OFBiz Extensions Marketplace (OEM) - progress

[Pierre Smits]

Hi all,

While the development of the OEM is moving forward at a steady pace, I am
pleased to be able to provide a sneak peek into the preliminary website.
Please visit http://oem.ofbizci.net for a impression.

Please be advised that it is still work in progress and that the actual
theme and user experience might be subject to change.

Best regards,

Pierre Smits

*OFBiz Extensions Marketplace*
http://oem.ofbizci.net

[Pierre Smits]

The correct url for a sneak peek into the OFBiz Extensions Marketplace is
http://oem.ofbizci.net/oci-2

Best regards,

Pierre Smits

*OFBiz Extensions Marketplace*
http://oem.ofbizci.net

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 10:24 AM, Pierre Smits <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> While the development of the OEM is moving forward at a steady pace, I am
> pleased to be able to provide a sneak peek into the preliminary website.
> Please visit http://oem.ofbizci.net for a impression.
>
> Please be advised that it is still work in progress and that the actual
> theme and user experience might be subject to change.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Pierre Smits
>
> *OFBiz Extensions Marketplace*
> http://oem.ofbizci.net
>

[Michael Brohl-3]

Hi Pierre,

I very much like the idea of a community driven marketing initiative and
I appreciate your efforts on this. It could be a great opportunity for
the community members to present their skills and solutions and show the
users what's possible to do with OFBiz outside the standard funtionality.

As you might be aware, there was another initiative by Hans with a
similar approach, see http://ofbiz.info . As far as I see, this approach
never gained significant success and it seems dead for a few years now
(at least the latest news is from 2012).

My theory is, and I might be totally wrong with it, that this is caused
by the fact that the platform is in the hands of a single company and
primarily used to promote this company itself. This seems to be the plan
of your approach also, your companies and trademarks are placed
prominently at the starting page, using adserver links etc..

I think this approach goes in the wrong direction and won't get enough
acceptance and support by the community to be successful.

 From my perspective, the right approach would be to develop and host
such a site in the hands of the community, just like the OFBiz official
website and demo sites. It should be a neutral place where every
contributor and service provider has the same space to present his
services and solutions. It must be assured that the platform is
supported over a long time and that the community can decide which way
to go with it.

I think the risk to have it in the hands of a single person or company
is too high to spent significant time and effort in it.

This is just my thought of the current state of the initiative and maybe
I misunderstood the approach. My apologies if that's the case.

Maybe I'm right and you think over the approach. Any thoughts of you and
the other community members are very welcome, I'm curious what you think.

Kind regards,

Michael Brohl
ecomify GmbH
www.ecomify.de

Am 13.09.15 um 10:28 schrieb Pierre Smits:

> The correct url for a sneak peek into the OFBiz Extensions Marketplace is
> http://oem.ofbizci.net/oci-2
>
> Best regards,
>
> Pierre Smits
>
> *OFBiz Extensions Marketplace*
> http://oem.ofbizci.net
>
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 10:24 AM, Pierre Smits <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> While the development of the OEM is moving forward at a steady pace, I am
>> pleased to be able to provide a sneak peek into the preliminary website.
>> Please visit http://oem.ofbizci.net for a impression.
>>
>> Please be advised that it is still work in progress and that the actual
>> theme and user experience might be subject to change.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Pierre Smits
>>
>> *OFBiz Extensions Marketplace*
>> http://oem.ofbizci.net
>>

[Gil Portenseigne]

Hi Pierre, hi all,

I agree with Micheal opinion, since there was some others initiative
about this kind of proposal (thinking about OFBiz-extra and OFBiz-france
association proposals), none found enough adoption into the community to
get it work (yet). So each had to work on its own creating its solutions
(these add to Hans' one)

I'm convinced that an official Apache referencing website is the best
way to do. Apache referencing has more value (and objectivity) than any
external owning referencing tool but in that case, there must be some
control about the references into the "marketplace" (don't like this
word, I prefer "extension library"). Indeed, extension have to be tested
and validated by the community to make the marketplace an Apache one...
I guess there are quality/licensing/other responsibilities for
extensions released under Apache OFBiz name.

So, in my opinion, there is some work to do before creating such a
marketplace under Apache OFBiz name, writing some rules about extensions
validations (using incubator to validation process), requirement... And
moreover. This kind of work have already been done in OFbiz-france
association... If this can be levered to the Apache level, it could be
great...

It seems that more and more people are interested in this kind of
solution, i wonder if it's possible to manage such a project ? WDYT ?

I'm thinking that doing a survey about this idea to get what kind of
adoption there is around it could be a good start.

And for examples of implementation : OFBiz-france has worked on a POC
and there you can see list of extensions and details of one :
  http://www.nomaka.fr/ofbiz/liste.html
  http://www.nomaka.fr/ofbiz/index.html

And for info all of this is designed like in the OFBiz-france website
(created with OFBiz CMS :o) ).
  http://www.ofbiz-fr.org

I'm curious to have many thoughts about this subject.

Best Regards,

Gil

On 13/09/2015 12:54, Michael Brohl wrote:

> Hi Pierre,
>
> I very much like the idea of a community driven marketing initiative
> and I appreciate your efforts on this. It could be a great opportunity
> for the community members to present their skills and solutions and
> show the users what's possible to do with OFBiz outside the standard
> funtionality.
>
> As you might be aware, there was another initiative by Hans with a
> similar approach, see http://ofbiz.info . As far as I see, this
> approach never gained significant success and it seems dead for a few
> years now (at least the latest news is from 2012).
>
> My theory is, and I might be totally wrong with it, that this is
> caused by the fact that the platform is in the hands of a single
> company and primarily used to promote this company itself. This seems
> to be the plan of your approach also, your companies and trademarks
> are placed prominently at the starting page, using adserver links etc..
>
> I think this approach goes in the wrong direction and won't get enough
> acceptance and support by the community to be successful.
>
> From my perspective, the right approach would be to develop and host
> such a site in the hands of the community, just like the OFBiz
> official website and demo sites. It should be a neutral place where
> every contributor and service provider has the same space to present
> his services and solutions. It must be assured that the platform is
> supported over a long time and that the community can decide which way
> to go with it.
>
> I think the risk to have it in the hands of a single person or company
> is too high to spent significant time and effort in it.
>
> This is just my thought of the current state of the initiative and
> maybe I misunderstood the approach. My apologies if that's the case.
>
> Maybe I'm right and you think over the approach. Any thoughts of you
> and the other community members are very welcome, I'm curious what you
> think.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Michael Brohl
> ecomify GmbH
> www.ecomify.de
>
> Am 13.09.15 um 10:28 schrieb Pierre Smits:
>> The correct url for a sneak peek into the OFBiz Extensions
>> Marketplace is
>> http://oem.ofbizci.net/oci-2
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Pierre Smits
>>
>> *OFBiz Extensions Marketplace*
>> http://oem.ofbizci.net
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 10:24 AM, Pierre Smits <[hidden email]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> While the development of the OEM is moving forward at a steady pace,
>>> I am
>>> pleased to be able to provide a sneak peek into the preliminary
>>> website.
>>> Please visit http://oem.ofbizci.net for a impression.
>>>
>>> Please be advised that it is still work in progress and that the actual
>>> theme and user experience might be subject to change.
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> Pierre Smits
>>>
>>> *OFBiz Extensions Marketplace*
>>> http://oem.ofbizci.net
>>>
>
>

[Jacques Le Roux]

I tend to agree with Gil and Michael. They did a good work to explain their opinions so I'll not add mine. I just wanted to say that the 1st tentative
was done by Ruth long ago and like all the others it finally failed due to the lack of users interest. Of course another point in doing such endeavour
is marketing, I believe on this part Ruth succeeded, her books having helped certainly more. Her platform was more to sold her books than offering 3rd
parties solutions, but not only, Sharan collaborated with her for instance.

I also believe only a community driven version can be sustainable. Now I'm not sure the community will be able build something like Hans's,
OFBiz-France's and Pierre's solutions. So we might ask ourselves how to maybe mix these experiences and UIs in one and consistent shared solution,
backed by infra at the ASF (we could use the OFBIZ-VM for that).

My 2 cts

Jacques

Le 13/09/2015 17:35, Gil portenseigne a écrit :

> Hi Pierre, hi all,
>
> I agree with Micheal opinion, since there was some others initiative about this kind of proposal (thinking about OFBiz-extra and OFBiz-france
> association proposals), none found enough adoption into the community to get it work (yet). So each had to work on its own creating its solutions
> (these add to Hans' one)
>
> I'm convinced that an official Apache referencing website is the best way to do. Apache referencing has more value (and objectivity) than any
> external owning referencing tool but in that case, there must be some control about the references into the "marketplace" (don't like this word, I
> prefer "extension library"). Indeed, extension have to be tested and validated by the community to make the marketplace an Apache one... I guess
> there are quality/licensing/other responsibilities for extensions released under Apache OFBiz name.
>
> So, in my opinion, there is some work to do before creating such a marketplace under Apache OFBiz name, writing some rules about extensions
> validations (using incubator to validation process), requirement... And moreover. This kind of work have already been done in OFbiz-france
> association... If this can be levered to the Apache level, it could be great...
>
> It seems that more and more people are interested in this kind of solution, i wonder if it's possible to manage such a project ? WDYT ?
>
> I'm thinking that doing a survey about this idea to get what kind of adoption there is around it could be a good start.
>
> And for examples of implementation : OFBiz-france has worked on a POC and there you can see list of extensions and details of one :
>  http://www.nomaka.fr/ofbiz/liste.html
>  http://www.nomaka.fr/ofbiz/index.html
>
> And for info all of this is designed like in the OFBiz-france website (created with OFBiz CMS :o) ).
>  http://www.ofbiz-fr.org
>
> I'm curious to have many thoughts about this subject.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Gil
>
> On 13/09/2015 12:54, Michael Brohl wrote:
>> Hi Pierre,
>>
>> I very much like the idea of a community driven marketing initiative and I appreciate your efforts on this. It could be a great opportunity for the
>> community members to present their skills and solutions and show the users what's possible to do with OFBiz outside the standard funtionality.
>>
>> As you might be aware, there was another initiative by Hans with a similar approach, see http://ofbiz.info . As far as I see, this approach never
>> gained significant success and it seems dead for a few years now (at least the latest news is from 2012).
>>
>> My theory is, and I might be totally wrong with it, that this is caused by the fact that the platform is in the hands of a single company and
>> primarily used to promote this company itself. This seems to be the plan of your approach also, your companies and trademarks are placed
>> prominently at the starting page, using adserver links etc..
>>
>> I think this approach goes in the wrong direction and won't get enough acceptance and support by the community to be successful.
>>
>> From my perspective, the right approach would be to develop and host such a site in the hands of the community, just like the OFBiz official
>> website and demo sites. It should be a neutral place where every contributor and service provider has the same space to present his services and
>> solutions. It must be assured that the platform is supported over a long time and that the community can decide which way to go with it.
>>
>> I think the risk to have it in the hands of a single person or company is too high to spent significant time and effort in it.
>>
>> This is just my thought of the current state of the initiative and maybe I misunderstood the approach. My apologies if that's the case.
>>
>> Maybe I'm right and you think over the approach. Any thoughts of you and the other community members are very welcome, I'm curious what you think.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Michael Brohl
>> ecomify GmbH
>> www.ecomify.de
>>
>> Am 13.09.15 um 10:28 schrieb Pierre Smits:
>>> The correct url for a sneak peek into the OFBiz Extensions Marketplace is
>>> http://oem.ofbizci.net/oci-2
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> Pierre Smits
>>>
>>> *OFBiz Extensions Marketplace*
>>> http://oem.ofbizci.net
>>>
>>> On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 10:24 AM, Pierre Smits <[hidden email]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> While the development of the OEM is moving forward at a steady pace, I am
>>>> pleased to be able to provide a sneak peek into the preliminary website.
>>>> Please visit http://oem.ofbizci.net for a impression.
>>>>
>>>> Please be advised that it is still work in progress and that the actual
>>>> theme and user experience might be subject to change.
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>>
>>>> Pierre Smits
>>>>
>>>> *OFBiz Extensions Marketplace*
>>>> http://oem.ofbizci.net
>>>>
>>
>>
>
>

[Sharan-F]

I think that we will always need to find a balance between marketing OFBiz and marketing specific Service Providers and a community driven effort to me would be independent.

I agree too and think it would be really great if we could do something like this as a community under the Apache banner and infrastructure. I’m sure it would take a lot of work and organisation but the end result could be really good for the project (and the community too!).

As well as learning from people in the community that have already tried to establish something like this themselves, perhaps we could also find out information from other Apache projects (e.g Maven, Cordova, OpenOffice) that have gone through this stage of offering addons and 3rd party solutions and are successfully managing it.

Thanks
Sharan

[Ron Wheeler]

I was wondering about how commercial can an Apache site be?
Will it be acceptable to create/host marketing materials at Apache for
individual companies that are selling the extensions or services?


I looked at OpenOffice since they have an extensions library but did not
see anything for sale. All the extensions seem to be free.
It is on http://extensions.openoffice.org/
  Some of their extension include a note which might be useful:

*Disclaimers*:

  * Apache, Apache OpenOffice and OpenOffice.org are trademarks of The
    Apache Software Foundation. Other names may be trademarks of their
    respective owners.
  * This project is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Apache
    Software Foundation nor the Apache OpenOffice project in any way.

- See more at:
http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/node/17351#sthash.Pi4Jz3bc.dpuf
<quote>
Disclaimers:

     Apache, Apache OpenOffice and OpenOffice.org are trademarks of The
Apache Software Foundation. Other names may be trademarks of their
respective owners.
     This project is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Apache
Software Foundation nor the Apache OpenOffice project in any way.

*Disclaimers*:

  * Apache, Apache OpenOffice and OpenOffice.org are trademarks of The
    Apache Software Foundation. Other names may be trademarks of their
    respective owners.
  * This project is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Apache
    Software Foundation nor the Apache OpenOffice project in any way.

- See more at:
http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/node/17351#sthash.Pi4Jz3bc.dpuf

*Disclaimers*:

  * Apache, Apache OpenOffice and OpenOffice.org are trademarks of The
    Apache Software Foundation. Other names may be trademarks of their
    respective owners.
  * This project is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Apache
    Software Foundation nor the Apache OpenOffice project in any way.

- See more at:
http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/node/17351#sthash.Pi4Jz3bc.dpuf
</quote>

https://directory.apache.org/commercial-support.html does have a a
single commercial entry and some policy statements that might be helpful

<quote>
Several companies have built products and services around the Apache
Directory™ project. This page is dedicated to providing descriptions of
those offerings and links to more information. Companies are definitely
encouraged to update this page directly or send a mail to the Apache
Directory™ PMC ([hidden email]
<mailto:[hidden email]>) with a description of their
offerings and we can update the page. The products and services listed
on this page are provided for information use only to our users. The
Apache Directory™ PMC does not endorse or recommend any of the products
or services on this page. See below for information about what is
appropriate to add to the page.

Policy for additions to this page

Companies are free to add information about their products and services
to this page. The information must be factual and informational in
nature and not be a marketing statement. Statements that promote your
products and services over other offerings on the page will not be
tolerated and will be removed. Such marketing statements can be added to
your own pages on your own site, but not here.

When in doubt, email the Apache Directory™ PMC
([hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>) and
ask. We'd be happy to help.

</quote>

I hope that this helps the discussion.

Ron

On 17/09/2015 3:57 AM, Sharan-F wrote:

> I think that we will always need to find a balance between marketing OFBiz
> and marketing specific Service Providers and a community driven effort to me
> would be independent.
>
> I agree too and think it would be really great if we could do something like
> this as a community under the Apache banner and infrastructure. I’m sure it
> would take a lot of work and organisation but the end result could be really
> good for the project (and the community too!).
>
> As well as learning from people in the community that have already tried to
> establish something like this themselves, perhaps we could also find out
> information from other Apache projects (e.g Maven, Cordova, OpenOffice) that
> have gone through this stage of offering addons and 3rd party solutions and
> are successfully managing it.
>
> Thanks
> Sharan
>
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://ofbiz.135035.n4.nabble.com/OFBiz-Extensions-Marketplace-OEM-progress-tp4672024p4672100.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>

--
Ron Wheeler
President
Artifact Software Inc
email: [hidden email]
skype: ronaldmwheeler
phone: [phone], ext 102