A New Initiative
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Hi All,
While I was enjoying my summer vacation in Italy my thoughts also wandered regarding OFBiz more particularly toward what more could be done to increase the visibility of OFBiz with respect to (potential) adopters, while simultaneously support the contributors. My thoughts went into the direction that we all, and the parties exploring OFBiz could benefit from a setup (call it a marketplace) where both open source contributors and 3rd party solution providers can showcase their add-ons, extensions and solution replacements. Some of our competitors also have such a marketplace set up for promotion (e.g. ODOO with https://www.odoo.com/apps). This OFBiz Extensions Marketplace (OEM) is not intended to function as a code repository, like Github, Sourceforge and others are offering. In stead it should be regarded as something like the Yellow Pages, surrounding the available solutions (i.e. links to profiles of the creators/maintainers, links to the code repository in the case of a 3rd party OFBiz extension, licensed under a liberal licence). It will not only create more visibility of the OFBiz contributors (those who showcase those add-ons, extension and other solutions), but is will also provide an opportunity for OFBiz System Integrators and other Solution and Service providers with another means to reach their target audiences and drive traffic to their websites. Over the coming weeks I will continue this initiative and start implementing this OFBiz Extensions Marketplace in a hosted environment. Of course, I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. If you have any, please feel free to send me a email directly. Best regards, Pierre Smits *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>* Services & Solutions for Cloud- Based Manufacturing, Professional Services and Retail & Trade http://www.orrtiz.com |
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Good idea, I immediately think about the Eclipse MarketPlace as a model
https://marketplace.eclipse.org/ Jacques Le 31/08/2015 08:47, Pierre Smits a écrit : > Hi All, > > While I was enjoying my summer vacation in Italy my thoughts also wandered > regarding OFBiz more particularly toward what more could be done to > increase the visibility of OFBiz with respect to (potential) adopters, > while simultaneously support the contributors. > > My thoughts went into the direction that we all, and the parties exploring > OFBiz could benefit from a setup (call it a marketplace) where both open > source contributors and 3rd party solution providers can showcase their > add-ons, extensions and solution replacements. Some of our competitors also > have such a marketplace set up for promotion (e.g. ODOO with > https://www.odoo.com/apps). > > This OFBiz Extensions Marketplace (OEM) is not intended to function as a > code repository, like Github, Sourceforge and others are offering. In stead > it should be regarded as something like the Yellow Pages, surrounding the > available solutions (i.e. links to profiles of the creators/maintainers, > links to the code repository in the case of a 3rd party OFBiz extension, > licensed under a liberal licence). > > It will not only create more visibility of the OFBiz contributors (those > who showcase those add-ons, extension and other solutions), but is will > also provide an opportunity for OFBiz System Integrators and other Solution > and Service providers with another means to reach their target audiences > and drive traffic to their websites. > > Over the coming weeks I will continue this initiative and start > implementing this OFBiz Extensions Marketplace in a hosted environment. > > Of course, I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. If you have any, > please feel free to send me a email directly. > > Best regards, > > > Pierre Smits > > *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>* > Services & Solutions for Cloud- > Based Manufacturing, Professional > Services and Retail & Trade > http://www.orrtiz.com > |
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In reply to this post by Pierre Smits
Hi Pierre
I think this is a really good idea. I know the idea of addons (e.g. Apache Extras and ofbizextra) especially has been raised in the past but has not had a lot marketing around it. I'm sure that a lot of useful code has been developed that might not have made it into the trunk or that people may want to sell. This would also give some good visibility to see what exactly additional functionality is available. Thanks Sharan |
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Hi Pierre and everyone,
I like your idea but also observe a bit of a challenge in implementing it due to an inherent problem in the design of OFBiz architecture. One of the things I suffered with personally while developing with OFBiz is in terms of component dependency. I think that OFBiz as it currently stands does not have a proper architecture allowing loose coupling of components. I especially had a problem with this in BIRT. So why is this a problem? Because additional plugins would naturally need to modify some core component(s) and there needs to be a two-way communication between the components, and this needs to be done in a way whereby you can easily remove or upgrade a component and your application would continue operating without damaging the system. So I think having a software eco-system around OFBiz would require first implementing a proper architecture using something like OSGI. We might look at existing implementations like http://www.eclipse.org/equinox/ or http://felix.apache.org/ and figure out how to integrate them. If we do not implement something like the above, then you might be susceptible to conflicts between plugins, inability to update or uninstall plugins, inability to track database changes, and other issues on a similar line. My 2 cents! Cheers, Taher Alkhateeb ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sharan-F" <[hidden email]> To: [hidden email] Sent: Monday, 31 August, 2015 10:43:15 AM Subject: Re: A New Initiative Hi Pierre I think this is a really good idea. I know the idea of addons (e.g. Apache Extras and ofbizextra) especially has been raised in the past but has not had a lot marketing around it. I'm sure that a lot of useful code has been developed that might not have made it into the trunk or that people may want to sell. This would also give some good visibility to see what exactly additional functionality is available. Thanks Sharan -- View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/A-New-Initiative-tp4671708p4671718.html Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. |
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+1
Are we in a position to make a decision about the Framework? - Drop it as a product - Fix so it is a product - Replace it with another framework. It is the first thing that needs to be cleaned up to deal with the issues that Taher raises about add-ons. Then we can look at defining a clean interface for add-ons where a person can build an add-on and a user can adopt it without breaking the implied warranty offered by an Apache project. Ron On 31/08/2015 4:13 AM, Taher Alkhateeb wrote: > Hi Pierre and everyone, > > I like your idea but also observe a bit of a challenge in implementing it due to an inherent problem in the design of OFBiz architecture. > > One of the things I suffered with personally while developing with OFBiz is in terms of component dependency. I think that OFBiz as it currently stands does not have a proper architecture allowing loose coupling of components. I especially had a problem with this in BIRT. > > So why is this a problem? Because additional plugins would naturally need to modify some core component(s) and there needs to be a two-way communication between the components, and this needs to be done in a way whereby you can easily remove or upgrade a component and your application would continue operating without damaging the system. > > So I think having a software eco-system around OFBiz would require first implementing a proper architecture using something like OSGI. We might look at existing implementations like http://www.eclipse.org/equinox/ or http://felix.apache.org/ and figure out how to integrate them. > > If we do not implement something like the above, then you might be susceptible to conflicts between plugins, inability to update or uninstall plugins, inability to track database changes, and other issues on a similar line. > > My 2 cents! > > Cheers, > > Taher Alkhateeb > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Sharan-F" <[hidden email]> > To: [hidden email] > Sent: Monday, 31 August, 2015 10:43:15 AM > Subject: Re: A New Initiative > > Hi Pierre > > I think this is a really good idea. I know the idea of addons (e.g. Apache > Extras and ofbizextra) especially has been raised in the past but has not > had a lot marketing around it. > > I'm sure that a lot of useful code has been developed that might not have > made it into the trunk or that people may want to sell. This would also give > some good visibility to see what exactly additional functionality is > available. > > Thanks > Sharan > > > -- Ron Wheeler President Artifact Software Inc email: [hidden email] skype: ronaldmwheeler phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102 |
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In reply to this post by Pierre Smits
having developed 52 Ofbiz apps, i would make this comment:working from Ofbiz repository that people add things makes it impossible to maintain current apps that don't follow the repository.I would imagine, any marketable app will not be able to use the Ofbiz repository without a lot of testing of the repository changes, each time there is an update.as to a market place i and many Ofbiz developers use Elance (Elance is moving to Upwork )
On Sunday, August 30, 2015 11:47 PM, Pierre Smits <[hidden email]> wrote: Hi All, While I was enjoying my summer vacation in Italy my thoughts also wandered regarding OFBiz more particularly toward what more could be done to increase the visibility of OFBiz with respect to (potential) adopters, while simultaneously support the contributors. My thoughts went into the direction that we all, and the parties exploring OFBiz could benefit from a setup (call it a marketplace) where both open source contributors and 3rd party solution providers can showcase their add-ons, extensions and solution replacements. Some of our competitors also have such a marketplace set up for promotion (e.g. ODOO with https://www.odoo.com/apps). This OFBiz Extensions Marketplace (OEM) is not intended to function as a code repository, like Github, Sourceforge and others are offering. In stead it should be regarded as something like the Yellow Pages, surrounding the available solutions (i.e. links to profiles of the creators/maintainers, links to the code repository in the case of a 3rd party OFBiz extension, licensed under a liberal licence). It will not only create more visibility of the OFBiz contributors (those who showcase those add-ons, extension and other solutions), but is will also provide an opportunity for OFBiz System Integrators and other Solution and Service providers with another means to reach their target audiences and drive traffic to their websites. Over the coming weeks I will continue this initiative and start implementing this OFBiz Extensions Marketplace in a hosted environment. Of course, I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. If you have any, please feel free to send me a email directly. Best regards, Pierre Smits *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>* Services & Solutions for Cloud- Based Manufacturing, Professional Services and Retail & Trade http://www.orrtiz.com |
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The monolithic nature of OFBiz makes this instability inevitable.
There is insufficient separation between layers and it appears that there is not a clear set or rules and policies (API) to control the dependencies between modules. The same people control all the layers which makes it easy to create cross-layer dependencies and hard to describe and follow a roadmap. Ron On 31/08/2015 1:49 PM, BJ Freeman wrote: > having developed 52 Ofbiz apps, i would make this comment:working from Ofbiz repository that people add things makes it impossible to maintain current apps that don't follow the repository.I would imagine, any marketable app will not be able to use the Ofbiz repository without a lot of testing of the repository changes, each time there is an update.as to a market place i and many Ofbiz developers use Elance (Elance is moving to Upwork ) > > > > On Sunday, August 30, 2015 11:47 PM, Pierre Smits <[hidden email]> wrote: > > > Hi All, > > While I was enjoying my summer vacation in Italy my thoughts also wandered > regarding OFBiz more particularly toward what more could be done to > increase the visibility of OFBiz with respect to (potential) adopters, > while simultaneously support the contributors. > > My thoughts went into the direction that we all, and the parties exploring > OFBiz could benefit from a setup (call it a marketplace) where both open > source contributors and 3rd party solution providers can showcase their > add-ons, extensions and solution replacements. Some of our competitors also > have such a marketplace set up for promotion (e.g. ODOO with > https://www.odoo.com/apps). > > This OFBiz Extensions Marketplace (OEM) is not intended to function as a > code repository, like Github, Sourceforge and others are offering. In stead > it should be regarded as something like the Yellow Pages, surrounding the > available solutions (i.e. links to profiles of the creators/maintainers, > links to the code repository in the case of a 3rd party OFBiz extension, > licensed under a liberal licence). > > It will not only create more visibility of the OFBiz contributors (those > who showcase those add-ons, extension and other solutions), but is will > also provide an opportunity for OFBiz System Integrators and other Solution > and Service providers with another means to reach their target audiences > and drive traffic to their websites. > > Over the coming weeks I will continue this initiative and start > implementing this OFBiz Extensions Marketplace in a hosted environment. > > Of course, I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. If you have any, > please feel free to send me a email directly. > > Best regards, > > > Pierre Smits > > *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>* > Services & Solutions for Cloud- > Based Manufacturing, Professional > Services and Retail & Trade > http://www.orrtiz.com > > > -- Ron Wheeler President Artifact Software Inc email: [hidden email] skype: ronaldmwheeler phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102 |
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In reply to this post by Ron Wheeler
Hi All
A while ago I put this diagram together to help visualise and plan some of the framework changes that people in the community had talked about. https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Roadmap+Diagrams+-+In+Progress The feedback on this idea was very positive and that it would bring some real benefits but I think no work was ever done around it. We have another Community Day coming up later this month so if we can agree on what needs to be done (even if it is only a small step) then I think it would be good to include it. Thanks Sharan |
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In reply to this post by Pierre Smits
Hello Pierre,
It will definitely broaden the market for ofbiz users. It will be very clear to overview easily all components which can be used. Perhaps people will have the idea that Ofbiz is much more than the core out of the box. Regards, Eric Olagos bvba Heidi Dehaes Kerkstraat 34 2570 Duffel Belgium Tel. : 015/31 53 04 GSM : 0485/22 35 80 E-mail : [hidden email] http://www.olagos.eu http://www.olagos.com http://www.olagos.be http://www.olagos.nl 2015-08-31 8:47 GMT+02:00 Pierre Smits <[hidden email]>: > Hi All, > > While I was enjoying my summer vacation in Italy my thoughts also wandered > regarding OFBiz more particularly toward what more could be done to > increase the visibility of OFBiz with respect to (potential) adopters, > while simultaneously support the contributors. > > My thoughts went into the direction that we all, and the parties exploring > OFBiz could benefit from a setup (call it a marketplace) where both open > source contributors and 3rd party solution providers can showcase their > add-ons, extensions and solution replacements. Some of our competitors also > have such a marketplace set up for promotion (e.g. ODOO with > https://www.odoo.com/apps). > > This OFBiz Extensions Marketplace (OEM) is not intended to function as a > code repository, like Github, Sourceforge and others are offering. In stead > it should be regarded as something like the Yellow Pages, surrounding the > available solutions (i.e. links to profiles of the creators/maintainers, > links to the code repository in the case of a 3rd party OFBiz extension, > licensed under a liberal licence). > > It will not only create more visibility of the OFBiz contributors (those > who showcase those add-ons, extension and other solutions), but is will > also provide an opportunity for OFBiz System Integrators and other Solution > and Service providers with another means to reach their target audiences > and drive traffic to their websites. > > Over the coming weeks I will continue this initiative and start > implementing this OFBiz Extensions Marketplace in a hosted environment. > > Of course, I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. If you have any, > please feel free to send me a email directly. > > Best regards, > > > Pierre Smits > > *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>* > Services & Solutions for Cloud- > Based Manufacturing, Professional > Services and Retail & Trade > http://www.orrtiz.com > |
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In reply to this post by Sharan-F
The structure looks more reasonable.
With regard to the diagram, I have some questions. Can the Party component really be extracted from the Framework? If it can, what is left in the Party component as a separate thing? What has to be moved to the Framework from Party? How do we get from here to there? Can Moqui be swapped into OFBiz as a framework if this is done right? That is, can the layers be properly defined to allow different components to be used in each of the components. Is there sufficient value in this? Ron On 01/09/2015 4:02 AM, Sharan-F wrote: > Hi All > > A while ago I put this diagram together to help visualise and plan some of > the framework changes that people in the community had talked about. > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Roadmap+Diagrams+-+In+Progress > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Roadmap+Diagrams+-+In+Progress> > > The feedback on this idea was very positive and that it would bring some > real benefits but I think no work was ever done around it. We have another > Community Day coming up later this month so if we can agree on what needs to > be done (even if it is only a small step) then I think it would be good to > include it. > > Thanks > Sharan > > > > > -- > View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/A-New-Initiative-tp4671708p4671745.html > Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > -- Ron Wheeler President Artifact Software Inc email: [hidden email] skype: ronaldmwheeler phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102 |
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Hi Sharan, Ron and everyone,
This thread mirrors what we discussed on Pierre's thread on having a software eco-system around OFBiz. It seems many of the topics are repeating around a central idea. In a nutshell, OFBiz is not designed in a very modular way and components depend on each other too much. I like the idea of moving the services and entities into a central location, but I do not think this is a permanent fix for the root of the problem. The question still remains: How do we break this thing down into reasonable chunks that are easy to manage ? So, although there is a lot of effort in cleaning the components up, we first need to focus on the framework design itself. If we introduce a change that adds better modularity then we can slowly evolve the system because the architecture allows it and we do not have to do any crazy superman efforts to fix things. IMHO we should finalize the discussion that took place a while ago on the strategy. We have multiple options to choose from, for example: - Introduce Moqui as the core framework for the system - Introduce a plugin framework like Apache Felix or Eclipse Equinox - Write custom code to allow loose coupling. For example, we design the framework so that a component would not fail if it does not find resources from another component and there would be a graceful exception handling that would simply ignore the missing pieces and operate with whatever is left. - Work on, improve and integrate the OFBiz addon manager (ADM) and make it part of the framework - Another solution for example is to strip out anything that is shared between any two components into a separate component so that you have a component dependency structure that is 100% tree-like, just branching out so for example, if order depends on accounting and accounting depends on order, move stuff out from both components into a shared lower level component (including widgets) Bottom line, let's agree on a strategy, this is so important and would save us hundreds of hours of cleanup work and really push us all in one direction. My personal preference is with a proven plugin architecture like the ones I mentioned above (Felix or Equinox). However, Any of the above or even other solutions are also good. Anything is better than not choosing a strategy. My 2 cents Cheers Taher Alkhateeb. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Wheeler" <[hidden email]> To: [hidden email] Sent: Tuesday, 1 September, 2015 3:10:31 PM Subject: Re: A New Initiative The structure looks more reasonable. With regard to the diagram, I have some questions. Can the Party component really be extracted from the Framework? If it can, what is left in the Party component as a separate thing? What has to be moved to the Framework from Party? How do we get from here to there? Can Moqui be swapped into OFBiz as a framework if this is done right? That is, can the layers be properly defined to allow different components to be used in each of the components. Is there sufficient value in this? Ron On 01/09/2015 4:02 AM, Sharan-F wrote: > Hi All > > A while ago I put this diagram together to help visualise and plan some of > the framework changes that people in the community had talked about. > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Roadmap+Diagrams+-+In+Progress > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Roadmap+Diagrams+-+In+Progress> > > The feedback on this idea was very positive and that it would bring some > real benefits but I think no work was ever done around it. We have another > Community Day coming up later this month so if we can agree on what needs to > be done (even if it is only a small step) then I think it would be good to > include it. > > Thanks > Sharan > > > > > -- > View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/A-New-Initiative-tp4671708p4671745.html > Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > -- Ron Wheeler President Artifact Software Inc email: [hidden email] skype: ronaldmwheeler phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102 |
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Hi all,
Thanks for the responses, but it seems this thread is getting diluted with what seems to be topics for the dev ml. Best regards, Pierre Smits *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>* Services & Solutions for Cloud- Based Manufacturing, Professional Services and Retail & Trade http://www.orrtiz.com On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 5:19 PM, Taher Alkhateeb <[hidden email]> wrote: > Hi Sharan, Ron and everyone, > > This thread mirrors what we discussed on Pierre's thread on having a > software eco-system around OFBiz. It seems many of the topics are repeating > around a central idea. In a nutshell, OFBiz is not designed in a very > modular way and components depend on each other too much. > > I like the idea of moving the services and entities into a central > location, but I do not think this is a permanent fix for the root of the > problem. The question still remains: How do we break this thing down into > reasonable chunks that are easy to manage ? > > So, although there is a lot of effort in cleaning the components up, we > first need to focus on the framework design itself. If we introduce a > change that adds better modularity then we can slowly evolve the system > because the architecture allows it and we do not have to do any crazy > superman efforts to fix things. > > IMHO we should finalize the discussion that took place a while ago on the > strategy. We have multiple options to choose from, for example: > > - Introduce Moqui as the core framework for the system > - Introduce a plugin framework like Apache Felix or Eclipse Equinox > - Write custom code to allow loose coupling. For example, we design the > framework so that a component would not fail if it does not find resources > from another component and there would be a graceful exception handling > that would simply ignore the missing pieces and operate with whatever is > left. > - Work on, improve and integrate the OFBiz addon manager (ADM) and make it > part of the framework > - Another solution for example is to strip out anything that is shared > between any two components into a separate component so that you have a > component dependency structure that is 100% tree-like, just branching out > so for example, if order depends on accounting and accounting depends on > order, move stuff out from both components into a shared lower level > component (including widgets) > > Bottom line, let's agree on a strategy, this is so important and would > save us hundreds of hours of cleanup work and really push us all in one > direction. > > My personal preference is with a proven plugin architecture like the ones > I mentioned above (Felix or Equinox). However, Any of the above or even > other solutions are also good. Anything is better than not choosing a > strategy. > > My 2 cents > > Cheers > > Taher Alkhateeb. > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Ron Wheeler" <[hidden email]> > To: [hidden email] > Sent: Tuesday, 1 September, 2015 3:10:31 PM > Subject: Re: A New Initiative > > The structure looks more reasonable. > > With regard to the diagram, I have some questions. > Can the Party component really be extracted from the Framework? > If it can, what is left in the Party component as a separate thing? > What has to be moved to the Framework from Party? > > How do we get from here to there? > > Can Moqui be swapped into OFBiz as a framework if this is done right? > That is, can the layers be properly defined to allow different > components to be used in each of the components. Is there sufficient > value in this? > > Ron > > On 01/09/2015 4:02 AM, Sharan-F wrote: > > Hi All > > > > A while ago I put this diagram together to help visualise and plan some > of > > the framework changes that people in the community had talked about. > > > > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Roadmap+Diagrams+-+In+Progress > > < > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Roadmap+Diagrams+-+In+Progress > > > > > > The feedback on this idea was very positive and that it would bring some > > real benefits but I think no work was ever done around it. We have > another > > Community Day coming up later this month so if we can agree on what > needs to > > be done (even if it is only a small step) then I think it would be good > to > > include it. > > > > Thanks > > Sharan > > > > > > > > > > -- > > View this message in context: > http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/A-New-Initiative-tp4671708p4671745.html > > Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > > > > -- > Ron Wheeler > President > Artifact Software Inc > email: [hidden email] > skype: ronaldmwheeler > phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102 > > > |
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Hi friends, you guys are Gurus in OfBIZ. I want to be a end user with little knowledge of programming. Its one year playing with OfBIZ. I was able to make changes in POS and other things. Two weeks back I found some deficiencies in POS. (I know Jacques is busy guy) so I tried my self not big success.
Then I opened ODOO website. Spent some time and found it easy. But in some corner of my mind, OfBIZ is sitting permanently. Still I open Ofbiz Nabble everyday. What I want to say OfBIZ is a killer Open Source and will push everybody on back bench. For me APPs should not be like ODOO(installation), But need to supply as is and need to work with simple change in component-load.xml in specialpurpose. Also Demo data need to minimize. Changing Currency is not easy. eCommerce need upgrades. Regards |
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