Liferay's North America Symposium began Monday morning with some encouraging news.  Liferay saw a 55% jump in revenue for 2011 from the previous year; growth continues to be in the realm of double-digits; expansion means their payroll covers over 350 employees spanning across twelve countries, with key hires in France, Ireland, Japan and the UK. But the numbers were not the focus of the CEO. All he wanted to talk about was people:

The conference runs both Monday and Tuesday. TheServerSide will be reporting, providing insights for developers working in the enterprise portal space. 

"There is more value outside of the company being waited to be unleashed than there is inside,"

He's not wrong, given the poor state of Liferay documentation often the only source of information is other folk who've been through Liferay hell.

"There is more value outside of the company being waited to be unleashed than there is inside,"

 

 

He's not wrong, given the poor state of Liferay documentation often the only source of information is other folk who've been through Liferay hell.

 

Obviously you're not aware of the documentation that is available on their website or their Developer book. 

What better alternatives are there, then, to LifeRay?

If you are looking to develop Portlets then Liferay isn't a bad choice. If you are not hung-up on JSR 286 then XWiki is a good solution for certain problems.

Otherwise there are products like JBoss Gatein but I've not used it.

I am not hung up on JSRs. I do know about GateIn (Exo, etc). Since XWiki seems to be Java based I'll give it a look.

I guess i was trying to say without staring a firestorm ... Portals are a pain because of the nature of what they are trying to do. What ones "suck less" and why?

Liferay has a history of treating the press to an all expenses paid trip to their symposiums in exchange for positive press coverage.

In the interest of full disclosure. Cameron : did you attend the symposium and did they pay for your expenses ?

The community isn't all that positive btw if you ask me :

http://www.liferay.com/community/forums/-/message_boards/message/16170231

http://www.liferay.com/community/forums/-/message_boards/message/13901466

Way to go, troll. I like how you're making broad assumptions. And if you actually read one of the threads you'll actually see that people are defending Liferay against another of your troll bretheren. 

I think is raising a question, not making assumptions. Do you think it's an unfair question to raise ? I for one would like to know

I think is raising a question, not making assumptions. Do you think it's an unfair question to raise ? I for one would like to know

It's concerning that the question even needs to be asked. It's disturbing that there's even a possibility that the story could be posted without disclosing any details like this. It's very important in journalism that any potential conflicts of interest be clearly stated up front.

Peace,

Cameron Purdy | Oracle

(In the interest of disclosure: Working at Oracle but writing my own personal opinion.)

Even more interesting is that this morning, this thread had been (just barely) pushed off of the front page ..