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OpenFOAM.com versus OpenFOAM.org: Which version to use? |
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December 30, 2017, 13:04 |
OpenFOAM.com versus OpenFOAM.org: Which version to use?
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#1 | |||
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
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(Note: I've had to write about this so many times already, that I'm writing this thread to make it easier to use it as a reference thread for future questions.)
Naming context
Version numbering convention and features
Which version to choose? Here are a few suggested steps for helping you decide:
FAQ: But why? Why not? It's open source. It's one of its major strengths! You can choose from at least two major types of development lines, both of which are evolving as best as possible, as well as several other forks and online contributions. See for example RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL and CentOS and Scientific Linux) versus Fedora exist. And there is even foam-extend, which was the second major fork of OpenFOAM till the end of 2014 and is hopefully going to gradually be integrated into the development line provided by ESI-OpenCFD. Will features from ESI-OpenCFD be integrated into the OpenFOAM Foundation source code? In the near future, it doesn't look like it, but hopefully this will change later on. Right now, there are contributions being made by developer(s) who work(s) for ESI-OpenCFD, but they are done directly to the OpenFOAM Foundation (OpenFOAM.org) and then get integrated into the development line at ESI-OpenCFD (OpenFOAM.com). Any quick guides on changes between versions? At OpenFOAM.com you can find two pages with at least some information, which you can then try to cross-reference with the respective version from OpenFOAM.org: Last edited by wyldckat; December 31, 2017 at 10:39. |
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February 2, 2019, 10:32 |
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#2 | |||
Senior Member
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Hi Bruno,
thanks for your detailed explanation. But why both site claim that they own the OpenFOAM software. - openfoam.org Quote:
claims that ESI group now own OpenCFD who created OpenFOAM and that OpenFOAM foundation was a part of SGI before the acquisition by ESI Quote:
and why openfoam.org states in their contributes list that Quote:
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February 2, 2019, 12:48 |
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#3 | ||||
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
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Greetings Ahmed,
I had the following paragraph written at the end and I've brought it to the top instead: Instead of bickering about who owns what now, I would rather that people contribute to the project they like/love the most; and if they can't decide which one they like/love the most, then contribute to both and possibly even to other forks as well: http://openfoamwiki.net/index.php/Forks_and_VariantsSo, back to the quick'ish list of answers:
That said, anyone can have access to the source code of both producers and can do anything with it, as long as it is within the bounds stipulated by the GPLv3, i.e.: don't go closing the source if you provide only the binaries to other people, or else we will deal with you... either with niceness or in a court of law if you don't comply. So in a very loose interpretation of the whole legal mumbo jumbo: Anyone (almost) can own a copy of the source source and modify it to one's own content. And anyone (almost) can provide services without costing them a single penny in licenses (i.e. make money for free) by either:
However, "almost anyone" refers to the edge situations, such as:
So, all of this to say that: from my own experience with software names, people don't really care about the strict name that a software piece has got. They will rather call it by the shortest name that most agree with and roll with it... if the name has more than N number of characters, the excess is lopped off without concern for trademarks and such. For example: "Linux"
I honestly preferred when ESI-OpenCFD was delivering their more recent versions of OpenFOAM under the name "OpenFOAM+", because it was OpenFOAM.org+com, but I guess that the majority of the human population is unable to care about details, so "OpenFOAM" is the single name shared by both producers, hence the importance of a trademark. And mind you that what I originally wrote on the last sentence above, I had written "both projects" instead of "both producers", because to me I see their efforts for their source code repositories, the associated issue trackers and the massive effort they put into them and the benefits that both bring to the community. I'm tired of the bickerness of the details about who owns what and how, because there is so much work to be done and that needs to be done, that I've grown too tired to care about who owns what exactly... get work done first, complain when you are able to do something better about it... Best regards, Bruno PS: I've spent well over an hour writing this post... so I ask you: Was this time well spent? Or would it have been preferable if I had answered to 2-10 other people who asked questions here on the forum about issues with their cases?
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Last edited by wyldckat; February 2, 2019 at 12:50. Reason: Added "PS:" |
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July 11, 2019, 07:40 |
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#4 |
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Eren
Join Date: Aug 2018
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I just realised openfoam.com version has additional forces inside src/fvOptions/sources/derived, I tried to copy it to openfoam.org version and wmake, but It gaves absurd errors(yes I added _USER_ to make file). Is it possible to compile it(like, joule heating) on openfoam.org version?
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July 13, 2019, 17:14 |
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#5 | |
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
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Quote:
But the short answer is that if you really want to use certain new features from OpenFOAM.com, it will be a lot easier to simply switch to a version of theirs instead. They integrate the majority of the features from the OpenFOAM Foundation's developments. |
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September 16, 2019, 07:51 |
Minor update
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#6 | |
Member
Johan Roenby
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Thanks for the comprehensive guide, Bruno.
A minor update: This line is no longer valid: Quote:
Cheers, Johan |
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November 22, 2019, 14:57 |
Cloud option
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#7 |
Member
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Thank you very much Bruno for this very needed topic.
Just wanted to add another layer to the topic. I came across the cloud option by OpenFoam foundation (openfoam.org) but have not seen anything similar for that of ESI (openfoam.com). Moreover, in educational institutions, I have frequently seen the foundation version being used but not from ESI. Please correct me if I am wrong. If not, do you think if there is any specific reason for this? Thanks |
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February 12, 2020, 17:21 |
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#8 |
Senior Member
Herpes Free Engineer
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ESI-OpenCFD Ltd. does not provide a cloud service, but CFDDirect Ltd. does. It is not related to OF releases or their content.
>> Moreover, in educational institutions, I have frequently seen the foundation version being used but not from ESI. Do you have an extensive statistics on this remark? How many institution have you observed?
__________________
The OpenFOAM community is the biggest contributor to OpenFOAM: User guide/Wiki-1/Wiki-2/Code guide/Code Wiki/Journal Nilsson/Guerrero/Holzinger/Holzmann/Nagy/Santos/Nozaki/Jasak/Primer Governance Bugs/Features: OpenFOAM (ESI-OpenCFD-Trademark) Bugs/Features: FOAM-Extend (Wikki-FSB) Bugs: OpenFOAM.org How to create a MWE New: Forkable OpenFOAM mirror |
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February 13, 2020, 14:30 |
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#9 | |
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Quote:
My observations are not very extensive unfortunately (that's why I asked others to correct me if I was wrong ). Nevertheless, I have observed at least three institutions which were all using the foundation version... Regards, MJ |
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February 13, 2020, 16:57 |
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#10 |
Senior Member
Herpes Free Engineer
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I see. I think the reason is that potential users or even novice users do not know there are three main variants of OpenFOAM.
__________________
The OpenFOAM community is the biggest contributor to OpenFOAM: User guide/Wiki-1/Wiki-2/Code guide/Code Wiki/Journal Nilsson/Guerrero/Holzinger/Holzmann/Nagy/Santos/Nozaki/Jasak/Primer Governance Bugs/Features: OpenFOAM (ESI-OpenCFD-Trademark) Bugs/Features: FOAM-Extend (Wikki-FSB) Bugs: OpenFOAM.org How to create a MWE New: Forkable OpenFOAM mirror |
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May 12, 2020, 09:12 |
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#11 |
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This is an interesting case study of the problems that arise when a corporation enters the market for an OpenSource product. The corporation feels it has to raise barriers (grab the trademark, police its usage, formalise operations procedures etc - all common sense business practices) that can alienate the developers who made the product in the first place, and can distort the GNU-environment for the product.
In my mind, I am happier with the code development being managed and done by OpenFOAM.org, and that's the flavour that I use. But that's my opinion ... your mileage may differ, and that's perfectly fine. Note that there are a lot of corporate customers for OpenCFD's version, and so don't expect any merging of the versions any time soon. Now, as per Wyldcat's advice - let's just get on with our lives! |
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May 12, 2020, 10:22 |
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#12 |
Senior Member
Herpes Free Engineer
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I am truly sorry, I am just an ahole sometimes without any excuse... and become extremely stupid... realising what I have done in few tens of minutes later.
I behaved in a bad manner, and I do apologise you again. Please let me know if I can compensate my behaviour in some way. And I highly appreciated your respectful response. If I were you, I would just swear at me. Many thanks for your kindness.
__________________
The OpenFOAM community is the biggest contributor to OpenFOAM: User guide/Wiki-1/Wiki-2/Code guide/Code Wiki/Journal Nilsson/Guerrero/Holzinger/Holzmann/Nagy/Santos/Nozaki/Jasak/Primer Governance Bugs/Features: OpenFOAM (ESI-OpenCFD-Trademark) Bugs/Features: FOAM-Extend (Wikki-FSB) Bugs: OpenFOAM.org How to create a MWE New: Forkable OpenFOAM mirror Last edited by HPE; May 12, 2020 at 11:06. Reason: ... |
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May 12, 2020, 10:34 |
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#13 |
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<message no longer necessary and so deleted after a friendly discussion with HPE>
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May 19, 2021, 09:48 |
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#14 |
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The more I use OpenFOAM, the more my conclusion is: use both! There are some great features in both distributions - why limit yourself to just one?
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October 27, 2021, 09:47 |
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#15 |
New Member
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Every time I happen to re-install OpenFOAM, I find myself pondering on this very same dilemma. I then somehow settle for .com version just because it has that 'grad' operator symbol which makes it more familiar in remembrance of the college days' Fluid Mechanics/Aerodynamics courses.. It makes it feel that they are the 'real nerds' .
Good enough reason? |
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June 6, 2022, 09:27 |
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#16 | |
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Michael Jensen
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Quote:
I completely appreciate the sentiment here, but it can also be a hard sell. Fresh new users coming in and wanting to get a job done quickly, if they can, will be drawn to the version that can both do what they need it to do, -and- is better documented. At this point in time, it looks like .com has tutorials that will get me going faster than those at .org. |
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November 11, 2022, 18:12 |
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#17 |
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Pete Bachant
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Personally I find it annoying to install and manage multiple OpenFOAM environments. It would be better if there were a single core library that all entities contributed to, with the commercial or niche features available as extension libraries rather than a complete repackaging of all the basic low level stuff, plus a little more.
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November 17, 2022, 05:35 |
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#18 | |
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Lourenço SM
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I've been using OF for 10 years, having used mostly the ".com" fork.
Recently, I started to question about 2 topics, regarding the "www.openfoam.org" and "www.openfoam.com". I'd like to hear from you all about this: 1) Credits: it's very frequent to have citations/references in publications only to ".com" of projects that only use tools that were developed totally (or at least, mostly) by the foundation (".org"). Is it fair, just because you're using the ".com" fork? Specially because an average user has no capacity/time to inspect the git-logs and understand who developed the solvers he's using. Even if you use some extras exclusive to ".com", such as boundary conditions, is it fair to only give credits to this fork? I think the interFoam solver is a pretty good example. Look at the copyrights of interFoam.C header in ".com" : Quote:
2 - New users go for "openfoam.org" - the foundation Regarding new users that use basic tools present in the foundation release (and also in some forks). Why not recommending to start always by the foundation release (".org"), as they are the ones who invested, and keep developing, the OpenFoam structure? And afterwards, users will go to forks naturally following their needs. Maybe, I'm missing several important perspectives, maybe not. I think the users should question themselves when using forks if they are giving the proper credits to the foundation. |
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December 19, 2022, 11:15 |
OpenFOAM version history is a bit messy
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#19 |
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March 25, 2023, 07:50 |
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#20 |
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Alejandro
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Hi everyone,
I would like the opinions of experienced users and developers regarding the directions that each version is following. I believe that this information can be valuable for inexperienced and new users. I started using OpenFOAM (the .org version, I did not know about the 3 branches) some years ago. What was more attractive to me was that there were a lot of solvers available, and I could explore them, study them, select the ones most similar to my needs, and (with the huge help of CFD Online and many of you) modify them to suit my needs. As far as I understand, the .org version is focusing on usability and maintainability, thus reducing the number of solvers by "merging" some of them into what is called modules (https://cfd.direct/openfoam/free-sof...dular-solvers/), while the .com version maintains and adds new solvers each year. I continue to use the .org version up to version 9. However, as things are going, I think I will switch to the .com version because while studying a given solver in each new version of the .org, it is more difficult (at least for me) to understand what is going on. I have had to go back to older versions (many of them) and, by following the new commits, understand what was happening. My concerns are the following: a) Will the .com version maintain their policies, or will they follow what is being done by the .org version? b) Regarding the .org version, I understand that the code is open, but with the reduction in the number of solvers each year, is it becoming increasingly difficult to follow and modify them in a simpler way (at least for me). In terms of practicality, does this mean that the .org version is gradually becoming more like a black box? c) If a) and b) are somewhat true and not the result of my misinterpretation, does that mean that the .org version will be more suitable for a better user experience (like Comsol) without the user needing to know most of the details behind the code, but the code solving their needs? And does that mean that the .com version will be used for testing new models (knowing more in detail the hypotheses behind each model)? Like an industrial use for the former and scientific use for the latter? I do not want anyone to be offended, as English is not my mother tongue, and I cannot follow the more than one million lines of code for each version, as many of you do. |
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