Open Source Workflow Platform ProcessMaker Unveils New Features

The success of many VARs in the open source ecosystem is based on their ability to repackage open source software into a user-friendly platform that offers real value to enterprises. And for a solid example of how to do that well, look no further than ProcessMaker, the workflow package from Colosa that debuted a much-enhanced version May 15.

As with most workflow software packages, the idea behind ProcessMaker is simple, but the execution can be complicated. The key idea is combining a variety of disparate applications and services into a single platform that will simplify collaboration and creation within organizations—and to be successful, the final product must be greater than the sum of its various parts, since enterprises can acquire them separately easily enough if they wish.

In the case of ProcessMaker, which is available in three different tiers offering various levels of support and features, the platform offers a variety of features designed to simplify workflow, such as a process map designer, a tool for building Web services API triggers and document management. The latest release of the package, version 2.5, provides perfomance improvements that, according to Colosa, make it five times faster than its predecessor. It also introduces new features that include a better search engine, a new WYSIWYG HTML editor and better support for converting information into PDFs.

ProcessMaker isn't alone in its class of software. A fair number of other workflow platforms, both proprietary and open source, exist as well. From the perspective of the channel, however, what makes ProcessMaker stand out is its success in integrating different open source tools into a comprehensive package that maintains a strong commitment to open source.

In fact, ProcessMaker adopts the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), which it describes as more "onerous" than the more standard GNU Public License (GPL), with a strong emphasis on its ability to keep derivative code open even if it exists in the cloud or as software-as-a-service (Saas). More traditional open source licenses, designed before the ubiquity of cloud computing, can make it harder to enforce openness when derivative work is not distributed in binary form per se, but instead runs only in hosted environments.

In this respect, ProcessMaker extracts value from an open source base in an area where other ostensibly open source vendors can come up short. It not only repackages open source software into a more user-friendly form, but also integrates it while taking pains to ensure that its end product remains as open—and therefore as friendly to the ecosystem on which ProcessMaker depends—as the source upon which it builds.