Open WHO?
OpenNTF is a site devoted to getting groups of individuals all over the world to collaborate on Lotus Notes/Domino applications and release them as open source. Our mission is "to provide a framework for the community to develop open source applications for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino which may be freely distributed". Using open source applications can help organizations reduce the costs of software development and maintenance.
The idea was born..
Although the idea of Notes open source had been floating around for awhile, it was proposed by Nathan Freeman on December 14, 2001 and was received very enthusiastically by the Notes community. Shortly thereafter, the website was launched under the name www.notesoss.org and Bruce Elgort became the chairman. The first application pre-release was Lookout Express, an Outlook look-alike, released on Jan 10, 2002. For the next few months the site remained dormant while the underlying apps were built to handle projects and on May 25, 2002 the first version of the project management tool was released.
In June 2002 the site was renamed to www.openNTF.org to avoid legal issues with the name Notes in notesoss.org.
The story continues
In may 2007 Vince Schuurman took over as chairman from Bruce Elgort and an advisory board was formed later that same year to help take the site and the Lotus Community it serves to the next level.
Currently, the site has grown to over fifty thousand registered participants who download ten thousand applications per month.
What the future holds..
Gazing into the crystal ball, we believe the site will continue to grow and become the definitive source for folks looking for free Notes applications. Of course, that depends on what the future of Notes is!
Statistics
View
project download statistics. These statistics are updated every two hours and reflect the total downloads of all releases for a given project. Statistic recording in November 2004.
View the OpenNTF Web Statistics
Other statistics that you may find interesting:
- 60,000+ registered OpenNTF users
- 200+ OpenNTF Projects with code releases
- 10.000+ downloads per month
Site Resources:
Main Bar
The Main Bar (requires registration to participate) - The Main Bar is a discussion board where you can post questions you may have and reply to questions from others. The Main Bar uses an OpenNTF application entitled "domBulletin" which you can download here.
The Main Bar contains the following discussion topics:
- OpenNTF News
- Bar Talk
- Technical Question
- Site Problems
- Project Idea
- Project
- Suggestion
Code Bin
The Code Bin - The Code Bin is a place to find code snippets (Lotusscript, Formula Language, Java, C, C++ et.c) and small Notes/Domino applications. Registration is required to add code as well as to post a question and/or rate code.
Application Catalog
The Application Catalog - The Application Catalog is a place for members of the community to add code/applications and make them available as "freeware". Freeware applications are just that - free and have no software licensing associated with them. The Application Catalog also contains OpenNTF project releases in this section however, you will note that they have an open source license associated with them.
Project Management System
The Project Management System (registration required for project managers and to be able to download certain project releases) - The Project Management System or "PMT" is used to facilitate the management of an OpenNTF open source application. The system provides project managers with the ability to manage:
- project releases
- manage tasks
- manage bug reports
- post project news
- post documentation
- participate in project specific discussions
If you want to create a project you need to:
- Setup a login by registering here.
- Create a project here.
Before starting a new project it's not a bad idea to float the idea in The Main Bar in the "Project Ideas" section.