Linux World podcast

[Ean Schuessler]

I spent a lot of time pimping OFBiz in the podcast I did with Don Marti of
Linux World. Give it a listen and tell me what you think:

http://www.linuxworld.com/podcasts/linux/ean_schuessler_on_apache_open.html

--
Ean Schuessler, CTO
[hidden email]
214-720-0700 x 315
Brainfood, Inc.
http://www.brainfood.com

[David E Jones-2]

Ean,

I finally listened to this today as I was driving.

In general this was a great interview, hopefully we'll have some new  
johns interested in the project... ;)

One little correction about the history: there wasn't actually a  
company that initially funded OFBiz. It is true that I was involved  
in a couple of companies that failed and that were trying to do  
similar things to what OFBiz offered, but it was only after they went  
belly-up that I got OFBiz going. So, basically Andy and I worked on  
this as we could for about a year, then tried both working for a  
company that wanted to invest in OFBiz and become a premier service  
provider but that company was not well run so Andy and I jumped ship  
after about 6 months there, and that is when we were able to start  
doing consulting full time based on OFBiz. So, it took about 18  
months to get OFBiz to the point where were could do consulting full  
time based on it.

-David


On Dec 4, 2006, at 12:09 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote:

> I spent a lot of time pimping OFBiz in the podcast I did with Don  
> Marti of
> Linux World. Give it a listen and tell me what you think:
>
> http://www.linuxworld.com/podcasts/linux/ 
> ean_schuessler_on_apache_open.html
>
> --
> Ean Schuessler, CTO
> [hidden email]
> 214-720-0700 x 315
> Brainfood, Inc.
> http://www.brainfood.com

[Ean Schuessler]

On Thursday 07 December 2006 23:08, David E Jones wrote:

> I finally listened to this today as I was driving.
>
> In general this was a great interview, hopefully we'll have some new
> johns interested in the project... ;)
>
> One little correction about the history: there wasn't actually a
> company that initially funded OFBiz. It is true that I was involved
> in a couple of companies that failed and that were trying to do
> similar things to what OFBiz offered, but it was only after they went
> belly-up that I got OFBiz going. So, basically Andy and I worked on
> this as we could for about a year, then tried both working for a
> company that wanted to invest in OFBiz and become a premier service
> provider but that company was not well run so Andy and I jumped ship
> after about 6 months there, and that is when we were able to start
> doing consulting full time based on OFBiz. So, it took about 18
> months to get OFBiz to the point where were could do consulting full
> time based on it.

Whoops! My mistake. I'll make sure to correct it in the future.

I thought the system had its roots in a homebuilding startup or something. I
knew Partner Homes had done some work with the system but I thought there had
been a business that existed before that. It has been some time since I was
out in Utah.

Am I completely inventing the idea that OFBiz didn't start as an Open Source
project? I thought it was originally proprietary.

--
Ean Schuessler, CTO
[hidden email]
214-720-0700 x 315
Brainfood, Inc.
http://www.brainfood.com

[David E Jones-2]

On Dec 11, 2006, at 10:32 AM, Ean Schuessler wrote:

> On Thursday 07 December 2006 23:08, David E Jones wrote:
>> I finally listened to this today as I was driving.
>>
>> In general this was a great interview, hopefully we'll have some new
>> johns interested in the project... ;)
>>
>> One little correction about the history: there wasn't actually a
>> company that initially funded OFBiz. It is true that I was involved
>> in a couple of companies that failed and that were trying to do
>> similar things to what OFBiz offered, but it was only after they went
>> belly-up that I got OFBiz going. So, basically Andy and I worked on
>> this as we could for about a year, then tried both working for a
>> company that wanted to invest in OFBiz and become a premier service
>> provider but that company was not well run so Andy and I jumped ship
>> after about 6 months there, and that is when we were able to start
>> doing consulting full time based on OFBiz. So, it took about 18
>> months to get OFBiz to the point where were could do consulting full
>> time based on it.
>
> Whoops! My mistake. I'll make sure to correct it in the future.
>
> I thought the system had its roots in a homebuilding startup or  
> something. I
> knew Partner Homes had done some work with the system but I thought  
> there had
> been a business that existed before that. It has been some time  
> since I was
> out in Utah.
>
> Am I completely inventing the idea that OFBiz didn't start as an  
> Open Source
> project? I thought it was originally proprietary.

Actually, yes, it did start out from line 1 as an open source project  
and never was a proprietary effort that turned open source.

If forgot that you're aware of more of the history of OFBiz from the  
Stephen Loosli side of things. Stephen was the CEO of the company I  
worked for just before starting OFBiz and it was when they ran out of  
money that I decided if I was going to work for free, it might as  
well be on an open source project. There was a bunch of stuff  
developed in that company, but using it as a basis for an open source  
project wasn't an option because other owners of the company wanted  
to (and did) derive some profit from it to recover some of their  
investment. They actually sort of open sourced that at one point, but  
with a dual license model for marketing reasons, not to create a real  
community project around it.

So basically OFBiz was an independent effort from the beginning. It  
was never owned or sponsored by any company, except the various  
contributors over time who never had any "ownership" of it, but  
rather just participated in the community. This is even true of  
Undersun Consulting which sponsored (along with Contegix) some of the  
infrastructure for OFBiz: it never owned any of OFBiz. In the  
beginning in 2001 it was just Andy and I running up our phone bills  
and working on a few paid projects here and there where we tried to  
get our clients to use OFBiz. There were certainly lots of places we  
got ideas, and The Data Model Resource Books were a big part of that,  
but the code was "community driven" open source from day and line 1.

-David