OTRS 6 End of Life

What about OTOBO after OTRS 6 reached its end of life?

At 23 December 2020, OTRS Group anounced in their Newsfeed that from January 1st, 2021 there will be no further security updates nor support for OTRS 6. Users were warned about severe security vulnerabilities in the software. At 24 February, an official statement followed, informing the public that ((OTRS)) Community Edition is discontinued until further notice. It looks very much like there won't be any ((OTRS)) Community Edition 7.

In this article, we have compiled – and answered;) – six questions we heard a lot since the EOL of ((OTRS)) Community Edition 6.

1. Will there be security patches for OTOBO after OTRS 6 has reached end of life?

Something we are asked again and again is whether we will still provide security patches for OTOBO after the preliminary end of ((OTRS)) Community Edition.

Our answer: Yes, of course!

That's what we set out for from the start. We created OTOBO as an alternative to OTRS 6 because we were fed-up with the uncertainty we saw regarding the future of ((OTRS)) Community Edition.

There is no dependency . We will follow our own course in the future and will constantly improve OTOBO.

Fuelled by the OTRS 6 EOL and the preliminary end of ((OTRS)) Community Edition, the (Partner) Community behind OTOBO has grown considerably. This helps to fully exploit the Open Source Advantage: The bigger the Community, the quicker vulnerabilities are detected and can get patched.

Rest assured that we will publish updates and security patches whenever they are needed.

Please tell us should you find a vulnerability, so that we can patch it.

 

2. What's the philosophy behind OTOBO?

We deliberately built OTOBO as an alternative to ((OTRS)) Community Edition because we felt that over the years, the community had been limited in their possibilities to contribute.

We have known OTRS right from the start. Our founder and managing director Stefan Rother took part in building project and company between 2004 and 2011. In 2011, he left OTRS AG and founded Rother OSS to put a stronger focus on the Open Source idea again.

OTOBO is 100% Open Source and free, and will stay so. There won't be any paywall in the future either, that certain features disappear behind.

We want to go back to close cooperation with the community and the combination of free Open Source Software and professional Business Services. We are convinced that this will be to the benefit of all parties involved and are looking foward to the future with all of you and OTOBO.

We welcome each and any contribution from the growing OTOBO Community.

3. Why fork OTOBO instead of providing feature add-ons as OPM packages?

We thought about this for quite a while, but in the end we didn't want to go with the technical and organisational limitations and the insecurity any more.

The new customer interface alone changed a lot – down to the very base.

We also developed a Docker Container, using the high-performance Perl web browser Gazelle. Nginx, Apache2 or Traefik serve as web proxies only. Maintaining a feature like this with OPM packages would have been impossible.

These changes facilitated a substantial performance gain. We are free now to utilise new technologies, and to realise our visions – hand in hand with the community and our partners.

4. Is it possible to migrate from OTRS to OTOBO?

 

Yes, we have migrated systems from OTRS 7, OTRS Business Edition, KIX4OTRS and ((OTRS)) Community Edition to OTOBO without any problems.

In most cases the migration can be effected using an automated migration script.

We will keep OTOBO compatible with the Znuny LTS fork.

 

5. Is it possible to actively contribute to OTOBO?

 

A clear YES – you are very welcome.

Read more about the various ways to contribute to OTOBO here.

We take all issues reported seriously and will check your pull requests asap.

Please report any vulnerabilities you find to security(at)otobo.org.

Translations can be contributed on https://translate.otobo.org. OTOBO is being translated to Brasilian Portuguese and Chinese, Danish and Japanese, for example. There's a dedicated forum section for all translation matters.

The OTOBO Community Forum is the place to go to interact with other users, and support each other. We are there, too, and help where we can.

Last but not least: We do hope it will be possible to travel again soon. We are looking forward to a great many Community Events.

5. What about a partner program – is there anything like that ?

 

Yes!

We believe in working together instead of against each other.

The OTOBO Partner Community is growing and we are very happy to see OTOBO get an ever stronger base.

Our partners come from different regions of the world and are specialised in various sectors, too. All of them add their own individual expertise and perspectives to the further development of OTOBO.

We are convinced that this benefits all – the project, each company involved, and the users.

You can read more about the OTOBO Partner Program on our partner website.

Keep your independency – with Open Source Software and a strong partner

  • Don't risk a vendor lock-in
  • keep full control on your system and data
  • get made-to-measure consulting, development and support at fair prices from the right partner.