I've been meaning to blog about this for a couple weeks now. I think I have just enough time between things that I can't accomplish other items on my plate effectively, but can accomplish this, so here goes!

The first thing you should know, Centrallix has the potential to replace the thousands of dollars that any one mission agency spends today on management software. In many ways, the continued success of this project is an issue of financial stewardship within the Christian community at large. Yeah, that's a huge statement. The continued success of this software, meaning involvement among the Christian IT community, will save millions of dollars. This software is being positioned to replace software that has, in some larger organizations, cost over $1 million dollars. How I wish that $1 million from just one of these orgs had been put into an open source project so that all mission agencies could benefit and I know many other mission IT guys feel the same.

What Is Centrallix Really?

I'm not sure I clearly understand how to answer this question, but I'm going to give it a shot. Perhaps some others will chime in and correct or clarify for me.

Centrallix made the long-awaited release of their software to 0.9.0, skipping over the 0.8 series entirely. This is the first release in a couple years. I've been getting to know the developers of the software and am impressed with the thoughtful, prayerful and patient way they've been working on the project despite some set backs in resources.

Centrallix' "goal ... is to be a platform for applications for the missions & nonprofit context, catering to the distinctions that these types of organizations have." It is not an application itself, but the foundational parts of other applications. Kardia is the only application running on it now, but there is wide potential for more. Centrallix is the package that only the geeks in a non-profit would see or care to understand. Centrallix is a database abstraction layer, a reporting platform, UI builder and really the glue to many potentially exciting things. However, it needs apps like Kardia to be built on top of it.

Centrallix has been using DHTML/AJAX technology for the last 10 years, long before AJAX was given such a spiffy name. It has been around long enough to have screenshots that include the old Netscape Navigator browser. (remember that?) It uses this technology to build applications that run inside a browser, but it also provides a database abstraction layer. Any potential storage method (file systems, CSV files, databases, email and more) can have a driver built for it and become the means of storing data in the back end of Centrallix. Because of this flexibility and other intentional development, Centrallix becomes a powerful and flexible reporting platform, potentially pulling data together from anywhere to present in a single report.

It is fully open source, developed on sourceforge which include the typical mailing lists and other community development tools, as difficult as they may be at times to use effectively. I'm sure the developers would be wide-open to the idea of patches and other interested developers.

Who is Responsible for Centrallix?

The main developers work for LightSys, an organization focused on supporting missions in the area of technology. Those who know me won't be surprised that I have a certain significant bond with these guys. I guess we have the same perspective on the world. I've been most privileged to join them in their prayer meetings that span the country via the use of TeamSpeak.

Taylor University has also supported the development through internships given to students students on several occasions. The developers include Taylor graduates as well. Taylor is also sponsoring the ICCM conference and is considered to be a hot point for the union of Christian cross-cultural missions and IT. In fact, Taylor's IT guys have a website dedicated to Missions Computing.

What Makes Centrallix Weak?

Weaknesses are opportunities to support this project.

Centrallix' chief weakness is the lack of community around it. This results in slow development and defuses passion among the community. I hope (and pray) that Centrallix will attract the attention of competent developers who see and are excited about the potential of Centrallix so that it can be infused with activity and resulting applications.

This project could benefit from the infusion of funds. Although I haven't heard this from LightSys and wouldn't consider it a weakness, it is a common element of open source to fund further development. The gift of funds to a project means helping someone who is skilled in development to focus his time on advancing the goals of Centrallix. If the funds were available for one new developer to spend a month in further development of Centrallix, we would undoubtedly see many benefits.

This community connection problem is aggravated by a significant learning curve. Centrallix is unique in all its ways and requires some real digging to understand. Consequently, Centrallix needs documentation to help smooth that learning curve out some. My time is too limited to make a large dent in this any time soon. I'm also looking at creating .deb packages for Debian and Ubuntu to go along with the RPMs available. This should help increase the availability of Centrallix.

Centrallix has only one real application at this point, Kardia, and this application becomes the visual face of Centrallix. It is a good example, as best I can tell, of what Centrallix can do, but it doesn't reflect the flexibility and potential behind Centrallix to interact between itself and other applications. Developers will need to be motivated some how to dig into the code to see what flexibility is available.

Conclusion

Centrallix has already shown it has the staying power to wait until the non-profit community gets the picture and become excited about its potential. Until then, it will creep onward toward providing a strong solution for the future, but for each moment this or some similar project is not in place at a mission agency, they are paying significant amounts of money to its replacement. The Christian community needs to see projects like this as an opportunity in fiscal stewardship. How can you become a part of this project?