A bright future for the OEF

Why OEF?

For a long time, OpenEdit and my own company, IJ Solutions, have been focused on providing great web applications to end users.  Although we've been enjoying the use of the what has recently become the OpenEdit framework for a long time, we've been using it primarily as an in house tool that has allowed us to bring agile development practices to bear on specific problems in what has proven to be a very flexible way.  As we've helped develop enterprise grade applications like the OpenEdit Media Archive on top of the platform, we've been fortunate to  be able to improve the core framework and content management systems at the same time.

What has happened, and what has made all of the difference for us, is that OpenEdit has started to pop up in the wild all by itself.   Every time we turn around, we're discovering new sites that are running on the OEF platform.  Other developers grab it, download it, quickly and easily install it  and are starting to develop plugins and applications of their own.

I've had the opportunity to work with numerous web application frameworks over the years, and I've even rolled my own custom solutions a couple of times.  I've found that the differences in philosphies between them lead to different benefits and drawbacks.  They all come with their particular set of rules and ideas.  Some are component based, some are strict MVC based, some are very constricting while others are loose.  After having worked to develop applications on the OpenEdit framework for the last 2 years, I can say confidently that it has some benefits that have made it my framework of choice.  I've got a lot of reasons, which you can read about on my blog. 

While we knew we had a great platform to develop from, we're all very excited about the idea of engaging our community of supporters for ideas and guidance.  Please comment freely, let us know what you like and don't like, and what you really need to get started with the framework.  We'll do our best to listen and provide.

Ian Miller

Founding director, OpenEdit framework