Learning.net

Newport, CA — Learning.net announced today that Trellis, the company\'s revolutionary new Learning Management

System (LMS) is available as a free, open source product. Trellis is described by its developers as a highly flexible LMS with the functionality but not the limitations found in other proprietary and open source solutions. Its design and flexibility make it very well suited for corporate environments where other open source systems have struggled. Trellis is distributed with a standard learner interface and a robust administrative and reporting interface which suit the needs of most users while providing a basis for a completely customized system

Learning.net, a provider of traditional LMS services, believes that to be effective it needs to identify and meet its clients\' needs for learning management solutions unique to an organization\'s structure and training methods. By offering Trellis as a free, open source product Learning.net reinforces the message that we are not selling software. We provide service that is unique in the industry; the client gets the system they need and want—they need not shoehorn their requirements into an off-the-shelf product. And while an organization is free to choose any vendor to manage their Trellis, we are confident that with our expertise and unsurpassed service, one would not consider anyone else.

Trellis users will never pay a software license fee and will always have the freedom to modify and re-distribute the application because it is free software distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Free software means that any person has the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change, and improve the software and every derivitive of that software. Free software promotes best software development practices because it is guided by the interests of its users. The future of the software is not controlled by a company and as long as there exists a community of supporters the software has a life independent of any one company and the vagrancies of the profit and loss system. Security issues and bugs can be more readily identified and fixed because anyone may review and modify the source code. Free means that Trellis can never be sold, but it does not limit Trellis from interfacing with proprietary software. The Trellis project web site, http://trellis.learning.net, provides detailed information on features, installation, and support.

The Learning.net approach is simply to provide exactly what our customers demand while we maintain our viability and pragmatic approach. The open source option allows us to offer our product in three ways:

1. a conventional fully supported and hosted platform where we offer full customer support services.
2. a hands-off open source solution where customers can download Trellis free of charge, host and support it themselves.
3. an open source solution where the customer can download and host Trellis but we offer support and additional programming services to help them succeed. With Trellis, we combine a customer service commitment with a state-of-the-art dynamic, flexible LMS.

Trellis is built on a LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).