After OTRS AG discontinued support for the Open Source ticket system ((OTRS)) Community Edition at the end of 2020, the company announced that it had withdrawn as main sponsor and would no longer work on further license-free versions of the product. The community’s reaction was prompt. Well-known German OTRS service providers joined forces to form an alliance: With Znuny LTS, the OTTER Alliance presents a technically fully compatible Open Source system as the designated successor of the ((OTRS)) Community Edition and provides a wide range of service offerings for it.

(Dormagen, Germany, May 10, 2021) On December 23, 2020, OTRS AG announced that it would completely discontinue support for the ((OTRS)) Community Edition as of December, 31, 2020. OTRS AG went on to state that the software had security vulnerabilities that they would neither describe in detail nor close. On February 24, 2021, OTRS AG announced that it would no longer participate in the further development of the Open Source system. In an April, 9, 2021 interview published on boersengefluester.de, Christopher Kuhn, COO of OTRS AG, stated (translated from German):  „… we have given the further development of the ((OTRS)) Community Edition into the hands where it belongs, namely into the hands of community.“

The community gladly accepted this offer: In January 2021, Znuny GmbH, whose owner Martin Edenhofer is one of the inventors of OTRS, announced to provide security updates for at least two more years. "After the withdrawal of OTRS AG as the main sponsor of the project, quick action was necessary. As new main sponsor Znuny GmbH continues the development via the fork Znuny LTS, which was newly created as designated successor," says Johannes Nickel, who manages the program as Managing Director at Znuny. "Initially, we will continue to provide users with security updates. But we will not stop there. As early as May 2021, a roadmap will appear with the planned features for new versions beyond 2022, which will of course also be available free of license costs," Nickel continues.

In February 2021, well-known German service providers for the ((OTRS)) Community Edition forged an alliance in cooperation with Znuny with the goal of enabling all users to continue secure operation of their solutions built upon the ((OTRS)) Community Edition. The members of the OTTER Alliance recognize Znuny LTS as the designated successor of the ((OTRS)) Community Edition and will permanently offer their support and services for it. The same applies to future feature releases based on Znuny LTS.

On the reasons for the alliance, initiator Gabriele Hein, Managing Director of maxence business consulting gmbh, explains: "Of course, we and every partner would have been able to offer proprietary solutions to the customers. However, this would have created one-sided dependencies for the customers. We wanted to avoid that at all costs. With the switch to Znuny LTS, the OTTER Alliance ensures the continuation of ((OTRS)) Community Edition based solutions as well as the broad and sustainable availability of service offerings.“

For users of the ((OTRS)) Community Edition 6 the change to the designated successor is conceivably effortless. Security updates are simply installed as usual. They are delivered via a new fork of the ((OTRS)) Community Edition 6: Znuny LTS is based on version 6.0.30 and is technically fully compatible, i.e. all components and individual extensions will continue to work without change. So there is no additional effort for the update. Four versions have already been released since January, the last one on April 21, 2021. The new releases already include contributions from the community, which were posted via GitHub.

Members of the OTTER Alliance

The OTTER Alliance was founded in February 2021. The term OTTER is well known in the community. Through its name, the Alliance underscores its commitment to the interests of the community. Founding members of the OTTER Alliance in alphabetical order:

• becon GmbH, https://www.becon.de
Ansprechpartner Vertrieb: Steffen Rieger, steffen.rieger@becon.de
• Efflux GmbH, https://efflux.de
Ansprechpartner Vertrieb: Emin Yazi, yazi@efflux.de
• IT-Novum GmbH, https://it-novum.com
Ansprechpartner Vertrieb: Stephan Kraus, stephan.kraus@it-novum.com
• maxence business consulting gmbh, https://www.maxence.de
Ansprechpartner Vertrieb: Gabriele Hein, gabriele.hein@maxence.de
• Perl-Services, https://www.perl-services.de
Ansprechpartner Vertrieb: Renée Bäcker, reb@perl-services.de
• Sector Nord AG, https://www.sectornord.de
Ansprechpartner Vertrieb: Stefan Schäfer, stefan.schaefer@sectornord.de
• Znuny GmbH, https://www.znuny.com
Ansprechpartner Vertrieb: Johannes Nickel, sales@znuny.com

If you are running an application based on the ((OTRS)) Community Edition and need more information, please contact one of the Alliance partners.
If you provide services for the ((OTRS)) Community Edition and are interested in supporting the Alliance, please contact us.

For more information, visit https://otter-alliance.de

Press contact
Gabriele Hein
maxence business consulting gmbh
Am Weißen Stein 1
41541 Dormagen

Phone: +49-2133-2599-12
E-Mail: gabriele.hein@maxence.de