That's not true. TYPO3 is an open-source CMS/CMF licensed under the GPL. Contao seems to be a spin-off of it.
TYPO3 has its strengths in being very modular (even the core is nothing more than an accumulation of (system-)extensions), powerful (*nix-alike) user handling capabilities, its own domain language for website-integrators (confusingly called 'TypoScript' [it's not really a scripting language, more of a description language]), a very very sophisticated handling of workspaces (they may "shine" through each other) as well as a very flexible templating mechanism (called TemplaVoila). Its multi-domain and multi-language concepts are imho superior to what i've seen somewhere else (XLIFF coming in the next few months).
Of course, there's generally no "this one fits all" solution and due to its complexity, TYPO3 has a rather steep learning curve. However, held in capable hands, TYPO3 rocks in use-cases described above and mostly sucks if you just need another simple content management system, since it's rather huge in its nature. A last comment on the documentation: yes, it is very strong in Germany and because of that most tutorials and books are in german, but there is a drive towards i18n. However, the main and most important doc stuff is in english. [1]
May i introduce you to the danish Content-Management Framework "TYPO3" which is very successful and widespread all around Europe. Currently, it is being rebuilt from scratch using the home-made PHP Framework "FLOW3" (this one is huge!).
Curious people may have a look at the TYPO3 main page [1] as well as the FLOW3 page [2]. Give it a try, it would really deserve it!
TYPO3 has its strengths in being very modular (even the core is nothing more than an accumulation of (system-)extensions), powerful (*nix-alike) user handling capabilities, its own domain language for website-integrators (confusingly called 'TypoScript' [it's not really a scripting language, more of a description language]), a very very sophisticated handling of workspaces (they may "shine" through each other) as well as a very flexible templating mechanism (called TemplaVoila). Its multi-domain and multi-language concepts are imho superior to what i've seen somewhere else (XLIFF coming in the next few months). Of course, there's generally no "this one fits all" solution and due to its complexity, TYPO3 has a rather steep learning curve. However, held in capable hands, TYPO3 rocks in use-cases described above and mostly sucks if you just need another simple content management system, since it's rather huge in its nature. A last comment on the documentation: yes, it is very strong in Germany and because of that most tutorials and books are in german, but there is a drive towards i18n. However, the main and most important doc stuff is in english. [1]
Give it a try, i think it's really worth it!
[1] http://typo3.org/documentation/document-library/