Downloading OFBiz

[Jacopo Cappellato]

I've recently got some feedback from different people interested in
evaluating OFBiz, plus other interesting comments in these lists
(problems downloading by svn when the bandwidth is poor)... it seems
that many of they had problems to find an easy way to download OFBiz.

I think that we should provide an easy way to download (by ftp) a
compressed archive to the ones that are just interested in evaluating
the product.

Of course, as soon as the version 4.0 will be officially released, they
will have a file to download; however I don't think that the release 4.0
will be the right version to consider for an evaluation... the trunk is
the best option and we should encourage people to see it in action.

A simple solution is this: create a weekly or, better (as suggested by
Jacques), monthly svn snapshot (svn export), then compress it and
publish it somewhere in a very visible area of the main page of the
website; we could also provide a link to the "main new features of the
month" (e.g. http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/-Qs).

What do you think?

Jacopo

[Vu Hong Thuan]

I vote for this interesting way. It help to broadcast ofbiz widely.

2007/10/19, Jacopo Cappellato <[hidden email]>:

>
> I've recently got some feedback from different people interested in
> evaluating OFBiz, plus other interesting comments in these lists
> (problems downloading by svn when the bandwidth is poor)... it seems
> that many of they had problems to find an easy way to download OFBiz.
>
> I think that we should provide an easy way to download (by ftp) a
> compressed archive to the ones that are just interested in evaluating
> the product.
>
> Of course, as soon as the version 4.0 will be officially released, they
> will have a file to download; however I don't think that the release 4.0
> will be the right version to consider for an evaluation... the trunk is
> the best option and we should encourage people to see it in action.
>
> A simple solution is this: create a weekly or, better (as suggested by
> Jacques), monthly svn snapshot (svn export), then compress it and
> publish it somewhere in a very visible area of the main page of the
> website; we could also provide a link to the "main new features of the
> month" (e.g. http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/-Qs).
>
> What do you think?
>
> Jacopo
>
>
>
>

--
Vũ Hồng Thuận
Công ty Phần mềm và Truyền thông Việt Nam, NAMMEDIA, INC.
Email: [hidden email]
Web: http://www.nammedia.com
ĐT: [phone] - Fax: [phone]
DĐ: [phone]

Vu Hong Thuan
Vietnam Software and Communication Company. NAMMEDIA. INC
Email: [hidden email]
Web: http://www.nammedia.com
Phone: [phone] - Fax: [phone]
Mobile: [phone]

[Jacques Le Roux]

+1

Jacques

De : "Vu Hong Thuan" <[hidden email]>

> I vote for this interesting way. It help to broadcast ofbiz widely.
>
> 2007/10/19, Jacopo Cappellato <[hidden email]>:
> >
> > I've recently got some feedback from different people interested in
> > evaluating OFBiz, plus other interesting comments in these lists
> > (problems downloading by svn when the bandwidth is poor)... it seems
> > that many of they had problems to find an easy way to download OFBiz.
> >
> > I think that we should provide an easy way to download (by ftp) a
> > compressed archive to the ones that are just interested in evaluating
> > the product.
> >
> > Of course, as soon as the version 4.0 will be officially released, they
> > will have a file to download; however I don't think that the release 4.0
> > will be the right version to consider for an evaluation... the trunk is
> > the best option and we should encourage people to see it in action.
> >
> > A simple solution is this: create a weekly or, better (as suggested by
> > Jacques), monthly svn snapshot (svn export), then compress it and
> > publish it somewhere in a very visible area of the main page of the
> > website; we could also provide a link to the "main new features of the
> > month" (e.g. http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/-Qs).
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > Jacopo
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Vũ Hồng Thuận
> Công ty Phần mềm và Truyền thông Việt Nam, NAMMEDIA, INC.
> Email: [hidden email]
> Web: http://www.nammedia.com
> ĐT: [phone] - Fax: [phone]
> DĐ: [phone]
>
> Vu Hong Thuan
> Vietnam Software and Communication Company. NAMMEDIA. INC
> Email: [hidden email]
> Web: http://www.nammedia.com
> Phone: [phone] - Fax: [phone]
> Mobile: [phone]
>

[Adam Heath-2]

Jacopo Cappellato wrote:

> [snip]

> What do you think?

apt-get install ofbiz

We(brainfood) have been doing that locally since february.

[guo weizhan]

+2  :)

2007/10/19, Adam Heath <[hidden email]>:

>
> Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
>
> > [snip]
>
> > What do you think?
>
> apt-get install ofbiz
>
> We(brainfood) have been doing that locally since february.
>

[Jacopo Cappellato]

Adam Heath wrote:
> Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
>
>> [snip]
>
>> What do you think?
>
> apt-get install ofbiz
>
> We(brainfood) have been doing that locally since february.

Interesting idea but... isn't this for Linux only?

Jacopo

[Adam Heath-2]

guo weizhan wrote:

> +2  :)
>
> 2007/10/19, Adam Heath <[hidden email]>:
>> Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
>>
>>> [snip]
>>> What do you think?
>> apt-get install ofbiz
>>
>> We(brainfood) have been doing that locally since february.

To expand on this:  it depends on mysql or postgres.  It uses
dbconfig-common, to prompt for the database to use.  In addition to the
2 above, it also allows you to select derby.  Then it asks for the
username/password(generating the latter randomly if not given).  It
creates a seed data file on the fly, to handle certain parameters that
need to be changed([hidden email], password for the admin accounts, etc).

The only thing it doesn't do is actually do the initial database
creation/installation.  It does print out the cmdline needed to do that;
I just haven't finished the logic to run that only during initial installs.

There is a proper init script, and ofbiz runs as a separate user(I bet
you can guess which).

Files are stored correctly for FHS; /var/log /usr/share /etc.

I'm fairly happy with the packaging, except for the one item listed above.

[Jacques Le Roux]

Not everybody use Debian

Jacques

De : "Adam Heath" <[hidden email]>

> Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
>
> > [snip]
>
> > What do you think?
>
> apt-get install ofbiz
>
> We(brainfood) have been doing that locally since february.
>

[Adam Heath-2]

Jacques Le Roux wrote:
> Not everybody use Debian

This is true; We have use for rpms, as a few of our clients host their
own hardware/software, and they use rpm-based systems.  However, we have
no experience creating rpm packages, so haven't done this.

The debian packaging itself could be used as a basis for other packaging
systems.  I've already committed all the patches I had to do to make it
work in debian.

[Jacques Le Roux]

De : "Adam Heath" <[hidden email]>

> Jacques Le Roux wrote:
> > Not everybody use Debian
>
> This is true; We have use for rpms, as a few of our clients host their
> own hardware/software, and they use rpm-based systems.  However, we have
> no experience creating rpm packages, so haven't done this.
>
> The debian packaging itself could be used as a basis for other packaging
> systems.  I've already committed all the patches I had to do to make it
> work in debian.

This is great and I hope one day we will be able to finalise it !

I was not thinking about rpms only, Windows users exist too...

Jacques

[Vince Clark]

+1 for packaging! Ultimately it is important to support as many platforms as possible, but Debian is a great start.

What OfBiz "version" do you base your packages on? Also, do you assume a particular database, or require one as a package dependency? Does your packaging provide any "smart" setup such as prompting for database username/pw?

Vince Clark
Global Era
The Freedom of Open Source
[hidden email]
[phone]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jacques Le Roux" <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 2:55:42 PM (GMT-0700) America/Denver
Subject: Re: Downloading OFBiz

De : "Adam Heath" <[hidden email]>

> Jacques Le Roux wrote:
> > Not everybody use Debian
>
> This is true; We have use for rpms, as a few of our clients host their
> own hardware/software, and they use rpm-based systems. However, we have
> no experience creating rpm packages, so haven't done this.
>
> The debian packaging itself could be used as a basis for other packaging
> systems. I've already committed all the patches I had to do to make it
> work in debian.

This is great and I hope one day we will be able to finalise it !

I was not thinking about rpms only, Windows users exist too...

Jacques

[Adam Heath-2]

Vince M. Clark wrote:
> +1 for packaging! Ultimately it is important to support as many platforms as possible, but Debian is a great start.
>
> What OfBiz "version" do you base your packages on? Also, do you assume a particular database, or require one as a package dependency? Does your packaging provide any "smart" setup such as prompting for database username/pw?

I've done several upgrades to it.  Started last February.  I'm currently
 mostly tracking against HEAD.  I could produce ones against a release
target if need be.

No, I don't assume any particular database.  The package I built
suggests mysql or postgres(but doesn't depend).  Then, during
installation, I use debconf, combined with dbconfig-common, to configure
the database.  I query which are installed, then ask which you want to
use.  In addition to the two above, I also support configuring derby,
which runs embedded inside ofbiz.

dbconfig-common takes care of prompting for database values; namely,
host/port/dbname/username/password.  I then take that info, and use it
to drive an xslt that modifies entityengine.xml.

I've moved all config/, data/, ofbiz-component.xml, servicedef/,
component-load.xml, controller.xml, web.xml, *.css, ftl templates into
/etc/ofbiz, and they get treated as dpkg conffiles.

Runtime data is moved into /var/lib/ofbiz, and log data into /var/log/ofbiz.

However, as far as the java runtime is concerned, everything looks
normal; I make symlinks to the above from /usr/share/ofbiz.

I compile all java code, but do *not* ship it as part of the package.  I
only ship the jars in build/lib.

I have one main ofbiz package, then an ofbiz-specialpurpose.  I should
probably split out ofbiz-applications, but haven't done so yet.  I don't
want to micro-package, as it makes it more difficult to understand.

The last version I uploaded to our local repository is based on 582338.

[Jacopo Cappellato]

It seems that the original thread has been hijacked by the Linux
enthusiasts :-) so I'm restarting it now from here.

Here is the content of the original message:

I think that we should provide an easy way to download (by ftp) a
compressed archive to the ones that are just interested in evaluating
the product. *Minimal* prerequisites should be necessary to download and
run OFBiz in this way so that users with a low bandwidth connection to
the Internet, and running on a box with Jdk 1.5 installed would be able
to download (possibly in multiple chunks) a compressed archive, unpack
it and run "ant run-install".

Of course, as soon as the version 4.0 will be officially released, they
will have a file to download; however I don't think that the release 4.0
will be the right version to consider for an evaluation... the trunk is
the best option and we should encourage people to see it in action.

A simple solution is this: create a weekly or, better (as suggested by
Jacques), monthly svn snapshot (svn export), then compress it and
publish it somewhere in a very visible area of the main page of the
website; we could also provide a link to the "main new features of the
month" (e.g. http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/-Qs).

What do you think?

Jacopo

[Jacques Le Roux]

Looks like very promising.

Thanks Adam !

Jacques

De : "Adam Heath" <[hidden email]>
> Vince M. Clark wrote:
> > +1 for packaging! Ultimately it is important to support as many platforms as possible, but Debian is a great start.
> >
> > What OfBiz "version" do you base your packages on? Also, do you assume a particular database, or require one as a package
dependency? Does your packaging provide any "smart" setup such as prompting for database username/pw?

>
> I've done several upgrades to it.  Started last February.  I'm currently
>  mostly tracking against HEAD.  I could produce ones against a release
> target if need be.
>
> No, I don't assume any particular database.  The package I built
> suggests mysql or postgres(but doesn't depend).  Then, during
> installation, I use debconf, combined with dbconfig-common, to configure
> the database.  I query which are installed, then ask which you want to
> use.  In addition to the two above, I also support configuring derby,
> which runs embedded inside ofbiz.
>
> dbconfig-common takes care of prompting for database values; namely,
> host/port/dbname/username/password.  I then take that info, and use it
> to drive an xslt that modifies entityengine.xml.
>
> I've moved all config/, data/, ofbiz-component.xml, servicedef/,
> component-load.xml, controller.xml, web.xml, *.css, ftl templates into
> /etc/ofbiz, and they get treated as dpkg conffiles.
>
> Runtime data is moved into /var/lib/ofbiz, and log data into /var/log/ofbiz.
>
> However, as far as the java runtime is concerned, everything looks
> normal; I make symlinks to the above from /usr/share/ofbiz.
>
> I compile all java code, but do *not* ship it as part of the package.  I
> only ship the jars in build/lib.
>
> I have one main ofbiz package, then an ofbiz-specialpurpose.  I should
> probably split out ofbiz-applications, but haven't done so yet.  I don't
> want to micro-package, as it makes it more difficult to understand.
>
> The last version I uploaded to our local repository is based on 582338.
>

[Scott Gray]

Sounds good to me although I'm a bit short on time lately to help out with
it, are there any Apache protocols we need to be aware of?

Scott

On 20/10/2007, Jacopo Cappellato <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> It seems that the original thread has been hijacked by the Linux
> enthusiasts :-) so I'm restarting it now from here.
>
> Here is the content of the original message:
>
> I think that we should provide an easy way to download (by ftp) a
> compressed archive to the ones that are just interested in evaluating
> the product. *Minimal* prerequisites should be necessary to download and
> run OFBiz in this way so that users with a low bandwidth connection to
> the Internet, and running on a box with Jdk 1.5 installed would be able
> to download (possibly in multiple chunks) a compressed archive, unpack
> it and run "ant run-install".
>
> Of course, as soon as the version 4.0 will be officially released, they
> will have a file to download; however I don't think that the release 4.0
> will be the right version to consider for an evaluation... the trunk is
> the best option and we should encourage people to see it in action.
>
> A simple solution is this: create a weekly or, better (as suggested by
> Jacques), monthly svn snapshot (svn export), then compress it and
> publish it somewhere in a very visible area of the main page of the
> website; we could also provide a link to the "main new features of the
> month" (e.g. http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/-Qs).
>
> What do you think?
>
> Jacopo
>
>
>

[David E Jones]

I think there is some ASF infra stuff for periodic automated builds,  
and if we do this we should definitely get something automated setup  
to reduce long term effort required...

-David


On Oct 20, 2007, at 9:06 PM, Scott Gray wrote:

> Sounds good to me although I'm a bit short on time lately to help  
> out with
> it, are there any Apache protocols we need to be aware of?
>
> Scott
>
> On 20/10/2007, Jacopo Cappellato <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> It seems that the original thread has been hijacked by the Linux
>> enthusiasts :-) so I'm restarting it now from here.
>>
>> Here is the content of the original message:
>>
>> I think that we should provide an easy way to download (by ftp) a
>> compressed archive to the ones that are just interested in evaluating
>> the product. *Minimal* prerequisites should be necessary to  
>> download and
>> run OFBiz in this way so that users with a low bandwidth  
>> connection to
>> the Internet, and running on a box with Jdk 1.5 installed would be  
>> able
>> to download (possibly in multiple chunks) a compressed archive,  
>> unpack
>> it and run "ant run-install".
>>
>> Of course, as soon as the version 4.0 will be officially released,  
>> they
>> will have a file to download; however I don't think that the  
>> release 4.0
>> will be the right version to consider for an evaluation... the  
>> trunk is
>> the best option and we should encourage people to see it in action.
>>
>> A simple solution is this: create a weekly or, better (as  
>> suggested by
>> Jacques), monthly svn snapshot (svn export), then compress it and
>> publish it somewhere in a very visible area of the main page of the
>> website; we could also provide a link to the "main new features of  
>> the
>> month" (e.g. http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/-Qs).
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Jacopo
>>
>>
>>

[jonwimp]

Jacques is right.

The best way was already suggested by the creator of this thread. And that is to publish a tarball
of a SVN workspace. Downloaders will need to install SVN, of course.

And when we have time or bandwidth, we can also publish a non-SVN version (generated with svn export).

I think it's nice (as a new OFBiz user) to be guided or prompted to use SVN. Version control
concepts are curiously sorely lacking even among many IT professionals.

Jonathon

Adam Heath wrote:

> Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>> Not everybody use Debian
>
> This is true; We have use for rpms, as a few of our clients host their
> own hardware/software, and they use rpm-based systems.  However, we have
> no experience creating rpm packages, so haven't done this.
>
> The debian packaging itself could be used as a basis for other packaging
> systems.  I've already committed all the patches I had to do to make it
> work in debian.
>
>

[Jacopo Cappellato]

Hi Jonathon,

Jonathon -- Improov wrote:
> Jacques is right.
>
> The best way was already suggested by the creator of this thread. And
> that is to publish a tarball of a SVN workspace. Downloaders will need
> to install SVN, of course.
>

I'm not sure if the 'tarball' of a complete svn workspace (i.e. "svn
checkout" instead of "svn export") is good idea, at least as the primary
download file:

1) the file is bigger
2) in the past, I had some problems in extracting big files (i.e. an
Opentaps tarball) containing svn folders: the process was really very
slow (the number of files to extract is huge when you include svn
folders); this was probably caused by a bad unzip software (or bad
hardware) but we should consider this

Jacopo

> And when we have time or bandwidth, we can also publish a non-SVN
> version (generated with svn export).
>
> I think it's nice (as a new OFBiz user) to be guided or prompted to use
> SVN. Version control concepts are curiously sorely lacking even among
> many IT professionals.
>
> Jonathon
>
> Adam Heath wrote:
>> Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>>> Not everybody use Debian
>>
>> This is true; We have use for rpms, as a few of our clients host their
>> own hardware/software, and they use rpm-based systems.  However, we have
>> no experience creating rpm packages, so haven't done this.
>>
>> The debian packaging itself could be used as a basis for other packaging
>> systems.  I've already committed all the patches I had to do to make it
>> work in debian.
>>
>>

[Jacques Le Roux]

Why not both ? They have different goals. We may recommend good open source free tools. On Windows I would recommend 7-zip !

Jacques

De : "Jacopo Cappellato" <[hidden email]>

> Hi Jonathon,
>
> Jonathon -- Improov wrote:
> > Jacques is right.
> >
> > The best way was already suggested by the creator of this thread. And
> > that is to publish a tarball of a SVN workspace. Downloaders will need
> > to install SVN, of course.
> >
>
> I'm not sure if the 'tarball' of a complete svn workspace (i.e. "svn
> checkout" instead of "svn export") is good idea, at least as the primary
> download file:
>
> 1) the file is bigger
> 2) in the past, I had some problems in extracting big files (i.e. an
> Opentaps tarball) containing svn folders: the process was really very
> slow (the number of files to extract is huge when you include svn
> folders); this was probably caused by a bad unzip software (or bad
> hardware) but we should consider this
>
> Jacopo
>
> > And when we have time or bandwidth, we can also publish a non-SVN
> > version (generated with svn export).
> >
> > I think it's nice (as a new OFBiz user) to be guided or prompted to use
> > SVN. Version control concepts are curiously sorely lacking even among
> > many IT professionals.
> >
> > Jonathon
> >
> > Adam Heath wrote:
> >> Jacques Le Roux wrote:
> >>> Not everybody use Debian
> >>
> >> This is true; We have use for rpms, as a few of our clients host their
> >> own hardware/software, and they use rpm-based systems.  However, we have
> >> no experience creating rpm packages, so haven't done this.
> >>
> >> The debian packaging itself could be used as a basis for other packaging
> >> systems.  I've already committed all the patches I had to do to make it
> >> work in debian.
> >>
> >>
>
>

[jonwimp]

Having both will be good.

The SVN workspace download is for those who want to easily upgrade/update in future. This is
needed even by newbies who may need to conveniently pull in critical updates, esp if they're
playing with trunk.

The non-SVN download (generated by svn export) is for those who do not intend to do any
incremental updates in future. That means they'll have to re-download a whole bunch for future
versions.

Jonathon

Jacques Le Roux wrote:

> Why not both ? They have different goals. We may recommend good open source free tools. On Windows I would recommend 7-zip !
>
> Jacques
>
> De : "Jacopo Cappellato" <[hidden email]>
>
>> Hi Jonathon,
>>
>> Jonathon -- Improov wrote:
>>> Jacques is right.
>>>
>>> The best way was already suggested by the creator of this thread. And
>>> that is to publish a tarball of a SVN workspace. Downloaders will need
>>> to install SVN, of course.
>>>
>> I'm not sure if the 'tarball' of a complete svn workspace (i.e. "svn
>> checkout" instead of "svn export") is good idea, at least as the primary
>> download file:
>>
>> 1) the file is bigger
>> 2) in the past, I had some problems in extracting big files (i.e. an
>> Opentaps tarball) containing svn folders: the process was really very
>> slow (the number of files to extract is huge when you include svn
>> folders); this was probably caused by a bad unzip software (or bad
>> hardware) but we should consider this
>>
>> Jacopo
>>
>>> And when we have time or bandwidth, we can also publish a non-SVN
>>> version (generated with svn export).
>>>
>>> I think it's nice (as a new OFBiz user) to be guided or prompted to use
>>> SVN. Version control concepts are curiously sorely lacking even among
>>> many IT professionals.
>>>
>>> Jonathon
>>>
>>> Adam Heath wrote:
>>>> Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>>>>> Not everybody use Debian
>>>> This is true; We have use for rpms, as a few of our clients host their
>>>> own hardware/software, and they use rpm-based systems.  However, we have
>>>> no experience creating rpm packages, so haven't done this.
>>>>
>>>> The debian packaging itself could be used as a basis for other packaging
>>>> systems.  I've already committed all the patches I had to do to make it
>>>> work in debian.
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
>