau at the company Projity in 2007. With the release of version 1.0 on 10 January 2008, the project moved from the beta phase. The end of 2008 Projity was bought by the company Serena Software.

As of early 2009, eventually stagnated support and communication between community and company, on the development of OpenProj. It even came by a couple of CVS commits to functional deterioration. There was no improvement in the last four years and it is no longer compatible with Microsoft Project. Whether the software under these economic conditions will remain Open Source, is to be seen. In 2012, the founder of OpenProj have announced that they split the project and the release of a new version of OpenProj will take place in August 2012. The name of the Forks is Project Libre (see below in the " Fork ").

Functions

The current version of OpenProj includes:

  • Earned value
  • Gantt charts
  • PERT diagrams
  • Resource breakdown structures
  • Task Usage Reports
  • Work breakdown structures

Popularity

The program has been downloaded over 4 million times by over 140 countries. Three months after the release of the beta version have been downloaded on SourceForge average of 60,000 copies per month. With a SourceForge activity by an average of 99.964 % was OpenProj number 15 and was listed near the popular Instant Messenger Pidgin. In May 2008, the total number of downloads has reached on SourceForge 500,000.

Compared to Microsoft Project

Compared to Microsoft Project OpenProj has a similar graphical user interface ( GUI) and a similar approach to the construction of a project plan. There are small differences, which represent some getting used to, accustomed to Microsoft Project users. OpenProj can not link up, and the insertion of tasks is more difficult than in Microsoft Project, for example. OpenProj can automatically create resources; you have to create these only in the resource sheet. All in all, should cope but users each of the two software solutions with the other solution.

Licensing

Some features of OpenProj be restricted to users who have a commercial license. For users who want to use free OpenProj, a range of functions slightly restricted version is available. A limitation in the free version of OpenProj ( version 1.4 ), for example, that it is not allowed to export PDF files from the data; the usefulness of such a function is questionable. However, it is possible to bypass the reduced range of functions via external software.

Fork Project Libre

Recently, the original founders of OpenProj began to develop an additional server for OpenProj, similar to the Microsoft Project Server for Microsoft Project.

During development, they realized that the fact that OpenProj has not been updated during the last four years of Serena Software, is problematic for their goal. Thus, they first had to develop a significantly updated version of OpenProj. This version was a spin-off ( Fork ) released in August 2012 named Project Libre. The additional server is currently (as of February 2013) hot still in development and will Libre Project Server.

Project Libre improved many errors of OpenProj and introduces new features such as:

  • Import and export Microsoft Project 2010
  • PDF export (without restrictions )
  • New Ribbon user interface
  • Full compatibility with Microsoft Project 2010
Common Public Attribution License ProjectLibre Concurrent Versions System Commit (data management) Program Evaluation and Review Technique Fork (software development)
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