Purpose
Evaluate the open source GanttProject software with the "Three Prime Directives for Open Source Software Engineering" and report results.
Overview
The GanttProject <http://ganttproject.biz/> is a software tool for handling project management and scheduling with Gantt charts and resource load charts. A Gantt chart is a graphical display of the project schedule similar to using bar charts. The Gantt resource load chart graphically shows the amount of resources that are used for the project tasks. It is free open source alternative to commercial software Microsoft Project.
Three Prime Directives
The three prime directives are what open source projects should aspire to. It will determine if the system does useful tasks, if end users can successfully install it and if developers are able to enhance the system.
A. Prime Directive 1
GanttProject successfully accomplishes useful tasks for project management.
Here are some of the main features.
B. Prime Directive 2
Getting started with GanttProject was pretty easy.
1. Install Sun Java 1.4 or recent if not already installed.
2. Download the "Zip archive" from <http://ganttproject.biz/download.php>.
3. Extract the files.
4. Change into the ganntproject directory.
5. Run the script ./ganttproject.sh for unix shells or double click the ganttproject.bat file in windows.
GanttProject includes a "Manual" found in the "Help" menu. The help information is pretty decent, but could be more descriptive.
Using the software to create a gantt chart, set dependencies and assigning tasks to resources was easy to do (see image below). It did take awhile to click around and find the correct option to use.
The GanttProject includes sufficient user-level documentation to support download, installation, and use of the system without significant interaction with a system developer.
Prime Directive 2 is fully satisfied.
C. Prime Directive 3
The GanttProject does provide some developer's documentation.
The documentation includes procedure on how to build with ant, checkout code from the version control and developing ganttproject with eclipse. The documentation seems thorough providing step by step procedures with pictures. However, there are no API's or design documents that would enable an external developer ability to understand and enhance it.
A developer could enhance the system, but would need time to generate the javadoc files and diagrams for GanttProject.
The prime directive 3 is partially satisfied.
The GanttProject is a great open source application that should be included in any project's toolbox. Even though it does not fully satisfy all three prime directives, the software was easy to use and provides enough useful features to do project management. Although it is not as feature rich like Microsoft Project, it is has enough features to be a very good open source alternative. Since it is cross-platform software, it will run on any operating system that Java supports. But the best thing about GanttProject is the price. It's free!
References
GanttProject home page <http://ganttproject.biz/>
GanttProject Source Forge Project page<http://sourceforge.net/projects/ganttproject>
Microsoft Project page <http://office.microsoft.com/project>
Evaluate the open source GanttProject software with the "Three Prime Directives for Open Source Software Engineering" and report results.
Overview
The GanttProject <http://ganttproject.biz/> is a software tool for handling project management and scheduling with Gantt charts and resource load charts. A Gantt chart is a graphical display of the project schedule similar to using bar charts. The Gantt resource load chart graphically shows the amount of resources that are used for the project tasks. It is free open source alternative to commercial software Microsoft Project.
Three Prime Directives
The three prime directives are what open source projects should aspire to. It will determine if the system does useful tasks, if end users can successfully install it and if developers are able to enhance the system.
A. Prime Directive 1
GanttProject successfully accomplishes useful tasks for project management.
Here are some of the main features.
- A Gantt chart for displaying created tasks.
- Able to set tasks hierarchy and dependencies.
- A Gantt resource load chart for displaying who is assigned to a task.
- Able to import/export from Microsoft Project.
B. Prime Directive 2
Getting started with GanttProject was pretty easy.
1. Install Sun Java 1.4 or recent if not already installed.
2. Download the "Zip archive" from <http://ganttproject.biz/download.php>.
3. Extract the files.
4. Change into the ganntproject directory.
5. Run the script ./ganttproject.sh for unix shells or double click the ganttproject.bat file in windows.
GanttProject includes a "Manual" found in the "Help" menu. The help information is pretty decent, but could be more descriptive.
Using the software to create a gantt chart, set dependencies and assigning tasks to resources was easy to do (see image below). It did take awhile to click around and find the correct option to use.
The GanttProject includes sufficient user-level documentation to support download, installation, and use of the system without significant interaction with a system developer.
Prime Directive 2 is fully satisfied.
The documentation includes procedure on how to build with ant, checkout code from the version control and developing ganttproject with eclipse. The documentation seems thorough providing step by step procedures with pictures. However, there are no API's or design documents that would enable an external developer ability to understand and enhance it.
A developer could enhance the system, but would need time to generate the javadoc files and diagrams for GanttProject.
The prime directive 3 is partially satisfied.
The GanttProject is a great open source application that should be included in any project's toolbox.
References
GanttProject home page <http://ganttproject.biz/>
GanttProject Source Forge Project page<http://sourceforge.net/projects/ganttproject>
Microsoft Project page <http://office.microsoft.com/project>
