xTuple is an

enterprise software Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software (EAS), is computer software used to satisfy the needs of an organization rather than individual users. Such organizations include businesses, schools, interest-based user groups, ...

company that develops and markets software under the brand name ''xTuple ERP''. The company was originally formed in 2001 as ''OpenMFG'' and rebranded as ''xTuple'' in 2007. The company is privately held.

History

xTuple began under the name ''OpenMFG'', developing its product of the same name beginning in the year 2001. Jeffrey Lyon, the original developer cofounded OpenMFG with Ned Lilly in October 2001. OpenMFG was a commercially licensed ERP system targeted toward small to midsize manufacturers. The company adopted a "community code" model, meaning that customers who purchase or subscribe to licenses for the product have access to view and modify the source code. Unlike open source software, however, the code was not made publicly available. OpenMFG spent several years building its product, and settled into a release cycle of roughly one major release every twelve months. The version 2.0 of OpenMFG (released in 2006) added Master Production Schedule, multi-currency, and CRM, filling the most obvious gaps in its claim on true mid-tier ERP functionality. Jeffrey Lyon departed OpenMFG in 2004 to eventually found SabeSoft to continue development of its mid-range ERP system, initially based on licensed OpenMFG functionality but, since, progressing to become a wholly unique product. The project was originally to be released under the "xTuple License," a derivative of the

Mozilla Public License The Mozilla Public License (MPL) is a free and open-source weak copyleft license for most Mozilla Foundation software such as Firefox and Thunderbird The MPL license is developed and maintained by Mozilla, which seeks to balance the concerns ...

, but xTuple was quickly criticized for introducing "yet another" open source license variant. However, at that very same conference

SocialText Socialtext Incorporated was a company based in Palo Alto, California, that produced enterprise social software for companies. It offered an integrated suite of wiki tools and social software applications, including microblogging, user profiles, ...

announced the release of the new

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation,_with_501(c)(3).html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type o ...

approved

Common Public Attribution License The Common Public Attribution License ("CPAL") is a free software license approved by the Open Source Initiative in 2007. Its purpose is to be a general license for software distributed over a network. It is based on the Mozilla Public License, b ...

(CPAL). Two days later xTuple switched PostBooks to CPAL and became the second company to adopt this license. In an announcement made by xTuple's CEO, xTuple has discontinued offering any products under an open source license and, now, distributes its products under a commercial software license, unique in that it claims full rights over any modifications made to xTuple products by its customers.

Products

The Distribution, Manufacturing, and Enterprise Editions of xTuple are commercially licensed

Enterprise resource planning Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of Business management tools, business management ...

solutions. All three products are built on the same Open source technology foundation, and share the same code base.

Technology

xTuple ERP provides multiple interface options including a locally installable

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

client application, a web client, and a web services

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

for third party application integration.

GUI Client

The GUI client is written in Qt, a C++ toolkit for application development. It lets application developers target all major operating systems (

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

, Mac) with a single application source code. Qt provides a platform-independent API to all central platform functionality: GUI, database access, networking, file handling, etc. The Qt library encapsulates the different APIs of different operating systems, providing the application programmer with a single, common API for all operating systems. The native C APIs are encapsulated in a set of object-oriented

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

classes.

Web Client

There is a browser-based web client in versions 4.4.0 through 4.9.5. It was deprecated in v4.10.0 and will be removed by v5.0.0. This web client was built entirely in

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

using the

Enyo Enyo (; grc, Ἐνυώ, Enȳṓ) is a goddess of war in Greek mythology. She frequently is associated with the war god Ares. Description She is called the "sister of War" by Quintus Smyrnaeus, in a role closely resembling that of Eris, th ...

framework for presentation and

Backbone.js Backbone.js is a JavaScript rich-client web app framework based on the model–view–controller design paradigm, intended to connect to an API over a RESTful JSON interface. Backbone is known for being lightweight, as its only hard dependency i ...

for model handling.

Web Services

The web client application is served by a

NodeJS Node.js is an open-source server environment. Node.js is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux, Unix, and macOS. Node.js is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript Engine and executes JavaScript code ou ...

server, which also provides a REST based web services API that can be used for third party integration.

Database

xTuple uses the

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the In ...

database exclusively for storing and managing data. The GUI client relies heavily on PostgreSQL's native procedural language ( PL/pgSQL) functions to process business logic, while the web client and node layers leverage additional capability made possible by the integration of

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

V8 JavaScript engine V8 is a free and open-source JavaScript engine developed by the Chromium Project for Google Chrome and Chromium web browsers. The project’s creator is Lars Bak. The first version of the V8 engine was released at the same time as the first v ...

into the database using an extension. xTuple has written an Object-relational mapping system embedded in the database using JavaScript that processes all reads and transaction requests made via the NodeJS server.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:xTuple Accounting software ERP software companies Enterprise resource planning software for Linux Software companies based in Virginia Companies based in Norfolk, Virginia Software companies of the United States