It seems that the release of new version is stalled again. During 2017 and up to version 2.12 the trend was one release each month.
From 2.12 to 2.13 it took 5 months and now … 2 months and no news.
This what it was stated on Twitter in August:
2.13 is here! Check out the release notes. We have also mapped out our releases through 2.16 and will be back on our normal release schedule. Thanks for your patience!! https://t.co/gsNcX2bH4U
I searched everywhere, but no sign of any roadmaps, it looks more like a roadblock.
I am worried that I invested all my time in a solution that has no future or is focusing on something else.
Thank you for bringing this up. The current release is on 2.14.0 and we are actually actively developing an offering to sit alongside of our on premise solution. Dreamfactory is alive and well, and our engineering team has been working hard to improve the UI. We should have a tagged release coming out in the next couple of days that will address a few bugs in the software. The latest version(s) of the software (2.13 and 2.14) have large improvements to the UI and we have more on the way.
Dreamfactory is here for the long haul, but as always we want to make sure what is released is an actual improvement and not just features for features sake. I can promise you we have a roadmap, and it is currently laid out through Q3 2019.
I do understand the need to improve the interface, but why should that have higher priority over the bugs that are pilling up in github, without any response?
I know you are working on a new product, but how about making sure first that DF is maintained properly?
Waiting months for hotfixes is really bad, and worst when you discover that after 5 months of waiting you get just something shiny and no substance.
And I apologize for stressing on the roadmap, but why is that such a secret?
I should have been more specific to the bug fixes. The tagged releases will be addressing quite a few of those. Bugs are part of all software, and in the case of Dreamfactory, as it is based in open source and on open source solutions, sometimes there are bugs that are out of our control (such as this one). We are actively working to make Dreamfactory a better, more efficient software package for our open source users and our commercial users.
Regarding the roadmap, it isn’t meant to be a secret and I will see about getting a format out here on the forum ASAP from the engineering team.
Thank you for the feedback. My name is Jason Gilmore and I’m DreamFactory’s CTO. I can assure you the platform is not dead. In fact the reality is quite the contrary, and we’ve been very busy expanding our staff due to the incredible number of new customers we’ve brought on board this year. To enumerate just a few items we’ve been working on in recent months:
New onsite and remote training services. Learn more at https://dreamfactory.com/training. This has already been a huge benefit to both OSS and commercial users of our software, and we’re happy to tailor a specific training agenda to suit your team’s needs.
Expanded consulting and custom development services. We work with DreamFactory customers around the world helping them to architect and develop their DreamFactory platform-powered projects. We don’t yet have a website page for this because our customers are contacting us directly, and invite you to do the same at sales AT dreamfactory.com.
Wildly improved documentation. We’ve only very recently launched our new guide, which you can find at https://guide.dreamfactory.com/. We’ll soon be open sourcing this guide on GitHub so all interested users can contribute.
Automated installers!!! We are in the final phases of testing automated installers for Ubuntu, Debian, and other Linux flavors. These are so incredibly useful and convenient, and we’re very excited to make them available to all users.
Perhaps most notably, we’re excited to announce we’ve been hard at work on a hosted SaaS solution, which we’ll be releasing in Q1 2019! If you’d like to be contacted when the beta is available, please add your information to https://www.dreamfactory.com/saas-beta. We decided to take on this initiative because an incredible number of OSS and paid customers alike have voiced interest in making their DreamFactory experience even more convenient by leaving the administration to us!
As far as the bugs you reference, like all software, DreamFactory logically suffers from bugs, and we regularly patch reported bugs for our paying customers. Those patches are subsequently incorporated into releases, and logically some are incorporated into our private repositories while others are incorporated into our public repositories. In fact next week we’ll be releasing 2.14.2, which merges 3 bugs previously reported by customers which have since undergone thorough testing.
As far as the roadmap is concerned, like many OSS-based companies we work hard to balance the free software we make available to everyone, and ensuring we’re able to earn enough revenue to keep the lights on. Accordingly, our priorities can and do change to suit these needs, and therefore we’d prefer to err on the side of caution and not publish a roadmap which, like so many others, will almost certainly be incorrect and out of date almost as quickly as it is published. Of course, our paid customers take first priority in determining the scope of this internal roadmap, and I can assure you we have plenty of exciting features to come in 2019 and beyond which will not only be of great use to them, but also to our OSS users.
I invite you to e-mail me anytime with questions and feedback at jason.gilmore AT dreamfactory.com.
I suppose that is the problem. I have chosen at the time DF because it was important in the first years of the projects to keep a low expense. I was in contact with your Sales Team, but the price requested was exorbitant.
From the pattern that I see, I understand that DF is not really an Open Source solution, but a Commercial one that is trying to leverage the open source concept to acquire visibility. This is how I’ve reached this conclusion:
next to zero external contributors to the code
the code is developed on a different platform and brought up to Github during releases
no roadmap and no visibility regarding strategy
I might be wrong, but I followed DF since early stages and I’ve seen enough to understand that there is no point in continuing.
I will redirect my attention to a different solution, maybe Strapi or SailsJs
Thank you again for the feedback, we appreciate it. As for the lack of an appropriate number of external contributors, we certainly welcome you to submit pull requests to any of our repositories. You can find the platform repository here:
The platform is licensed under the Apache License 2.0, so any contributions you make will be made available to the tens of thousands of fellow users.
I am aware or the github repository, given the countless times I vent there to check if there were any updates.
My job is to be sure we are using the right suppliers and tools in order to secure the costs and maintainability of our projects. Right now DF has shifted from being a valid opensource platform into a very expensive tool with no clear roadmap.
I am not taking for granted the work that you are doing or ignoring the importance of you protecting the investment.
I tried to give you and other interested parties a feedback based on my experience.