Vote to Bring Back Atlassian’s Stimulus Package
Posted by gerirgaudi on July 1, 2009
I can’t believe I missed it! Atlassian was selling, for a limited time, $5 5-user licenses for their products. Asides from the fact that I would probably buy them all just to have a stable of things available to play with, I could have really used Confluence and JIRA in one of the non-profits I work with (it falls, I think, under the commercial non-profit definition as it helps small, generally family-owned companies in Spain figure out things with exports, fairs, conventions, publications and such in a specific industry, even tho their budget is tiny tiny tiny, certainly not in line with current licensing prices).
As it stands today, I installed one of those cheap Compaq Presarios running OpenSolaris 2009.06 so they can have something that resembles a server. They’re embracing OpenOffice, and I’m working towards getting XWiki in a state where it’s usable for them, but I would very much prefer Confluence (not because XWiki doesn’t work but because I’m quite familair with Confluence and my support role is served much better by Confluence, which by the way, rocks).
So if you have a minute, vote and contribute.
Ludovic Dubost said
You should stick with XWiki, not because Confluence is bad, but because it will get more and more expensive (that’s what happens to proprietary software eventually) and also because XWiki will get better and better.
And you might be amazed by what XWiki can offer with it’s scripting and structured content capabilities. See http://www.dzone.com/links/jazoon_day_2_xwiki.html
Disclaimer: I’m the XWiki founder
gerirgaudi said
Hi Ludovic,
Good to hear from you!
I actually like XWiki quite a bit and have been playing with it here and there (time being one of those rather difficult to come by resources). It really comes down to how fast I can get the wiki up and running, and the major dependency has nothing to do with the quality of XWiki or Confluence (I do think they’re both top of the line products) but my familiarity with them. I have been a Confluence (and JIRA) user and admin for quite some time now, which allows me to have Confluence up and running in short order. Then there is the question of support (as in my ability to answer questions or troubleshoot issues, not support from XWiki or Atlassian).
As it turns out, a gracious soul donated a Confluence license, so I’ll get those $5 to work this weekend, but I will continue to explore XWiki as time permits, because the scripting capabilities you mention are certainly quite useful and a huge plus in XWiki’s favor.