OFBiz competing interests

[Ruth Hoffman-2]

Hi All:
As I sit back here and read the many an various opinions about the
current state and future of OFBiz, I have to say I really appreciate
everyone taking the time to voice an opinion. Maybe David will take this
to heart and factor all this into his OFBiz lite project.

Concerning competing interests, I didn't intend that comment in a "mean"
way. I think it is good that there is so much interest in OFBiz.
Naturally with a project as multi-faceted as this, there will be various
special interests that evolve. I think that is a good thing. Perhaps a
better way to say this is that I would like to see, and I think several
others on the list have expressed a special interest in, taking the
OFBiz framework (and what exactly is included in the framework should be
discussed) and making it a separate "something" - so that it can get all
the care and attention it deserves.

I don't know what that "something" is. Someone with more experience
working in this type of development environment could help with that
definition. A goal similar to the Eclipse plug and play model sounds
really attractive to me. How to get there? I don't know.

Regards,
Ruth

[Jacopo Cappellato-4]

Hi Ruth,

On Nov 13, 2009, at 4:35 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:

> Hi All:
> As I sit back here and read the many an various opinions about the current state and future of OFBiz, I have to say I really appreciate everyone taking the time to voice an opinion. Maybe David will take this to heart and factor all this into his OFBiz lite project.
>
> Concerning competing interests, I didn't intend that comment in a "mean" way. I think it is good that there is so much interest in OFBiz. Naturally with a project as multi-faceted as this, there will be various special interests that evolve. I think that is a good thing. Perhaps a better way to say this is that I would like to see, and I think several others on the list have expressed a special interest in, taking the OFBiz framework (and what exactly is included in the framework should be discussed) and making it a separate "something" - so that it can get all the care and attention it deserves.
>

This has been already discussed in the past and the general consensus was that:
1) the framework should be able to stand without applications, i.e. the framework should NOT depend on the applications; a lot of work went into this direction and now you can build a framework only version of OFBiz; however the work is still not complete, and we need help on this, especially in these areas:
* user (not party) management and permission management screen should be moved out of the partymanager application into the Webtools (or a separate framework level application): in this way, even with a framework only distribution, you will have a UI to manage your users
* product images etc... should be loaded outside of it (in the runtime folder?); no write operation should happen at runtime in the framework folder, ideally
2) the code in the framework is more stable and we could manage for it a separate (from the application) release plan, within the OFBiz community

Jacopo

> I don't know what that "something" is. Someone with more experience working in this type of development environment could help with that definition. A goal similar to the Eclipse plug and play model sounds really attractive to me. How to get there? I don't know.
>
> Regards,
> Ruth

[Bruno Busco]

I shared my idea about the framework-only project here:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-2129?focusedCommentId=12767111&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#action_12767111

As Jacopo pointed out the party component is probably the first
component to review to separate the framework.

.Bruno

2009/11/13 Jacopo Cappellato <[hidden email]>:

> Hi Ruth,
>
> On Nov 13, 2009, at 4:35 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
>
>> Hi All:
>> As I sit back here and read the many an various opinions about the current state and future of OFBiz, I have to say I really appreciate everyone taking the time to voice an opinion. Maybe David will take this to heart and factor all this into his OFBiz lite project.
>>
>> Concerning competing interests, I didn't intend that comment in a "mean" way. I think it is good that there is so much interest in OFBiz. Naturally with a project as multi-faceted as this, there will be various special interests that evolve. I think that is a good thing. Perhaps a better way to say this is that I would like to see, and I think several others on the list have expressed a special interest in, taking the OFBiz framework (and what exactly is included in the framework should be discussed) and making it a separate "something" - so that it can get all the care and attention it deserves.
>>
>
> This has been already discussed in the past and the general consensus was that:
> 1) the framework should be able to stand without applications, i.e. the framework should NOT depend on the applications; a lot of work went into this direction and now you can build a framework only version of OFBiz; however the work is still not complete, and we need help on this, especially in these areas:
> * user (not party) management and permission management screen should be moved out of the partymanager application into the Webtools (or a separate framework level application): in this way, even with a framework only distribution, you will have a UI to manage your users
> * product images etc... should be loaded outside of it (in the runtime folder?); no write operation should happen at runtime in the framework folder, ideally
> 2) the code in the framework is more stable and we could manage for it a separate (from the application) release plan, within the OFBiz community
>
> Jacopo
>
>> I don't know what that "something" is. Someone with more experience working in this type of development environment could help with that definition. A goal similar to the Eclipse plug and play model sounds really attractive to me. How to get there? I don't know.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Ruth
>
>

[Jacques Le Roux]

Now we talk...

Jacques

From: "Bruno Busco" <[hidden email]>

>I shared my idea about the framework-only project here:
> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-2129?focusedCommentId=12767111&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#action_12767111
>
> As Jacopo pointed out the party component is probably the first
> component to review to separate the framework.
>
> .Bruno
>
> 2009/11/13 Jacopo Cappellato <[hidden email]>:
>> Hi Ruth,
>>
>> On Nov 13, 2009, at 4:35 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All:
>>> As I sit back here and read the many an various opinions about the current state and future of OFBiz, I have to say I really
>>> appreciate everyone taking the time to voice an opinion. Maybe David will take this to heart and factor all this into his OFBiz
>>> lite project.
>>>
>>> Concerning competing interests, I didn't intend that comment in a "mean" way. I think it is good that there is so much interest
>>> in OFBiz. Naturally with a project as multi-faceted as this, there will be various special interests that evolve. I think that
>>> is a good thing. Perhaps a better way to say this is that I would like to see, and I think several others on the list have
>>> expressed a special interest in, taking the OFBiz framework (and what exactly is included in the framework should be discussed)
>>> and making it a separate "something" - so that it can get all the care and attention it deserves.
>>>
>>
>> This has been already discussed in the past and the general consensus was that:
>> 1) the framework should be able to stand without applications, i.e. the framework should NOT depend on the applications; a lot of
>> work went into this direction and now you can build a framework only version of OFBiz; however the work is still not complete,
>> and we need help on this, especially in these areas:
>> * user (not party) management and permission management screen should be moved out of the partymanager application into the
>> Webtools (or a separate framework level application): in this way, even with a framework only distribution, you will have a UI to
>> manage your users
>> * product images etc... should be loaded outside of it (in the runtime folder?); no write operation should happen at runtime in
>> the framework folder, ideally
>> 2) the code in the framework is more stable and we could manage for it a separate (from the application) release plan, within the
>> OFBiz community
>>
>> Jacopo
>>
>>> I don't know what that "something" is. Someone with more experience working in this type of development environment could help
>>> with that definition. A goal similar to the Eclipse plug and play model sounds really attractive to me. How to get there? I
>>> don't know.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Ruth
>>
>>
>

[David E. Jones-2]

On Nov 13, 2009, at 8:35 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:

> Hi All:
> As I sit back here and read the many an various opinions about the  
> current state and future of OFBiz, I have to say I really appreciate  
> everyone taking the time to voice an opinion. Maybe David will take  
> this to heart and factor all this into his OFBiz lite project.

I haven't read that entire thread yet... saving for a nice evening to  
enjoy by the fire... if only I had a fireplace... hopefully it'll be  
entertaining enough without.

In any case, I think you're referring to the EZBiz effort, and for  
that effort I hope others will get involved or at least speak up if  
they want it to be a certain way. Now is the time to do so as the  
design is still young and no implementation has started.

> Concerning competing interests, I didn't intend that comment in a  
> "mean" way. I think it is good that there is so much interest in  
> OFBiz. Naturally with a project as multi-faceted as this, there will  
> be various special interests that evolve. I think that is a good  
> thing.

Competing interests are a good thing. Some might complain that their  
interests are not adequately represented in the project. If that is  
the case then it means they have not contributed enough for their  
interests to be represented, which implies that the benefit they do  
get from the project is thanks to those with differing interests, and  
gratitude is in order.

> Perhaps a better way to say this is that I would like to see, and I  
> think several others on the list have expressed a special interest  
> in, taking the OFBiz framework (and what exactly is included in the  
> framework should be discussed) and making it a separate "something"  
> - so that it can get all the care and attention it deserves.
>
> I don't know what that "something" is. Someone with more experience  
> working in this type of development environment could help with that  
> definition. A goal similar to the Eclipse plug and play model sounds  
> really attractive to me. How to get there? I don't know.

As Jacopo commented this has been discussed many times over the years,  
and the framework can be used pretty independently right now (I know  
there are a few groups who are doing just that).

We could fairly easily do a framework-only build like we do with the  
trunk, release09.04, and release4.0 builds on http://build.ofbiz.org/.

To make it truly separate we would want to have it live in a separate  
place in SVN, and only include binaries plus scripts/config/etc in the  
OFBiz applications project. That step would require a significant  
amount of additional work and inconvenience, and frankly I don't think  
we have sufficient interest in investing in that sort of thing to make  
it happen without making things more difficult and cumbersome for  
current users and contributors who are not so interested in that  
happening.

Just my $0.02, which with inflation would be about $0.00091 in  
original US dollars (using gold as an inflation marker since those  
responsible for US inflation won't give us the real number...), and  
take it while you can since the value my of 2 cents is going down  
fairly quickly! ;)

-David