Question about add-ons

[ScottA]

Hi All,

I was just thinking out loud and I thought I’d post it to the community and see what you guys thought.

Has the community ever considered and "App Store" type of approach to customizations? What I mean by this is taking pieces\modules that you’ve developed but not given back to the core project for whatever reason (be it not practical for the core or just not worth the time to maintain) and packaging it for sale. It might also encourage more committers over time.

The way I could see it happening is that a contributor take a module they’ve created and attach two prices to it. First price being a restrictive license approach and the second and more expensive approach being a Apache license version that allows it to be added to the purchasers installation or back to the project if the project wishes it to be included It could even be placed in a separate place where future users could browse and add it if they had a need. I think this type of approach could also benefit the Dev's in allowing them to a second stream of revenue in purchase, installation and support if not a part of the main project.

Like I said, I was just thinking out loud and thought I'd ask. I don’t know if it’s possible or not but it might be interesting to actually create a marketplace for add-ons that does not exist elsewhere as far as I know.

Cheers.

[BJ Freeman]

one opinion when discussed in other venues is that the continued support
 of the module.
we have many in the special purpose the have not been keep up or tested
against the continued advancement of the trunk.
Maybe modules that have been tested and are for a particular release
then and update to a new release when they happen would eliminate this.
So for now modules for ver4.0 and 9.04.

=========================
BJ Freeman
http://bjfreeman.elance.com
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation <http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=93>
Specialtymarket.com <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>

Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist

Chat  Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Linkedin
<http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro>


ScottA sent the following on 4/2/2010 11:13 AM:

> Hi All,
>
> I was just thinking out loud and I thought I’d post it to the community and
> see what you guys thought.
>
> Has the community ever considered and "App Store" type of approach to
> customizations? What I mean by this is taking pieces\modules that you’ve
> developed but not given back to the core project for whatever reason (be it
> not practical for the core or just not worth the time to maintain) and
> packaging it for sale. It might also encourage more committers over time.
>
> The way I could see it happening is that a contributor take a module they’ve
> created and attach two prices to it. First price being a restrictive license
> approach and the second and more expensive approach being a Apache license
> version that allows it to be added to the purchasers installation or back to
> the project if the project wishes it to be included It could even be placed
> in a separate place where future users could browse and add it if they had a
> need. I think this type of approach could also benefit the Dev's in allowing
> them to a second stream of revenue in purchase, installation and support if
> not a part of the main project.
>
> Like I said, I was just thinking out loud and thought I'd ask. I don’t know
> if it’s possible or not but it might be interesting to actually create a
> marketplace for add-ons that does not exist elsewhere as far as I know.
>
> Cheers.
>

[ScottA]

One problem I see BJ is that unless you are a technical user or developer, how on earth would you know about them or what they do? Pur them in the seed data on the demo and sell them!

[Erwan de FERRIERES]

Le 02/04/2010 20:13, ScottA a écrit :

>
> Hi All,
>
> I was just thinking out loud and I thought I’d post it to the community and
> see what you guys thought.
>
> Has the community ever considered and "App Store" type of approach to
> customizations? What I mean by this is taking pieces\modules that you’ve
> developed but not given back to the core project for whatever reason (be it
> not practical for the core or just not worth the time to maintain) and
> packaging it for sale. It might also encourage more committers over time.
>
> The way I could see it happening is that a contributor take a module they’ve
> created and attach two prices to it. First price being a restrictive license
> approach and the second and more expensive approach being a Apache license
> version that allows it to be added to the purchasers installation or back to
> the project if the project wishes it to be included It could even be placed
> in a separate place where future users could browse and add it if they had a
> need. I think this type of approach could also benefit the Dev's in allowing
> them to a second stream of revenue in purchase, installation and support if
> not a part of the main project.
>
> Like I said, I was just thinking out loud and thought I'd ask. I don’t know
> if it’s possible or not but it might be interesting to actually create a
> marketplace for add-ons that does not exist elsewhere as far as I know.
>
> Cheers.
>

Hi Scott,

the add-on management system exists in Neogia. it's under an Apache2
licence, and so could be integrated to OFBiz. I don't have the time yet
to speak about it, and show some POC.

At nereide, we are using it every day to manage our OFBiz customizations
and the modifications we are making for customers. This way, it's very
simple to upgrade, install and "reinstall" a system.

We've also got an IC server which test evey day the addons, to be sure
nothing had been broken by commits on the trunk.

Here is a quick overview :
http://neogia.org/Add-on_Manager_Design

Cheers,

--
Erwan de FERRIERES
www.nereide.biz

[BJ Freeman]

A wiki that list providers of modules.
and let the providers have their own site and support.
since the modules would be in the hot-deploy it would be handles by
ofbiz one put in.

=====================
BJ Freeman
http://bjfreeman.elance.com
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation <http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=93>
Specialtymarket.com <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>

Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist

Chat  Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Linkedin
<http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro>


ScottA sent the following on 4/2/2010 11:45 AM:
> One problem I see BJ is that unless you are a technical user or developer,
> how on earth would you know about them or what they do? Pur them in the seed
> data on the demo and sell them!

[Ruth Hoffman-2]

Hi Scott:
I think this is an awesome idea. Would you be interested in
collaborating on something like this? We could start with documentation.
Regards,
Ruth

ScottA wrote:
> One problem I see BJ is that unless you are a technical user or developer,
> how on earth would you know about them or what they do? Pur them in the seed
> data on the demo and sell them!
>  

[ScottA]

Not sure what I could do Ruth but certainly willing to give somethign a try if people think its worthwhile. I wonder what the devs think?

[Ruth Hoffman-2]

Hi Scott:
ScottA wrote:
> Not sure what I could do Ruth but certainly willing to give somethign a try
>  
Do you have an add-on you'd like to sell? I have several pieces of
documentation (with a couple more coming online soon) that I consider
complementary add-on products to OFBiz. I'd like to use the myofbiz.com
brand (yes, we are "for profit" but make no mistake, I'm in the red big
time on this project. It is a labor of love!) and establish it as a
quality "go-to" marketplace for OFBiz stuff.

We could offer both the products (as packaged code) and/or the
documentation to go with it.

Actually, there is more to it than this, but for starters, if you are
interested, contact me at [hidden email]
> if people think its worthwhile. I wonder what the devs think?
>  
The "devs" and I are not on "speaking" terms. At least that is how I see
it. IMO they are to confrontational to make it worth my time and effort
to deal with except on certain occasions when I need a quick break from
my work.  So, you are welcome to solicit opinions from them. I'll just
hang out here.

Regards,
Ruth

[Tim Ruppert]

I like the idea of having a place for people to be able to download third party software like many other projects have - but I'm still not sure how it would work here.  People have always been worried about compatibility between the components and making it more difficult for people to actually add these things on.  Neogia has the added benefit of being able to control all of that which makes it much easier to manage.

Cheers,
Ruppert

On Apr 2, 2010, at 2:26 PM, ScottA wrote:

>
> Not sure what I could do Ruth but certainly willing to give somethign a try
> if people think its worthwhile. I wonder what the devs think?
> --
> View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Question-about-add-ons-tp1749458p1749590.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

[ScottA]

Tim,

I would think that it would have to go through testing to be compatible to each release and I'm not saying that it would have to be 100%. The releases are not but if the committer was not willing to test on a periodic basis, then it should be removed. I guess the question you are really asking is who would moderate such a thing and I think free enterprise would. If you buy the app and it does not work or it breaks, then you leave a review and the next guy is going to pass on the offering.

I am sure OFBiz itself could be configured to run this. I'm not saying it would be perfect but why not give something a try to start with? I'm sure most of the long time guys here have something to offer.
 
Ruth, I dont have any add-ons I want to sell. I'm a small business owner slowly building OfBiz out to meet my needs. The reason I asked this question is that I'm wondering what kind of add-ons have already been built by others that are not in the project themselves and which could benifit me.

BJ mentioned "we have many in the special purpose" but like I said earlier, as a non-technical user how would I know?

Thanks for the time.

[Jacques Le Roux]

Yes, I agree. I don't know much about it, but it seems that so far Neogia addons are the best answer to this kind of things.
For the licence issue, it seems to me that, even if the addons mechanism is Apache licenced, nothing prevent to have different
licences for addons

Jacques

From: "Tim Ruppert" <[hidden email]>

>I like the idea of having a place for people to be able to download third party software like many other projects have - but I'm
>still not sure how it would work here.  People have always been worried about compatibility between the components and making it
>more difficult for people to actually add these things on.  Neogia has the added benefit of being able to control all of that which
>makes it much easier to manage.
>
> Cheers,
> Ruppert
>
> On Apr 2, 2010, at 2:26 PM, ScottA wrote:
>
>>
>> Not sure what I could do Ruth but certainly willing to give somethign a try
>> if people think its worthwhile. I wonder what the devs think?
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Question-about-add-ons-tp1749458p1749590.html
>> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>

[Tim Ruppert]

The compatibility is much less of a concern between the providers add-on and the project - the problem will come early and often between two components - that was what I was alluding to.

Cheers,
Ruppert

On Apr 2, 2010, at 4:22 PM, ScottA wrote:

>
> Tim,
>
> I would think that it would have to go through testing to be compatible to
> each release and I'm not saying that it would have to be 100%. The releases
> are not but if the committer was not willing to test on a periodic basis,
> then it should be removed. I guess the question you are really asking is who
> would moderate such a thing and I think free enterprise would. If you buy
> the app and it does not work or it breaks, then you leave a review and the
> next guy is going to pass on the offering.
>
> I am sure OFBiz itself could be configured to run this. I'm not saying it
> would be perfect but why not give something a try to start with? I'm sure
> most of the long time guys here have something to offer.
>
> Ruth, I dont have any add-ons I want to sell. I'm a small business owner
> slowly building OfBiz out to meet my needs. The reason I asked this question
> is that I'm wondering what kind of add-ons have already been built by others
> that are not in the project themselves and which could benifit me.
>
> BJ mentioned "we have many in the special purpose" but like I said earlier,
> as a non-technical user how would I know?
>
> Thanks for the time.
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Question-about-add-ons-tp1749458p1749711.html
> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

[David E. Jones-2]

Why not use the standard OFBiz components for add-ons?

The Neogia approach is based on a series of patches. They may think it sounds like a good idea, but it's kind of like the DLL "hell" on Windows where you'd have different add-ons changing the same code in OFBiz, or changing something in the framework or base applications that mess up other add-ons. In other words, you wouldn't be able to build to a standing target (like an OFBiz release branch) and you'd have to be somewhat aware of every other add-on available.

If people want to include patches in their add-ons they can, but it should be discouraged (by users I mean, ie tell the add-on author to find a better way to do it).

The fact is there is nothing in the project stopping anyone from doing this (ie writing and providing add-ons or plugins or whatever you want to call them). In fact some people already are! They announce them from time on the mailing lists and seem to get universal responses like: "why isn't it free?" and "will you contribute this to OFBiz?" Anyway, just an entertaining side note and another contradiction in goals of those using OFBiz.

True, there is no "marketplace" or "app store" for OFBiz add-ons, but if someone wanted to do that (for profit or non-profit) they certainly could. Again, there is nothing in the project stopping anyone from doing this.

-David


On Apr 2, 2010, at 4:35 PM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:

> Yes, I agree. I don't know much about it, but it seems that so far Neogia addons are the best answer to this kind of things.
> For the licence issue, it seems to me that, even if the addons mechanism is Apache licenced, nothing prevent to have different licences for addons
>
> Jacques
>
> From: "Tim Ruppert" <[hidden email]>
>> I like the idea of having a place for people to be able to download third party software like many other projects have - but I'm still not sure how it would work here.  People have always been worried about compatibility between the components and making it more difficult for people to actually add these things on.  Neogia has the added benefit of being able to control all of that which makes it much easier to manage.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Ruppert
>>
>> On Apr 2, 2010, at 2:26 PM, ScottA wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Not sure what I could do Ruth but certainly willing to give somethign a try
>>> if people think its worthwhile. I wonder what the devs think?
>>> --
>>> View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Question-about-add-ons-tp1749458p1749590.html
>>> Sent from the OFBiz - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>
>

[Malin Nicolas]

Hi David,

Neogia addons-manager isn't only a series of patches. The dependence system allows to create addons with orientation :
 * technical (ex : multi-delegator, pdf-view-handler) : improvement on ofbiz technical framework
 * functional (ex : oisg-status, company) : imporement on ofbiz functional framework
 * end-user application (ex : naccounting, nmanufacturing) : add standard OFBiz components

In general, we have a end-user appication that content dependency on functional and technical addons.

If two addons change the same code, there is a architectural problem, we need create a new addon who manage the conflict reason. If two addons change/add code on the same area, the addon-manager detect and resolve the problem.

The actual OFBiz components system is good but when you need improve the functional system, is difficult to submit your enhancement, need test on your components, after update on OFBiz framework and try to explain it for validation. In most case, if you aren't a commiter you take your functional enhancement in your component and it's not integrate in OFBiz functionnal and can't use for other compenent without create dependency in hot-deploy or specialpurpose.
With addons, all functional enhancement are put in specific addon and it use for many end-user addon. After it's more easier to create a jira for integrate in OFBiz framework (after we juste remove addon dependency ;) )

OFBiz Why not become the first modular integrated ERP with a library addition to management as a debian (we have a functioning distribution management company;))

Nicolas

[olivier.heintz Neogia.org]

Neogia addons-manager is very young, only one year, so some technical
parts should be enhance, but I don't think it's the more important point
of discussion.

Why addons and for what ?
Which constrains for a addon for being publishable ?

Currently in Neogia, we are trying to answer each of these questions,
step by step, with real use case, and enhance technical or process part
at each step.

Today, we can say :
Why addons ? :
- technically, it's better to have a kernel with a lot of software
rather than a all-in-one software (like unix): evolution is more
dynamic, maintenance is more easier, global system is more stable
- licence, with all-in-one software, only one licence type is possible,
not possible to have together free software and commercial software,
published and easily installable and usable
- business analysis, it's more easier to describe one business function
(business coverage, Help, junit and functional test, demo data ) when
you are concentrated to only one business Use case.

For what ?
- technically, OFBiz is a strong technical framework, but some people
want to use (or uses) some special technology (GWT, Flex, hibernate,
...) but they don't publish their work.
- - It will be more usable for ofbiz community for test or evaluation if
ready to use code is available.
- - It will be easier to those people to contribute to standard OFBiz
framework if their works are clearly separate, so OFBiz enhancement will
appear clearly
- business, why having multiple functions which are not used, if one can
install only what he wants, screens, forms menu and processes will be
clearer and more usable
- OOTB (Out Of The Box), one of the main goal of OFBiz Project, is to be
able to realize quickly an end-user solution. Add-ons can be used to
package this type of realization.

Which constrains for an addon to be published ?
- First of all, ensure consistent among ofbiz and all other addons. This
will be possible only if community is able to read, test and validate
addons, exactly like a current classic contribution. So, it's necessary
to add some constrains in addon realisation :
1) Addon help file is mandatory with
1.1) business coverage if it's a new business function
2) Test process with description, unit test and integration test
- for which ofbiz version release it has been tested
- list of addons (with version) dependency
- clear license and owner

Addon manager and developer
The main goal for addon manager, on the developer point of view, is to
give tools to extract and package development when it's finished, with
the minimum of development constraints only respect the OFBiz best practice.

Current addon-manager version and patch
Currently with OFBiz, there is a lot of cases where it's possible to add
files to put a modification. This is the best way, but sometime it's not
yet possible.
In the current addon manager version we are using "classical" patch to
store files modified, but there is some enhancement to manage more
easily multiple patchs on same file.
We want to have "xml semantic" patch, but our work on this is only at
the beginning, currently it's not a high priority because it's not yet a
problem with our 66 existing addons. We know that it will mandatory, but
one step at a time.

Next steps for addons
Currently in OFBiz project, there are framework, applications,
specialpurpose and hot-deploy. extend exists in a lot of place, so there
is no emergency to change existing organization, the main modularity
rules are already in place, We should use new functions (technical or
business) in addons to test all the process (development, usage,
installation, maintenance, version migration, ...) for being more
modular and see if those evolutions are good for the OFBiz project.
Maybe sometime, new extend functions will be proposed during addon
testing period
When community will have tested and approved this new organization, we
will start studying in the current ofbiz version which functions
(technical and business) should be in kernel and which should be
transform as an addon.






Malin Nicolas a écrit :

> Hi David,
>
> Neogia addons-manager isn't only a series of patches. The dependence system
> allows to create addons with orientation :
>  * technical (ex : multi-delegator, pdf-view-handler) : improvement on ofbiz
> technical framework
>  * functional (ex : oisg-status, company) : imporement on ofbiz functional
> framework
>  * end-user application (ex : naccounting, nmanufacturing) : add standard
> OFBiz components
>
> In general, we have a end-user appication that content dependency on
> functional and technical addons.
>
> If two addons change the same code, there is a architectural problem, we
> need create a new addon who manage the conflict reason. If two addons
> change/add code on the same area, the addon-manager detect and resolve the
> problem.
>
> The actual OFBiz components system is good but when you need improve the
> functional system, is difficult to submit your enhancement, need test on
> your components, after update on OFBiz framework and try to explain it for
> validation. In most case, if you aren't a commiter you take your functional
> enhancement in your component and it's not integrate in OFBiz functionnal
> and can't use for other compenent without create dependency in hot-deploy or
> specialpurpose.
> With addons, all functional enhancement are put in specific addon and it use
> for many end-user addon. After it's more easier to create a jira for
> integrate in OFBiz framework (after we juste remove addon dependency ;) )
>
> OFBiz Why not become the first modular integrated ERP with a library
> addition to management as a debian (we have a functioning distribution
> management company;))
>
> Nicolas
>