Community Editions are freely available applications and connectors that build on Questionmark’s Open Assessment Platform™. Community Edition software is openly developed and maintained in the community and is distributed using open source licenses. Questionmark does not provide support for Community Edition software but anyone is free to download, use, modify and redistribute it.
Community Editions are intended to be available alongside supported software. This Knowledge Base provides information to users about the differences between Community Editions and the supported software releases Questionmark makes. The article is divided in to the following sections:
What are the Community Edition goals?
Community Editions (CE) have very specific goals to help the community of Questionmark users get the most out of their software purchases. CE goals include:
- To produce powerful and easy to use open source connections to 3rd party applications
- To serve as a starting point for the creation of other applications that build on Questionmark’s Open Assessment Platform™
- To allow the community to collaborate more effectively when developing software that integrates with Questionmark technologies
- To provide a staging ground for exciting and innovative new applications
How do Community Edition releases differ from supported releases?
In addition to the open source CE releases Questionmark may also make supported releases of the same products. Supported releases differ from the CE in the following ways:
| Areas |
Community Edition releases |
supported releases |
| Technical Support available |
Technical Support is only available for issues relating to the Questionmark application programming interfaces (APIs). For example issues with QMWISe will be investigated by Technical Support, but issues relating to the 3rd party application or the CE software itself will not. |
Technical Services will support the use of the integration software itself and (to a user-experience level) the use of any required 3rd party applications to ensure that the supported release functions as expected. |
| Updates |
CE software will not get official update patches from Questionmark. Updates will be available from the community developer sites chosen to host the CE project. Updates are typically incorporated into the next version released or are made available as source code patches. |
Questionmark provides updates and patches for supported software. The updates and patches are released as Service Packs for the given supported release. |
| Bug tracking |
CE development projects will provide their own bug-tracking systems which will need to be monitored for information and updates |
Questionmark provides information about updates directly to customers. Each Service Pack will provide information on all the bugs that have been fixed in the update. |
| Testing |
Only limited testing is carried out by Questionmark. Users are expected to test for themselves and can provide feedback to the development project directly. |
A full testing cycle is performed before supported software, and any subsequent update is released. |
| Licensing |
CE software releases are distributed under open source licenses. |
Supported releases may be available with alternative licensing options. |
| Source code |
CE software will include the full source code, allowing developers to make modifications as required. |
Although some supported releases will include source code certain restrictions may apply. For example, if changes are made to the software it may not be supported by Technical Services |
| Availability |
Only certain products are suitable for community development, please check with your customer care representative on the availability of a Community Edition. |
Many products available as Community Editions will eventually be available as supported releases but this will depend on the popularity and maturity of the software. |
What license is used in the Community Edition releases?
Each CE will have an applicable open source license. The type of license used will vary depending on the product concerned. Questionmark hopes to make each CE project use the license that best suits the community that supports it. Please check the license information accompanying the CE for details.
The most common licenses that Questionmark will include with their CE releases are listed below:
- GNU (GPL)
- Apache v2.0
- Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL)
These licenses allow for redistribution and modification of the software. However, each license has varying restrictions on what can be done. For more information about these licenses,
please refer to the Open Source Initiative web site.
How can I contribute to the development of a Community Edition?
Questionmark seeks to include anyone, regardless of background and skill set, in the process of making Community Edition applications. Anybody can help, and here's how:
- Provide feedback – just by reporting problems you encounter installing or running the software you provide a valuable contribution to the community development process
- Help other users - spend a little time to answer a question you know the answer to in the Questionmark developer support forums
- Fix a bug - if you have solved a problem yourself we will of course welcome patches or suggestions from others in the community
- Add functionality - one of the best ways to contribute is by adding functionality that others may find useful. Talk to the project lead about getting your contributions included in future releases or even about becoming a ‘committer’ yourself
CE software will be made available through various community developer sites. For example, on OSCLELOT, CodePlex or Google Code.
To contribute code to a CE development project you will need to complete a Contribution License Agreement (CLA). An individual CLA will be available for each of the CE projects.
The source code of each project can be obtained using a version control client application like subversion (SVN). The version control application is used to access the source code stored on the community developer site hosting the CE project. The source control server tracks what changes have been made, when they were made and who made them.
All contributions will be reviewed prior to being 'committed' to the project by Questionmark or other developers responsible for the CE project. Developers are encouraged to provide any useful changes they have made back to the community by submitting patches or enhancements to the source code for inclusion in the future releases.
New versions of CE software will be released on a rolling basis as ‘snapshots’ of the development process. Each new version may include a number of updates or a single change in functionality in accordance with the ‘release early, release often’ motto of the open source development community. |
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