Advisory Board

Introduction

The Liferay Advisory Board is a special group of individuals who have been invited to participate in our quality assurance program for beta testers. Members will use our bug reporting system and a near-release-quality build of the next version of Liferay to test in their environments. The Board and Liferay engineers then work together to report, verify, and fix any bugs that are found before the actual release.

Benefits for the members of the Advisory Board

Liferay recognizes that the Advisory Board brings great value to our products. Participation also provides a number of benefits to Advisory Board members, including:

  • Priority Issue Status. Issues identified by Advisory Board members will be expedited for resolution and fixes will be incorporated in the upcoming release (members are of course encouraged to provide patch solutions directly). This means features most important to the members will be addressed first.

  • Confidence that releases will work in your environment. Because members are testing features and deployment combinations most important to them, they can in turn help guarantee a better product for their clients or organizations.

  • Semi-private message board category. Members have access to an “Advisory Board” category  to discuss anything related to beta testing and the Advisory Board. Liferay engineers  participate in this forum on a daily basis. Although only members can post to this category, read access is available to the public so beta testing activity can be monitored.

  • Greater Community Visibility. Advisory Board Members are considered leaders in the Liferay community for greater credibility in the open source marketplace.

Benefits for Liferay Portal

The sheer number of combinations of application servers, databases, and operating systems supported by Liferay Portal makes testing an extremely complicated and time-consuming task. Furthermore, it is not possible to automate these kinds of tests, making the testing process a balancing act between faster time to market and higher build quality. The Advisory Board is an invitation for community members and customers to help us narrow the gap between quality and innovation, so that:

  • More bugs are found before the release of the new product, which produces a more stable product

  • Liferay Portal is tested in real environments rather than in simulated environments

  • Release cycles are shortened and deadlines are met

  • The Liferay community grows in collaboration and participation

  • Features are well-implemented to work in a larger variety of environments

  • End users get access to Liferay engineers to resolve problems quickly

We are excited about this program and look forward to working more closely with our customers and members of our community!

How To Become A Member

Membership in the Advisory Board is by invitation only and based on one's credibility in the Liferay community. Active participation in Liferay's ecosystem, demonstrated interest in product improvement, and intimate knowledge of Liferay technology are all pre-cursors to candidacy; these can be demonstrated in a commerical or non-commercial context, through independent projects, with Liferay, or through our partners.

If you believe you qualify for Board membership, please contact an existing Advisory Board member for recommendation to the Board.