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OpenProj Review: An OSS Alternative to Microsoft Project

Posted by gsh on · 12 comments
MadPenguin.org; By Matt Hartley
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It's great to see a Microsoft Project alternative built with the open source user in mind. In a bit of haste, I downloaded and installed the app to see what it had to offer. What I found was a mixed bag of tricks and treats, no Halloween reference meant to be implied.

Being a Deb or RPM package kind of a guy myself, I really do not care much for building my own software installs, not that I do not love tracking down dependencies and all. Thankfully, the company sponsoring this project provided tarball which contained a ready to go Java application.

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Comments (12)

A quick look on their sourceforge site shows that the first entry is for beta 2, which was put up on Aug. 6, 2007. The current version is beta 4, which was put up on Sept. 6, 2007. Has anyone heard of this before now? If so, what do you think?

Given that the review is by Hartley, I assume it's not worth reading, so I thought I'd ask some folks whose ideas have proven worth listening to in the past. :)
I was at linuxworld in sf last month, and Dell was demoing openproj on ubuntu - very slick, it just worked, and seems to do everything the $1000 ms project does, including import/export of ms project files.

It looks almost exactly like Microsoft project. For anyone who has used MS Project, the learning curve on this should be zero.
This is the sort of thing FOSS projects should be aiming for if they want to move MS user/developers to Linux and FOSS, no brainer transitions.
OK. It sounds great. Up to now, I haven't had an answer for those who ask, "Is there an equivalent to Microsoft Project?" One more arrow in the quiver. :)
You mean real people use MS Project? And there is a FOSS equivalent? *shudder* What's next, making FOSS clones of Lookout and Aieee?
> What's next, making FOSS clones of Lookout and Aieee?

Aren't those Evolution and IEs4Linux?
{quote]What's next, making FOSS clones of Lookout and Aieee?[/quote]

I thought Evolution and Firefox were the recommended replacement.
> were the recommended replacement.

Replacement does not equal clone.

Firefox vastly improves on IE. Evolution slightly improves on Outllook. IEs4Linux is a simple install of IE via wine, so there's no improvement. I can't speak to whether Openproj is an improvement on Project or not, as I've never used Project.
Quoting:I can't speak to whether Openproj is an improvement on Project or not, as I've never used Project.


I can't say whether OpenProj is either, having only had a look at the UI. In spite of Carla's comments about MS Project, MS project is a quite decent project management application. It's designed to handle small teams on small to medium sized projects, and within those constraints works quite well. If OpenProj can do that, then it's a viable replacement for MS Project that happens to run on Linux. On the other hand there is also Planner, which, as far as I can tell is designed to work within the same constraints.
> On the other hand there is also Planner...

I don't think Planner can import and export Project's files. That's important for those who have used Project in the past or need to work with those who do.
Quoting:I can't speak to whether Openproj is an improvement on Project or not, as I've never used Project.


I used it for a few hours during an Operations Research class. I remember it as a "tool for drawing Gantt charts", with some basic analysis ;)

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