It gives me great pleasure to announce the first release of OutKafe, a full-featured next generation cybercafe management suite under the GPL. OutKafe was forked from the GPL’d parts of the ZybaCafe project by the original developers with the specific intent to replace all the proprietary modules with free alternatives, thus creating a completely free suite.
This first release numbered 5.0.0 (following up to the last ZybaCafe version number) matches the full feature set of the free parts of ZybaCafe as of it’s last release, the code however has been greatly cleaned up and stabilized.
The next phase is to begin grounds-up reimplementation of the non-free parts (including the Win32 client) which will not include any code owned under proprietary licenses by any party, and can thus be released under the GPL.
Obviously, in order to prevent any conflicts of interests – I will therefore no longer be in anyway involved in the development of ZybaCafe (which still belongs to another party).
OutKafe comprises several parts: a management tool, a number of platform specific user-clients, a control daemon, a postgresql database and any number of easily created extensions which can be plugged into the system at various points. The core system is entirely developed in the Lazarus RAD environment.
Unlike previously, there is no outside sponsor for the project now, instead it is being sponsored by OutKast I.T. Solutions C.C.
Since I am a 50% partner, and the CEO of this company – it is therefore within our power now to declare OutKafe a development done for joy and the benefit of the community – where every part will always be fully free, not to mention providing a wonderful piece of inspiration for the new logo, Trudie (the OutKast Mascot) sitting in a coffee cup (yes it’s a bad pun on cafe, you may groan now).
OutKafe’s homepage with all relevant links are to be found at: http://outkafe.outkastsolutions.co.za
I look forward to as much feedback from current and new users as possible to help grow OutKafe in the future.
Technorati Tags: OutKafe, cybercafe, GPL, ZybaCafe, postgresql
