MidPoint 4.0 was released. Code-named Gutenberg, it is twenty-eighth midPoint release. MidPoint 4.0 is a major milestone in midPoint development. Similarly to the Gutenberg’s printing system, midPoint 4.0 provides a set of elements whose, when combined together, can create revolutionary solutions. Gutenberg was a long-waited release. It took some time to finish all the changes that we had to do. But it is finally here. And there is a lot to talk about.
MidPoint 4.0 is the first release with a consistent support for archetypes. Those are not just pretty icons for objects. Archetypes can be used to organize the objects and influence their behavior, especially when combined with collections and views. This is the beginning of a whole new episode of customized midPoint deployments.
MidPoint now supports multiple equivalent accounts, which was a feature requested by many midPoint users. There is also a large number of smaller improvement and enhancements to make midPoint more usable in practical deployments. A lot of effort was focused on midPoint scalability and performance. MidPoint security was also improved as midPoint underwent a EU bug bounty program. There is a number of exciting experimental features that will be productized in future midPoint releases.
There was also a lot of planned internal changes during midPoint 4.0 development. MidPoint has dropped a lot of dead weight. MidPoint was using policy-based approvals for some time already, therefore we have jettisoned the surplus workflow engine that slowed us down. User interface code was cleaned up. Some ancient schema elements had to go as well, making midPoint schema cleaner and more consistent. Those changes had one common goal. As midPoint 4.0 is a long-term support (LTS) release, we need to maintain it for a long time.
Even though it may not be obvious at a first sight, Gutenberg is really a revolutionary release. Features and improvements that were planned for a long time were finally done. All the new features clicked together. MidPoint 4.0 can be used to create IDM deployments that were never seen before. And all that with a long support program. This release is undoubtedly a major milestone for entire midPoint community.