As far as SSL setup with Ofbiz 3.0 I beleive I have two options:
1. keystore 2. Mod_jk to Apache I wanted to see who has set up the keystore using keytool for a Verisign certificate, I noticed someone had problems with the intermediate CA certificate expiring before their certificate which required a new certificate to be issued at cost and a new JDK to be installed. I also see that Verisign has little support for this setup. The other option is to configure SSL thru Apache using mod_jk. I've done this on my last server (before the host ran away with it) and it worked fine. Takes a little more effort. My question is, what's the advantage with setting up keystore? It seems simple if you get it working but the wiki has some (might I add very poorly presented) information about it not working. What's that all about? AND Why does the udersun consulting setup guide say to do it this way but the wiki does not? Why is the consulting arm providing more informaiton than the "open source" division...be careful Ofbiz...people notice these things Are there performance benefits with using Apache as the front end? When are you planning a new release? not for the consulting arm for the open source community remember collaboration is the way to success? Why can't a user search the mailing lists? I tried codecomments.com but their search doesn't work either. As a side note: I thought the ofbiz the email lists were running on Jcentric.com servers? they've completely disappeared now...I guess Clint Dalton is not returning my money or customer database... Bitter, Adrian _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users |
Adrian Grealish wrote: > As far as SSL setup with Ofbiz 3.0 I beleive I have two options: > 1. keystore > 2. Mod_jk to Apache > > I wanted to see who has set up the keystore using keytool for a > Verisign certificate, I noticed someone had problems with the > intermediate CA certificate expiring before their certificate which > required a new certificate to be issued at cost and a new JDK to be > installed. I also see that Verisign has little support for this setup. > > The other option is to configure SSL thru Apache using mod_jk. I've > done this on my last server (before the host ran away with it) and it > worked fine. Takes a little more effort. > > My question is, what's the advantage with setting up keystore? It > seems simple if you get it working but the wiki has some (might I add > very poorly presented) information about it not working. What's that > all about? AND Why does the udersun consulting setup guide say to do > it this way but the wiki does not? Why is the consulting arm providing > more informaiton than the "open source" division...be careful > Ofbiz...people notice these things > > Are there performance benefits with using Apache as the front end? > That's what everybody says, especially if you serve static content as well. > When are you planning a new release? not for the consulting arm for > the open source community remember collaboration is the way to success? > Here's the latest release http://www.sequoiaerp.org - the next one is due early February. > Why can't a user search the mailing lists? I tried codecomments.com > but their search doesn't work either. > > As a side note: I thought the ofbiz the email lists were running on > Jcentric.com servers? they've completely disappeared now...I guess > Clint Dalton is not returning my money or customer database... > > Bitter, > Adrian > > _________________________________________________________________ > Don’t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > >_______________________________________________ >Users mailing list >[hidden email] >http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users > _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users |
In reply to this post by Adrian Grealish
On Jan 6, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: > My question is, what's the advantage with setting up keystore? It > seems simple if you get it working but the wiki has some (might I > add very poorly presented) information about it not working. What's > that all about? AND Why does the udersun consulting setup guide > say to do it this way but the wiki does not? Why is the consulting > arm providing more informaiton than the "open source" division...be > careful Ofbiz...people notice these things Just to re-iterate this: Undersun Consutling is NOT the "consulting arm" of OFBiz. It is an independent organization that does not own or have any control over the open source project. It is run by some of the same people that run OFBiz, but as certain people who run consulting firms get more involved with OFBiz as core contributors even in this position Undersun is not unique any more... and that is a GOOD thing for project and users of OFBiz! With the Wiki just keep in mind that it is a Wiki and while there are lots of good things there, it is far more chaotic and less controlled than OFBiz itself (just a place people can drop stuff, there is no intention to make it the "official" documentation on any level, official documentation resources are linked to from the Docs & Books page on the ofbiz.org web site) and less controlled than certain resources available for companies that offer services based on OFBiz (like various things free and charged for from Undersun, Open Source Strategies, etc). -David _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users smime.p7s (3K) Download Attachment |
In reply to this post by Adrian Grealish
On Jan 6, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: > When are you planning a new release? not for the consulting arm for > the open source community remember collaboration is the way to > success? You are correct that collaboration is the way to success, but it is not true that official releases increase collaboration. In fact, they _reduce_ collaboration. OFBiz is still maturing and the limited resources are dedicated to development and maintenance of the software by various groups with various different, but all overlapping, priorities. The point of the Sequoia project that Si Chen has put together is to have a community that is more dedicated to maintaining point releases with bug fixes and what not done there and back-patched from the open source project. That's the idea anyway... For OFBiz the only real purpose for a release is: marketing! Users of OFBiz who take a release instead of keeping up to date during their development process CAN NOT effectively collaborate with the community or contribute to the project. They are using older code and not updating to get work that others do nor can they base their changes on the latest stuff, so it's just impossible to collaborate. They can sometimes contribute, but generally not as effectively, depending on what it is and how much it has changed since the date of the revision they are using. So, releases aren't a big priority for OFBiz right now. The project has gone, and to some extent is still going, through some MAJOR additions and until these settle down it doesn't make much sense and isn't easy or cheap to do a release (including the necessary testing and bug fixing, related marketing artifacts for new features and announcements and what not, and so on). Creating a binary is easy, that's not the issue, but just a binary isn't a very valuable release and is guaranteed to have more problems than we'd like and so it does more _harm_ than good... We are working on becoming an Apache project, though I don't know if that will go through or not. If it does we will most likely do a release in a few months to push things along there, and mostly for marketing purposes to help new people interested in the project get an idea of what's up. If they are doing development though and customizing OFBiz we will still encourage groups/people to NOT use the releases, but rather to keep up with SVN until they are ready to start their pre-production integration and user level testing. > Why can't a user search the mailing lists? I tried codecomments.com > but their search doesn't work either. This simply isn't up yet after the mailing list move though it will be up in the future. As with all things: if it is important enough to you to do something about it, then do so! That is how every single little detail in OFBiz is handled... -David _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users smime.p7s (3K) Download Attachment |
In reply to this post by David E. Jones
Oh, I forgot to mention something important here about the search: just use the Google advanced search (or the advanced search of your other favorite search engine) with the domain name "lists.ofbiz.org". It's easy and still fairly effective: http://www.google.com/advanced_search -David On Jan 6, 2006, at 2:09 PM, David E. Jones wrote: > > On Jan 6, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: > >> My question is, what's the advantage with setting up keystore? It >> seems simple if you get it working but the wiki has some (might I >> add very poorly presented) information about it not working. >> What's that all about? AND Why does the udersun consulting setup >> guide say to do it this way but the wiki does not? Why is the >> consulting arm providing more informaiton than the "open source" >> division...be careful Ofbiz...people notice these things > > Just to re-iterate this: Undersun Consutling is NOT the "consulting > arm" of OFBiz. It is an independent organization that does not own > or have any control over the open source project. It is run by some > of the same people that run OFBiz, but as certain people who run > consulting firms get more involved with OFBiz as core contributors > even in this position Undersun is not unique any more... and that > is a GOOD thing for project and users of OFBiz! > > With the Wiki just keep in mind that it is a Wiki and while there > are lots of good things there, it is far more chaotic and less > controlled than OFBiz itself (just a place people can drop stuff, > there is no intention to make it the "official" documentation on > any level, official documentation resources are linked to from the > Docs & Books page on the ofbiz.org web site) and less controlled > than certain resources available for companies that offer services > based on OFBiz (like various things free and charged for from > Undersun, Open Source Strategies, etc). > > -David > _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users smime.p7s (3K) Download Attachment |
In reply to this post by David E. Jones
I understand, sorry didn't mean to be so biting...or start a flame war
I'm still a great supporter of ofbiz, I'm just looking from a different angle. Having real world release cycles brings out real world issues when running Ofbiz in production. Things that can't be fixed when you're in dev cycle for so long with no real ship date.These issues would get fixed and put back into the main line for release if the user knew the next release was coming. otherwise you get the custom versions running and not willing to contribute their fixes because it gives a competitive advantage. It's a good framework but it could be great if you have regular releases that were production ready with upgrade features. If not then I'm well within my rights to raises questions about the purpose of your involement with undersun consulting. what about test infrastructure? is there a complete or plans to have a complete suite of tests that ensure the platform is running? the demo app should be the basis for this. it should be a requirement to have a test suite with every feature checked in. All things I'm sure you're aware of but if you don't want to be completely wiped off the map when google/amazon release their platform that is easy to use and upgradable then this project will die. Adrian >From: "David E. Jones" <[hidden email]> >Reply-To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion <[hidden email]> >To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion <[hidden email]> >Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - SSL Setup >Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 14:21:14 -0700 > > >On Jan 6, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: > >>When are you planning a new release? not for the consulting arm for the >>open source community remember collaboration is the way to success? > >You are correct that collaboration is the way to success, but it is not >true that official releases increase collaboration. In fact, they _reduce_ >collaboration. OFBiz is still maturing and the limited resources are >dedicated to development and maintenance of the software by various groups >with various different, but all overlapping, priorities. > >The point of the Sequoia project that Si Chen has put together is to have >a community that is more dedicated to maintaining point releases with bug >fixes and what not done there and back-patched from the open source >project. That's the idea anyway... > >For OFBiz the only real purpose for a release is: marketing! Users of >OFBiz who take a release instead of keeping up to date during their >development process CAN NOT effectively collaborate with the community or >contribute to the project. They are using older code and not updating to >get work that others do nor can they base their changes on the latest >stuff, so it's just impossible to collaborate. They can sometimes >contribute, but generally not as effectively, depending on what it is and >how much it has changed since the date of the revision they are using. > >So, releases aren't a big priority for OFBiz right now. The project has >gone, and to some extent is still going, through some MAJOR additions and >until these settle down it doesn't make much sense and isn't easy or cheap >to do a release (including the necessary testing and bug fixing, related >marketing artifacts for new features and announcements and what not, and >so on). Creating a binary is easy, that's not the issue, but just a binary >isn't a very valuable release and is guaranteed to have more problems than >we'd like and so it does more _harm_ than good... > >We are working on becoming an Apache project, though I don't know if that >will go through or not. If it does we will most likely do a release in a >few months to push things along there, and mostly for marketing purposes >to help new people interested in the project get an idea of what's up. If >they are doing development though and customizing OFBiz we will still >encourage groups/people to NOT use the releases, but rather to keep up >with SVN until they are ready to start their pre-production integration >and user level testing. > >>Why can't a user search the mailing lists? I tried codecomments.com but >>their search doesn't work either. > >This simply isn't up yet after the mailing list move though it will be up >in the future. > >As with all things: if it is important enough to you to do something about >it, then do so! That is how every single little detail in OFBiz is >handled... > >-David ><< smime.p7s >> > >_______________________________________________ >Users mailing list >[hidden email] >http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users |
Adrian Grealish wrote:
> ... > All things I'm sure you're aware of but if you don't want to be completely > wiped off the map when google/amazon release their platform that is easy to > use and upgradable then this project will die. > Wow... what a positive attitude... Happy New Year :-) Jacopo _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users |
In reply to this post by Adrian Grealish
Chris made some good comments in his earlier reply to this, so that would be a good thing to read through all the way for anyway watching this. Because of that I'll leave out most of the detail and drop right to the core issue: MONEY! One thing that Chris mentioned in his message and that anyone knows who has worked with this sort of software is that it is incredibly complicated and therefore expensive to create and maintain. It's not a little bit expensive, it is really expensive. OFBiz is no different. We have put a LOT of effort into reducing the technical complexity of the business level implementation artifacts, and that makes development and maintenance for OFBiz much much cheaper, but still we are working on a budget that is very roughly around 1-2% of the typical development budget of an ERP system, and that is the current "budget" which represents over 10 times as many resources as went into the project even a couple of years ago. What's interesting about this "budget" or the resources coming into the project is that they are 100% donations from users of the software. That's right: 100%. The Open For Business Project has no money nor any source of income. The contributions that come into the project come primarily from small consulting firms who serve mostly medium to large size clients (which a number of smaller clients, but the percentage of income from them is pretty low). So far no one is getting rich here (that I know of... if anyone is I could use a little of that...). If I were I sure as hell wouldn't even be reading this mailing list, let alone responding to messages. Because I'm interested in this sort of thing I might have started the project and gotten into this even if I didn't need the money, but I certainly wouldn't be spending so much time on it, and of course that is hypothetical. The fact is I've been barely scraping by for the last few years trying to keep the project going and running a small consulting company based on it in order to survive, and before this last year (2005) that meant going deeper and deeper into debt every year. This year wasn't spectacular, but at least I managed to knock off a small percentage of my debt instead of increasing it... I appreciate the feedback on the apparent size of Undersun, but the fact is the company has no money and no employees, just 2 partners. When we do larger projects we sub-contract when we can, and when that doesn't work out we partner with another company or often just support an internal development group for the client. In many cases we can't even win a contract for a larger client alone and have to partner with a larger and more trusted and trust-worthy partner. This is not highly profitable stuff... if you want to earn the bucks you got to work the hours. If you want lots of bucks you have to work until you can't form a sentence and then rest until you can and repeat the cycle. Chances are many people reading this know how that is... If Amazon or Google wanted to compete with us in our game THEY WOULD WIPE US OUT IN A FEW MONTHS! While I don't know their exact figures, I can probably safely say that they each spend quite a bit more on IT in one quarter than has been spent on OFBiz contributions since the project began. It wouldn't be hard to compete with us... So what are we all doing here and how do we expect this to continue and be a success? OFBiz is the ONLY significant business application level open source project that is a true collaborative effort and not owned or run by a central strong company. It is the only one of this size that has licensing terms as generous as the MIT license (and related licenses) offer. If I'm wrong on this I'm sure someone will let me know pretty quick (assuming people read all of this tripe I write... ;) ). If that's what you want, this is the place. If you want something that you can use "out of the box" and that is developed spending all of the money that is necessary to do everything that makes it easy to use, well, I'm not sure where to look for a perfect solution, but there are a lot of commercial (and some commercial/open source) projects that might be closer to that than OFBiz... Anyway, I've written pretty much all of this many times and for those who might be interested there is more detail and some history on my blog on the Undersun site at: https://www.undersunconsulting.com/ofbizdoc/control/MainBlog? contentContentId=BLOGROOTJONES¤tMenuItemName=BLOGROOTJONES On that link, BTW, sorry about the security warning, our certificate expired and it hasn't made it to the top of the to-do list yet. I appreciate everyones help and feedback on OFBiz! Whether I could make more money doing something else or not is hard to say, but I'm certainly enjoying being involved with this and seeing something move forward like this that I consider to be very important in our world today (technically, economically, and even politically and socially in many way...). I certainly couldn't do this myself, and I hope you never catch me implying that I am even trying or even think that I could... if I could it would probably mean that I had enough money to spend a few decades on vacation, well and that I had a heck of a lot more mental capacity than my poor brain can currently eke out... ;) -David On Jan 6, 2006, at 6:04 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: > I understand, sorry didn't mean to be so biting...or start a flame war > > I'm still a great supporter of ofbiz, I'm just looking from a > different > angle. > > Having real world release cycles brings out real world issues when > running > Ofbiz in production. Things that can't be fixed when you're in dev > cycle for > so long with no real ship date.These issues would get fixed and put > back > into the main line for release if the user knew the next release > was coming. > otherwise you get the custom versions running and not willing to > contribute > their fixes because it gives a competitive advantage. > > It's a good framework but it could be great if you have regular > releases > that were production ready with upgrade features. > > If not then I'm well within my rights to raises questions about the > purpose > of your involement with undersun consulting. > > what about test infrastructure? is there a complete or plans to have a > complete suite of tests that ensure the platform is running? the > demo app > should be the basis for this. it should be a requirement to have a > test > suite with every feature checked in. > > All things I'm sure you're aware of but if you don't want to be > completely > wiped off the map when google/amazon release their platform that is > easy to > use and upgradable then this project will die. > > > Adrian > > >> From: "David E. Jones" <[hidden email]> >> Reply-To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion <[hidden email]> >> To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion <[hidden email]> >> Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - SSL Setup >> Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 14:21:14 -0700 >> >> >> On Jan 6, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: >> >>> When are you planning a new release? not for the consulting arm >>> for the >>> open source community remember collaboration is the way to success? >> >> You are correct that collaboration is the way to success, but it >> is not >> true that official releases increase collaboration. In fact, they >> _reduce_ >> collaboration. OFBiz is still maturing and the limited resources are >> dedicated to development and maintenance of the software by >> various groups >> with various different, but all overlapping, priorities. >> >> The point of the Sequoia project that Si Chen has put together is >> to have >> a community that is more dedicated to maintaining point releases >> with bug >> fixes and what not done there and back-patched from the open source >> project. That's the idea anyway... >> >> For OFBiz the only real purpose for a release is: marketing! Users of >> OFBiz who take a release instead of keeping up to date during their >> development process CAN NOT effectively collaborate with the >> community or >> contribute to the project. They are using older code and not >> updating to >> get work that others do nor can they base their changes on the >> latest >> stuff, so it's just impossible to collaborate. They can sometimes >> contribute, but generally not as effectively, depending on what >> it is and >> how much it has changed since the date of the revision they are >> using. >> >> So, releases aren't a big priority for OFBiz right now. The >> project has >> gone, and to some extent is still going, through some MAJOR >> additions and >> until these settle down it doesn't make much sense and isn't easy >> or cheap >> to do a release (including the necessary testing and bug fixing, >> related >> marketing artifacts for new features and announcements and what >> not, and >> so on). Creating a binary is easy, that's not the issue, but just >> a binary >> isn't a very valuable release and is guaranteed to have more >> problems than >> we'd like and so it does more _harm_ than good... >> >> We are working on becoming an Apache project, though I don't know >> if that >> will go through or not. If it does we will most likely do a >> release in a >> few months to push things along there, and mostly for marketing >> purposes >> to help new people interested in the project get an idea of >> what's up. If >> they are doing development though and customizing OFBiz we will >> still >> encourage groups/people to NOT use the releases, but rather to >> keep up >> with SVN until they are ready to start their pre-production >> integration >> and user level testing. >> >>> Why can't a user search the mailing lists? I tried >>> codecomments.com but >>> their search doesn't work either. >> >> This simply isn't up yet after the mailing list move though it >> will be up >> in the future. >> >> As with all things: if it is important enough to you to do >> something about >> it, then do so! That is how every single little detail in OFBiz is >> handled... >> >> -David > > >> << smime.p7s >> > > > > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Users mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users > > _________________________________________________________________ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - > it's FREE! > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > > _______________________________________________ > Users mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users smime.p7s (3K) Download Attachment |
That all said (from my last message), there is still another side of the coin: the poor users of the software! Really honestly OFBiz is very much in a growth phase and much of it is still maturing. That doesn't make it easy to use, and I feel your pain as I _very_ often with things were cleaner and further along. I know from lots of conversations that many people in the OFBiz community are trying to do the impossible for a company that has lots of needs and not much budget and in some cases the only way they can do it on that budget without sacrificing a lot of business differentiating and enabling functionality is to base it on a project like OFBiz. I think that's the only reason OFBiz has survived and thrived to the extent it has. Because really the project has a lot of flaws and a lot of missing functionality that would be really nice to have in there, and does not come from the traditional source of trust (a large, financially stable corporation), and so if it wasn't so unique in the solutions it offers that would otherwise be impossible, it would be dead. In other words, a lot of people are quite frustrated because even if it makes it possible and easier, it doesn't make it easy and it is still expensive and really hard. I don't know if this is your situation Adrian, but if it is know that you are in good company. I think this is why the big boys haven't tried to shut down OFBiz yet (to my knowledge anyway). They know what a 100 million dollar check (or contract) looks like and can't imagine a bunch of middle-class nobodies ever competing effectively with them without such a check or contract. The good thing is that now OFBiz is widely based enough that it would be somewhat expensive to legally destroy it (via destroying the contributors or cutting off contributions to it). Hopefully in the near future it will become even more difficult... Right now even if Andy and I were totally out of the picture I think the project could and would continue just fine. It might temporarily slow things down a bit, but there is nothing in OFBiz that other people don't have access to and/or knowledge about. -David On Jan 7, 2006, at 3:10 AM, David E. Jones wrote: > > Chris made some good comments in his earlier reply to this, so that > would be a good thing to read through all the way for anyway > watching this. Because of that I'll leave out most of the detail > and drop right to the core issue: MONEY! > > One thing that Chris mentioned in his message and that anyone knows > who has worked with this sort of software is that it is incredibly > complicated and therefore expensive to create and maintain. It's > not a little bit expensive, it is really expensive. OFBiz is no > different. We have put a LOT of effort into reducing the technical > complexity of the business level implementation artifacts, and that > makes development and maintenance for OFBiz much much cheaper, but > still we are working on a budget that is very roughly around 1-2% > of the typical development budget of an ERP system, and that is the > current "budget" which represents over 10 times as many resources > as went into the project even a couple of years ago. > > What's interesting about this "budget" or the resources coming into > the project is that they are 100% donations from users of the > software. That's right: 100%. The Open For Business Project has no > money nor any source of income. The contributions that come into > the project come primarily from small consulting firms who serve > mostly medium to large size clients (which a number of smaller > clients, but the percentage of income from them is pretty low). > > So far no one is getting rich here (that I know of... if anyone is > I could use a little of that...). If I were I sure as hell wouldn't > even be reading this mailing list, let alone responding to > messages. Because I'm interested in this sort of thing I might have > started the project and gotten into this even if I didn't need the > money, but I certainly wouldn't be spending so much time on it, and > of course that is hypothetical. The fact is I've been barely > scraping by for the last few years trying to keep the project going > and running a small consulting company based on it in order to > survive, and before this last year (2005) that meant going deeper > and deeper into debt every year. This year wasn't spectacular, but > at least I managed to knock off a small percentage of my debt > instead of increasing it... > > I appreciate the feedback on the apparent size of Undersun, but the > fact is the company has no money and no employees, just 2 partners. > When we do larger projects we sub-contract when we can, and when > that doesn't work out we partner with another company or often just > support an internal development group for the client. In many cases > we can't even win a contract for a larger client alone and have to > partner with a larger and more trusted and trust-worthy partner. > This is not highly profitable stuff... if you want to earn the > bucks you got to work the hours. If you want lots of bucks you have > to work until you can't form a sentence and then rest until you can > and repeat the cycle. Chances are many people reading this know how > that is... > > If Amazon or Google wanted to compete with us in our game THEY > WOULD WIPE US OUT IN A FEW MONTHS! While I don't know their exact > figures, I can probably safely say that they each spend quite a bit > more on IT in one quarter than has been spent on OFBiz > contributions since the project began. It wouldn't be hard to > compete with us... > > So what are we all doing here and how do we expect this to continue > and be a success? OFBiz is the ONLY significant business > application level open source project that is a true collaborative > effort and not owned or run by a central strong company. It is the > only one of this size that has licensing terms as generous as the > MIT license (and related licenses) offer. If I'm wrong on this I'm > sure someone will let me know pretty quick (assuming people read > all of this tripe I write... ;) ). If that's what you want, this is > the place. If you want something that you can use "out of the box" > and that is developed spending all of the money that is necessary > to do everything that makes it easy to use, well, I'm not sure > where to look for a perfect solution, but there are a lot of > commercial (and some commercial/open source) projects that might be > closer to that than OFBiz... > > Anyway, I've written pretty much all of this many times and for > those who might be interested there is more detail and some history > on my blog on the Undersun site at: > > https://www.undersunconsulting.com/ofbizdoc/control/MainBlog? > contentContentId=BLOGROOTJONES¤tMenuItemName=BLOGROOTJONES > > On that link, BTW, sorry about the security warning, our > certificate expired and it hasn't made it to the top of the to-do > list yet. > > I appreciate everyones help and feedback on OFBiz! Whether I could > make more money doing something else or not is hard to say, but I'm > certainly enjoying being involved with this and seeing something > move forward like this that I consider to be very important in our > world today (technically, economically, and even politically and > socially in many way...). I certainly couldn't do this myself, and > I hope you never catch me implying that I am even trying or even > think that I could... if I could it would probably mean that I had > enough money to spend a few decades on vacation, well and that I > had a heck of a lot more mental capacity than my poor brain can > currently eke out... ;) > > -David > > > On Jan 6, 2006, at 6:04 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: > >> I understand, sorry didn't mean to be so biting...or start a flame >> war >> >> I'm still a great supporter of ofbiz, I'm just looking from a >> different >> angle. >> >> Having real world release cycles brings out real world issues when >> running >> Ofbiz in production. Things that can't be fixed when you're in dev >> cycle for >> so long with no real ship date.These issues would get fixed and >> put back >> into the main line for release if the user knew the next release >> was coming. >> otherwise you get the custom versions running and not willing to >> contribute >> their fixes because it gives a competitive advantage. >> >> It's a good framework but it could be great if you have regular >> releases >> that were production ready with upgrade features. >> >> If not then I'm well within my rights to raises questions about >> the purpose >> of your involement with undersun consulting. >> >> what about test infrastructure? is there a complete or plans to >> have a >> complete suite of tests that ensure the platform is running? the >> demo app >> should be the basis for this. it should be a requirement to have a >> test >> suite with every feature checked in. >> >> All things I'm sure you're aware of but if you don't want to be >> completely >> wiped off the map when google/amazon release their platform that >> is easy to >> use and upgradable then this project will die. >> >> >> Adrian >> >> >>> From: "David E. Jones" <[hidden email]> >>> Reply-To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion <[hidden email]> >>> To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion <[hidden email]> >>> Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - SSL Setup >>> Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 14:21:14 -0700 >>> >>> >>> On Jan 6, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: >>> >>>> When are you planning a new release? not for the consulting arm >>>> for the >>>> open source community remember collaboration is the way to >>>> success? >>> >>> You are correct that collaboration is the way to success, but it >>> is not >>> true that official releases increase collaboration. In fact, >>> they _reduce_ >>> collaboration. OFBiz is still maturing and the limited resources >>> are >>> dedicated to development and maintenance of the software by >>> various groups >>> with various different, but all overlapping, priorities. >>> >>> The point of the Sequoia project that Si Chen has put together is >>> to have >>> a community that is more dedicated to maintaining point releases >>> with bug >>> fixes and what not done there and back-patched from the open source >>> project. That's the idea anyway... >>> >>> For OFBiz the only real purpose for a release is: marketing! >>> Users of >>> OFBiz who take a release instead of keeping up to date during their >>> development process CAN NOT effectively collaborate with the >>> community or >>> contribute to the project. They are using older code and not >>> updating to >>> get work that others do nor can they base their changes on the >>> latest >>> stuff, so it's just impossible to collaborate. They can sometimes >>> contribute, but generally not as effectively, depending on what >>> it is and >>> how much it has changed since the date of the revision they are >>> using. >>> >>> So, releases aren't a big priority for OFBiz right now. The >>> project has >>> gone, and to some extent is still going, through some MAJOR >>> additions and >>> until these settle down it doesn't make much sense and isn't >>> easy or cheap >>> to do a release (including the necessary testing and bug fixing, >>> related >>> marketing artifacts for new features and announcements and what >>> not, and >>> so on). Creating a binary is easy, that's not the issue, but >>> just a binary >>> isn't a very valuable release and is guaranteed to have more >>> problems than >>> we'd like and so it does more _harm_ than good... >>> >>> We are working on becoming an Apache project, though I don't know >>> if that >>> will go through or not. If it does we will most likely do a >>> release in a >>> few months to push things along there, and mostly for marketing >>> purposes >>> to help new people interested in the project get an idea of >>> what's up. If >>> they are doing development though and customizing OFBiz we will >>> still >>> encourage groups/people to NOT use the releases, but rather to >>> keep up >>> with SVN until they are ready to start their pre-production >>> integration >>> and user level testing. >>> >>>> Why can't a user search the mailing lists? I tried >>>> codecomments.com but >>>> their search doesn't work either. >>> >>> This simply isn't up yet after the mailing list move though it >>> will be up >>> in the future. >>> >>> As with all things: if it is important enough to you to do >>> something about >>> it, then do so! That is how every single little detail in OFBiz is >>> handled... >>> >>> -David >> >> >>> << smime.p7s >> >> >> >> >> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Users mailing list >>> [hidden email] >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users >> >> _________________________________________________________________ >> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - >> it's FREE! >> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Users mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users > > > _______________________________________________ > Users mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users smime.p7s (3K) Download Attachment |
A few more points I think worth mentioning...
It seems to me we are all saying pretty much saying the same thing... We all want OFBiz to be further along and easier to use with more features and better documentation, and more debugged official releases... for free. OFBiz is not there yet, but it's moving that way fast. We all want David to do more, give more, help more, instruct more... He can't until he has more totally trusted truly dedicated supporters to whom he can delegate the work. He constantly has to decide between working on something that pays in the immediate sense like consulting, or working on something that doesn't, namely pushing OFBiz. It may even be that a part of him doesn't want the project to get bigger because that translates into even more people wanting something from him. It all boils down to the need for more people to: Ask not what OFBiz can do for you, but what you can do for OFBiz. (p.s. David, could you fix the USPS Shipping bugs I found.) On Sat, 2006-01-07 at 03:25 -0700, David E. Jones wrote: > That all said (from my last message), there is still another side of > the coin: the poor users of the software! > > Really honestly OFBiz is very much in a growth phase and much of it > is still maturing. That doesn't make it easy to use, and I feel your > pain as I _very_ often with things were cleaner and further along. I > know from lots of conversations that many people in the OFBiz > community are trying to do the impossible for a company that has lots > of needs and not much budget and in some cases the only way they can > do it on that budget without sacrificing a lot of business > differentiating and enabling functionality is to base it on a project > like OFBiz. I think that's the only reason OFBiz has survived and > thrived to the extent it has. Because really the project has a lot of > flaws and a lot of missing functionality that would be really nice to > have in there, and does not come from the traditional source of trust > (a large, financially stable corporation), and so if it wasn't so > unique in the solutions it offers that would otherwise be impossible, > it would be dead. > > In other words, a lot of people are quite frustrated because even if > it makes it possible and easier, it doesn't make it easy and it is > still expensive and really hard. I don't know if this is your > situation Adrian, but if it is know that you are in good company. > > I think this is why the big boys haven't tried to shut down OFBiz yet > (to my knowledge anyway). They know what a 100 million dollar check > (or contract) looks like and can't imagine a bunch of middle-class > nobodies ever competing effectively with them without such a check or > contract. The good thing is that now OFBiz is widely based enough > that it would be somewhat expensive to legally destroy it (via > destroying the contributors or cutting off contributions to it). > Hopefully in the near future it will become even more difficult... > Right now even if Andy and I were totally out of the picture I think > the project could and would continue just fine. It might temporarily > slow things down a bit, but there is nothing in OFBiz that other > people don't have access to and/or knowledge about. > > -David > > > On Jan 7, 2006, at 3:10 AM, David E. Jones wrote: > > > > > Chris made some good comments in his earlier reply to this, so that > > would be a good thing to read through all the way for anyway > > watching this. Because of that I'll leave out most of the detail > > and drop right to the core issue: MONEY! > > > > One thing that Chris mentioned in his message and that anyone knows > > who has worked with this sort of software is that it is incredibly > > complicated and therefore expensive to create and maintain. It's > > not a little bit expensive, it is really expensive. OFBiz is no > > different. We have put a LOT of effort into reducing the technical > > complexity of the business level implementation artifacts, and that > > makes development and maintenance for OFBiz much much cheaper, but > > still we are working on a budget that is very roughly around 1-2% > > of the typical development budget of an ERP system, and that is the > > current "budget" which represents over 10 times as many resources > > as went into the project even a couple of years ago. > > > > What's interesting about this "budget" or the resources coming into > > the project is that they are 100% donations from users of the > > software. That's right: 100%. The Open For Business Project has no > > money nor any source of income. The contributions that come into > > the project come primarily from small consulting firms who serve > > mostly medium to large size clients (which a number of smaller > > clients, but the percentage of income from them is pretty low). > > > > So far no one is getting rich here (that I know of... if anyone is > > I could use a little of that...). If I were I sure as hell wouldn't > > even be reading this mailing list, let alone responding to > > messages. Because I'm interested in this sort of thing I might have > > started the project and gotten into this even if I didn't need the > > money, but I certainly wouldn't be spending so much time on it, and > > of course that is hypothetical. The fact is I've been barely > > scraping by for the last few years trying to keep the project going > > and running a small consulting company based on it in order to > > survive, and before this last year (2005) that meant going deeper > > and deeper into debt every year. This year wasn't spectacular, but > > at least I managed to knock off a small percentage of my debt > > instead of increasing it... > > > > I appreciate the feedback on the apparent size of Undersun, but the > > fact is the company has no money and no employees, just 2 partners. > > When we do larger projects we sub-contract when we can, and when > > that doesn't work out we partner with another company or often just > > support an internal development group for the client. In many cases > > we can't even win a contract for a larger client alone and have to > > partner with a larger and more trusted and trust-worthy partner. > > This is not highly profitable stuff... if you want to earn the > > bucks you got to work the hours. If you want lots of bucks you have > > to work until you can't form a sentence and then rest until you can > > and repeat the cycle. Chances are many people reading this know how > > that is... > > > > If Amazon or Google wanted to compete with us in our game THEY > > WOULD WIPE US OUT IN A FEW MONTHS! While I don't know their exact > > figures, I can probably safely say that they each spend quite a bit > > more on IT in one quarter than has been spent on OFBiz > > contributions since the project began. It wouldn't be hard to > > compete with us... > > > > So what are we all doing here and how do we expect this to continue > > and be a success? OFBiz is the ONLY significant business > > application level open source project that is a true collaborative > > effort and not owned or run by a central strong company. It is the > > only one of this size that has licensing terms as generous as the > > MIT license (and related licenses) offer. If I'm wrong on this I'm > > sure someone will let me know pretty quick (assuming people read > > all of this tripe I write... ;) ). If that's what you want, this is > > the place. If you want something that you can use "out of the box" > > and that is developed spending all of the money that is necessary > > to do everything that makes it easy to use, well, I'm not sure > > where to look for a perfect solution, but there are a lot of > > commercial (and some commercial/open source) projects that might be > > closer to that than OFBiz... > > > > Anyway, I've written pretty much all of this many times and for > > those who might be interested there is more detail and some history > > on my blog on the Undersun site at: > > > > https://www.undersunconsulting.com/ofbizdoc/control/MainBlog? > > contentContentId=BLOGROOTJONES¤tMenuItemName=BLOGROOTJONES > > > > On that link, BTW, sorry about the security warning, our > > certificate expired and it hasn't made it to the top of the to-do > > list yet. > > > > I appreciate everyones help and feedback on OFBiz! Whether I could > > make more money doing something else or not is hard to say, but I'm > > certainly enjoying being involved with this and seeing something > > move forward like this that I consider to be very important in our > > world today (technically, economically, and even politically and > > socially in many way...). I certainly couldn't do this myself, and > > I hope you never catch me implying that I am even trying or even > > think that I could... if I could it would probably mean that I had > > enough money to spend a few decades on vacation, well and that I > > had a heck of a lot more mental capacity than my poor brain can > > currently eke out... ;) > > > > -David > > > > > > On Jan 6, 2006, at 6:04 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: > > > >> I understand, sorry didn't mean to be so biting...or start a flame > >> war > >> > >> I'm still a great supporter of ofbiz, I'm just looking from a > >> different > >> angle. > >> > >> Having real world release cycles brings out real world issues when > >> running > >> Ofbiz in production. Things that can't be fixed when you're in dev > >> cycle for > >> so long with no real ship date.These issues would get fixed and > >> put back > >> into the main line for release if the user knew the next release > >> was coming. > >> otherwise you get the custom versions running and not willing to > >> contribute > >> their fixes because it gives a competitive advantage. > >> > >> It's a good framework but it could be great if you have regular > >> releases > >> that were production ready with upgrade features. > >> > >> If not then I'm well within my rights to raises questions about > >> the purpose > >> of your involement with undersun consulting. > >> > >> what about test infrastructure? is there a complete or plans to > >> have a > >> complete suite of tests that ensure the platform is running? the > >> demo app > >> should be the basis for this. it should be a requirement to have a > >> test > >> suite with every feature checked in. > >> > >> All things I'm sure you're aware of but if you don't want to be > >> completely > >> wiped off the map when google/amazon release their platform that > >> is easy to > >> use and upgradable then this project will die. > >> > >> > >> Adrian > >> > >> > >>> From: "David E. Jones" <[hidden email]> > >>> Reply-To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion <[hidden email]> > >>> To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion <[hidden email]> > >>> Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - SSL Setup > >>> Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 14:21:14 -0700 > >>> > >>> > >>> On Jan 6, 2006, at 12:22 PM, Adrian Grealish wrote: > >>> > >>>> When are you planning a new release? not for the consulting arm > >>>> for the > >>>> open source community remember collaboration is the way to > >>>> success? > >>> > >>> You are correct that collaboration is the way to success, but it > >>> is not > >>> true that official releases increase collaboration. In fact, > >>> they _reduce_ > >>> collaboration. OFBiz is still maturing and the limited resources > >>> are > >>> dedicated to development and maintenance of the software by > >>> various groups > >>> with various different, but all overlapping, priorities. > >>> > >>> The point of the Sequoia project that Si Chen has put together is > >>> to have > >>> a community that is more dedicated to maintaining point releases > >>> with bug > >>> fixes and what not done there and back-patched from the open source > >>> project. That's the idea anyway... > >>> > >>> For OFBiz the only real purpose for a release is: marketing! > >>> Users of > >>> OFBiz who take a release instead of keeping up to date during their > >>> development process CAN NOT effectively collaborate with the > >>> community or > >>> contribute to the project. They are using older code and not > >>> updating to > >>> get work that others do nor can they base their changes on the > >>> latest > >>> stuff, so it's just impossible to collaborate. They can sometimes > >>> contribute, but generally not as effectively, depending on what > >>> it is and > >>> how much it has changed since the date of the revision they are > >>> using. > >>> > >>> So, releases aren't a big priority for OFBiz right now. The > >>> project has > >>> gone, and to some extent is still going, through some MAJOR > >>> additions and > >>> until these settle down it doesn't make much sense and isn't > >>> easy or cheap > >>> to do a release (including the necessary testing and bug fixing, > >>> related > >>> marketing artifacts for new features and announcements and what > >>> not, and > >>> so on). Creating a binary is easy, that's not the issue, but > >>> just a binary > >>> isn't a very valuable release and is guaranteed to have more > >>> problems than > >>> we'd like and so it does more _harm_ than good... > >>> > >>> We are working on becoming an Apache project, though I don't know > >>> if that > >>> will go through or not. If it does we will most likely do a > >>> release in a > >>> few months to push things along there, and mostly for marketing > >>> purposes > >>> to help new people interested in the project get an idea of > >>> what's up. If > >>> they are doing development though and customizing OFBiz we will > >>> still > >>> encourage groups/people to NOT use the releases, but rather to > >>> keep up > >>> with SVN until they are ready to start their pre-production > >>> integration > >>> and user level testing. > >>> > >>>> Why can't a user search the mailing lists? I tried > >>>> codecomments.com but > >>>> their search doesn't work either. > >>> > >>> This simply isn't up yet after the mailing list move though it > >>> will be up > >>> in the future. > >>> > >>> As with all things: if it is important enough to you to do > >>> something about > >>> it, then do so! That is how every single little detail in OFBiz is > >>> handled... > >>> > >>> -David > >> > >> > >>> << smime.p7s >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Users mailing list > >>> [hidden email] > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users > >> > >> _________________________________________________________________ > >> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - > >> it's FREE! > >> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Users mailing list > >> [hidden email] > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Users mailing list > > [hidden email] > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users > > _______________________________________________ > Users mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users _______________________________________________ Users mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users |
Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |