Next Ofbiz release

[Bruno Busco <br...@gmail.com>]

Hi,
i would like to ask if there is a roadmap to the next Ofbiz release (or
release candidate).

When (based on time or based on task/functionality to be implemented) is it
planned?
I do not see the JIRA roadmap feature used here but I think it would be
great.

Thanks,
- Bruno

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

On Apr 29, 2008, at 11:25 PM, Bruno Busco wrote:
> David,
> I totally agree with your vision, the purpose of my original  
> proposal to use
> the JIRA roadmap feature was just to have a clear understanding of  
> your
> points 1), 2) and 3)
> So that, day by day, everyone can clearly see what the community has  
> decided
> to "clean up before we do a release", "just develop and include" and
> "critical bugs or security holes we should fix".
>
> Creating a JIRA version (even for the framework only), selecting  
> issues and
> scheduling them for that version is just how jira helps us to do  
> your point
> 1), 2) and 3).
>
> -Bruno

This is somewhat of a different scenario, where I'm defining a certain  
scope and asking people to participate. But still, things are  
community driven and even if we lay out a bunch of stuff for people to  
work on it doesn't mean it will happen before the release or make it  
into it.

The point of these is for people to not just propose stuff to be  
included, but to also DO the stuff and contribute it.

So, in other words, yes everyone please do create Jira issues and make  
it clear that you'll be working on them...

-David

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Bruno Busco <br...@gmail.com>]

David,
I totally agree with your vision, the purpose of my original proposal to use
the JIRA roadmap feature was just to have a clear understanding of your
points 1), 2) and 3)
So that, day by day, everyone can clearly see what the community has decided
to "clean up before we do a release", "just develop and include" and
"critical bugs or security holes we should fix".

Creating a JIRA version (even for the framework only), selecting issues and
scheduling them for that version is just how jira helps us to do your point
1), 2) and 3).

-Bruno

2008/4/30 David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>:

>
> On Apr 29, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote:
>
> > David E Jones wrote:
> >
> > > This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach in
> > > general to this sort of release management is that it assumes top-down
> > > management of a project.
> > >
> > > In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the nature of
> > > OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF projects, and many other
> > > open source projects, are community driven but are also more limited in
> > > scope and have either an existing specification to work toward, or have a
> > > sufficiently limited scope that the definition of targets for a release is
> > > not overly burdensome.
> > >
> > > With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that the
> > > scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need over time, for
> > > themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a budget for driving OFBiz
> > > top-down that could result in the same volume of progress it would have to
> > > be around $5-10M per year (my own estimate of course, no Gartner or the like
> > > has deigned to look into this).
> > >
> > > In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community driven
> > > open source enterprise automation project out there. The closest alternative
> > > is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a community driven effort to
> > > replace a bad vendor that has mostly stepped out of the picture.
> > >
> > > So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive things
> > > in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what works according to
> > > what people are willing and able to contribute.
> > >
> > I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that we
> > shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go back to a
> > top-down model". We know that the top-down model always leads to lock in and
> > all the other negatives of a single monolithic vendor. The Linux kernel has
> > already shown that you can get distributed scale with multiple large vendor
> > players giving the power assist. I think that's the future we want to be
> > living in.
> >
>
> I can't speak for everyone here, but my opinion of the driving force
> behind OFBiz is definitely the community. My comments were not meant to
> imply that certain things can't happen without corporate or other
> sponsorship from a big enough single entity, but that such is not the nature
> of the OFBiz community or any community driven projects, so we have to rely
> on what people are willing to contribute, a la the community driven open
> source model.
>
> That said, one of the big objectives as I see it now for OFBiz is to
> develop the community, a sort of business development for open source
> projects. Our focus in the past for community develop has been mostly around
> fostering and encouraging contributors. Now that we have a strong framework
> and generic business artifacts base in order for adoption of OFBiz to grow
> we need stronger service providers and a wider community of users, whether
> or not they also participate as contributors.
>
> My reasoning behind that is that most enterprise (and other) products are
> created and driven by a central company and to a large extent it is the
> reputation and name of that company that drives people to accept and desire
> the software offered.
>
> While OFBiz itself can be a brand that we as a community promote, OFBiz
> itself has no funds for marketing or evangelism, leaving the burden of those
> efforts to the community, to whoever wants to contribute such things. In
> order for large companies to use OFBiz on a wider basis they need a
> reputation and name to sell to stakeholders in their organization.
> Eventually I hope that OFBiz will have such a name on its own, but for now
> that's sadly not the case.
>
> In short if we can work together to attract larger services organizations
> to the OFBiz community and to grow services organizations working based on
> OFBiz it will open things up for the next stage of growth and progress for
> the project.
>
> Right now there are large services organizations using OFBiz, but not
> advertising such or proposing it to their clients so much, partly because of
> limited internal skilled people available (from what I can tell...). Most of
> their projects are because their clients are requesting OFBiz, but the
> services organizations are not recommending it. Some examples I'm aware of
> include Euro/Amer companies like Accenture and Indian companies like TCS,
> Satyam, etc.
>
> I'm not sure if these companies are used to recommending solutions and
> doing marketing, but they are the largest organizations involved with OFBiz
> (aside from end-users) and because OFBiz doesn't have it's own marketing
> budget and coordinated efforts, the service providers are the only ones with
> a sufficient commercial interest to invest in this.
>
> Now, if we could get press attention even though we don't have money to
> push it we might make some great progress. However, and this might be based
> on my jaded view of the world, but most press organizations talk about what
> is making money, even in the open source world. Apache gets in the news
> sometimes because of games played with Sun and others, and because of large
> user bases for lower level tools in many cases.
>
> Anyway, this is a big effort going forward that I've been thinking about
> lately, ie the business development around OFBiz... not so much of OFBiz
> itself as that only applies so much, but around OFBiz.
>
> That said one of our big tools for that is to do GA binary releases and
> make a big stink about them. That's probably the strongest tool any open
> source project has.
>
> To start that off I'd like to focus on the framework and do a release
> branch and a GA binary release of it. After that we'd move on to the base
> applications along with the framework. For the framework itself the things
> that we need help with and to consider are:
>
> 1. is there anything in the framework that we should or want to clean up
> before we do a release and "set things in stone" more than they are now?
>
> 2. are there new features that we've been talking about for while that we
> should just develop and include? (the entity field automatic auditing
> feature is one I decided to spend a couple of hours adding yesterday; LDAP
> auth OOTB would be another nice one to add, and I'm sure there are more)
>
> 3. are there critical bugs or security holes we should fix? (one thing
> that comes to mind is tools and default behavior where applicable to protect
> against XSS/cross-site-scripting)
>
> 4. who can help with this? who can help test and write unit tests for the
> framework? who can help implement new features and fix bugs and such?
>
> What we really need here from contributors is pro-active effort. If you'd
> like to help but you're not sure what to work on you can ask, but please be
> sensitive about requesting assistance or mentoring from core developers or
> other contributors as that may keep them from doing things that can be
> directly contributed. In other words, we need people who can help get this
> done and while we're at it if there are others who want to get involved
> please do in a pro-active, self-motivated way.
>
> BTW, sorry for hijacking your comment Ean... I've been thinking about this
> a lot lately and responding to your comment seemed to flow into this.
>
> -David
>
>
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Mike Bates <mi...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

Regarding the effort to get the word out, HWM will definitely enjoy  
the chance to participate in that - docs, marketing, PR.  Would be  
great to collaborate with other individuals / organizations on any of  
these as well.  Any interested parties, feel free to contact me  
individually and we could begin working on a plan.

Best regards,

Mike


-- 
Mike Bates
HotWax Media
CEO
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
cell: 801.706.9137
desk: 801.649.6245
main: 888.405.2667


On May 1, 2008, at 7:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:

>
> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework  
> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future  
> so we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>
> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put  
> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to the  
> world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material, and  
> another part of it would be some press releases that go through the  
> ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to get  
> involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for  
> now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention of  
> contributors to the relevant materials.
>
> -David
>
>
> On Apr 29, 2008, at 10:06 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>
>> On Apr 29, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote:
>>> David E Jones wrote:
>>>> This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach  
>>>> in general to this sort of release management is that it assumes  
>>>> top-down management of a project.
>>>>
>>>> In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the  
>>>> nature of OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF  
>>>> projects, and many other open source projects, are community  
>>>> driven but are also more limited in scope and have either an  
>>>> existing specification to work toward, or have a sufficiently  
>>>> limited scope that the definition of targets for a release is not  
>>>> overly burdensome.
>>>>
>>>> With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that  
>>>> the scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need  
>>>> over time, for themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a  
>>>> budget for driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the same  
>>>> volume of progress it would have to be around $5-10M per year (my  
>>>> own estimate of course, no Gartner or the like has deigned to  
>>>> look into this).
>>>>
>>>> In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community  
>>>> driven open source enterprise automation project out there. The  
>>>> closest alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a  
>>>> community driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly  
>>>> stepped out of the picture.
>>>>
>>>> So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive  
>>>> things in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what  
>>>> works according to what people are willing and able to contribute.
>>> I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that  
>>> we shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go  
>>> back to a top-down model". We know that the top-down model always  
>>> leads to lock in and all the other negatives of a single  
>>> monolithic vendor. The Linux kernel has already shown that you can  
>>> get distributed scale with multiple large vendor players giving  
>>> the power assist. I think that's the future we want to be living in.
>>
>> I can't speak for everyone here, but my opinion of the driving  
>> force behind OFBiz is definitely the community. My comments were  
>> not meant to imply that certain things can't happen without  
>> corporate or other sponsorship from a big enough single entity, but  
>> that such is not the nature of the OFBiz community or any community  
>> driven projects, so we have to rely on what people are willing to  
>> contribute, a la the community driven open source model.
>>
>> That said, one of the big objectives as I see it now for OFBiz is  
>> to develop the community, a sort of business development for open  
>> source projects. Our focus in the past for community develop has  
>> been mostly around fostering and encouraging contributors. Now that  
>> we have a strong framework and generic business artifacts base in  
>> order for adoption of OFBiz to grow we need stronger service  
>> providers and a wider community of users, whether or not they also  
>> participate as contributors.
>>
>> My reasoning behind that is that most enterprise (and other)  
>> products are created and driven by a central company and to a large  
>> extent it is the reputation and name of that company that drives  
>> people to accept and desire the software offered.
>>
>> While OFBiz itself can be a brand that we as a community promote,  
>> OFBiz itself has no funds for marketing or evangelism, leaving the  
>> burden of those efforts to the community, to whoever wants to  
>> contribute such things. In order for large companies to use OFBiz  
>> on a wider basis they need a reputation and name to sell to  
>> stakeholders in their organization. Eventually I hope that OFBiz  
>> will have such a name on its own, but for now that's sadly not the  
>> case.
>>
>> In short if we can work together to attract larger services  
>> organizations to the OFBiz community and to grow services  
>> organizations working based on OFBiz it will open things up for the  
>> next stage of growth and progress for the project.
>>
>> Right now there are large services organizations using OFBiz, but  
>> not advertising such or proposing it to their clients so much,  
>> partly because of limited internal skilled people available (from  
>> what I can tell...). Most of their projects are because their  
>> clients are requesting OFBiz, but the services organizations are  
>> not recommending it. Some examples I'm aware of include Euro/Amer  
>> companies like Accenture and Indian companies like TCS, Satyam, etc.
>>
>> I'm not sure if these companies are used to recommending solutions  
>> and doing marketing, but they are the largest organizations  
>> involved with OFBiz (aside from end-users) and because OFBiz  
>> doesn't have it's own marketing budget and coordinated efforts, the  
>> service providers are the only ones with a sufficient commercial  
>> interest to invest in this.
>>
>> Now, if we could get press attention even though we don't have  
>> money to push it we might make some great progress. However, and  
>> this might be based on my jaded view of the world, but most press  
>> organizations talk about what is making money, even in the open  
>> source world. Apache gets in the news sometimes because of games  
>> played with Sun and others, and because of large user bases for  
>> lower level tools in many cases.
>>
>> Anyway, this is a big effort going forward that I've been thinking  
>> about lately, ie the business development around OFBiz... not so  
>> much of OFBiz itself as that only applies so much, but around OFBiz.
>>
>> That said one of our big tools for that is to do GA binary releases  
>> and make a big stink about them. That's probably the strongest tool  
>> any open source project has.
>>
>> To start that off I'd like to focus on the framework and do a  
>> release branch and a GA binary release of it. After that we'd move  
>> on to the base applications along with the framework. For the  
>> framework itself the things that we need help with and to consider  
>> are:
>>
>> 1. is there anything in the framework that we should or want to  
>> clean up before we do a release and "set things in stone" more than  
>> they are now?
>>
>> 2. are there new features that we've been talking about for while  
>> that we should just develop and include? (the entity field  
>> automatic auditing feature is one I decided to spend a couple of  
>> hours adding yesterday; LDAP auth OOTB would be another nice one to  
>> add, and I'm sure there are more)
>>
>> 3. are there critical bugs or security holes we should fix? (one  
>> thing that comes to mind is tools and default behavior where  
>> applicable to protect against XSS/cross-site-scripting)
>>
>> 4. who can help with this? who can help test and write unit tests  
>> for the framework? who can help implement new features and fix bugs  
>> and such?
>>
>> What we really need here from contributors is pro-active effort. If  
>> you'd like to help but you're not sure what to work on you can ask,  
>> but please be sensitive about requesting assistance or mentoring  
>> from core developers or other contributors as that may keep them  
>> from doing things that can be directly contributed. In other words,  
>> we need people who can help get this done and while we're at it if  
>> there are others who want to get involved please do in a pro- 
>> active, self-motivated way.
>>
>> BTW, sorry for hijacking your comment Ean... I've been thinking  
>> about this a lot lately and responding to your comment seemed to  
>> flow into this.
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Jacques Le Roux <ja...@les7arts.com>]

http://docs.ofbiz.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4098

Jacques

From: "guo weizhan" <gu...@gmail.com>
>I think it need to make the ofbiz can  deploy  as war package would be
> great, it need to do lot's of work to deploy ofbiz in websphere,weblogic and
> others J2EE server. I think it can more easy to use and more popular if
> ofbiz can deploy as war package
> 
> 2008/5/5 Adrian Crum <ad...@hlmksw.com>:
> 
>> I was confused about that. I thought we were talking about releasing the R4
>> framework.
>>
>> -Adrian
>>
>> David E Jones wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Do you mean "branch" or "fork"?
>>>
>>> Do a release branch, yes, as explained in the message, just like the
>>> release4.0 branch. The intent is to create a binary distribution of just the
>>> framework.
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 4, 2008, at 1:07 PM, BJ Freeman wrote:
>>>
>>>  from what I read it seems you will be branching the framwork.
>>>> is this accruate?
>>>>
>>>> David E Jones sent the following on 5/3/2008 10:44 AM:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Could you be more specific? I don't understand the question.
>>>>>
>>>>> -David
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On May 3, 2008, at 10:17 AM, BJ Freeman wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>  what will happen to the effort to keep the applications working with
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> frame work?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David E Jones sent the following on 5/2/2008 1:09 PM:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes, exactly.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The main intent is to release something that is easier to test and
>>>>>>> release to attract end-users. Part of the point of attracting
>>>>>>> end-users
>>>>>>> is to popularize the OFBiz framework way of doing things (a business
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> service oriented application architecture as opposed to an object
>>>>>>> oriented one).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -David
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On May 2, 2008, at 1:24 PM, Joe Eckard wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  When you're speaking of releasing the framework, is the intent to
>>>>>>>> distribute something standalone that could be downloaded / used (and
>>>>>>>> tested / maintained) separately from the business applications?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -Joe
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On May 1, 2008, at 9:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework
>>>>>>>>> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future
>>>>>>>>> so
>>>>>>>>> we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put
>>>>>>>>> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to the
>>>>>>>>> world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material, and
>>>>>>>>> another part of it would be some press releases that go through the
>>>>>>>>> ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to get
>>>>>>>>> involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for
>>>>>>>>> now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention of
>>>>>>>>> contributors to the relevant materials.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> -David
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[guo weizhan <gu...@gmail.com>]

I think it need to make the ofbiz can  deploy  as war package would be
great, it need to do lot's of work to deploy ofbiz in websphere,weblogic and
others J2EE server. I think it can more easy to use and more popular if
ofbiz can deploy as war package

2008/5/5 Adrian Crum <ad...@hlmksw.com>:

> I was confused about that. I thought we were talking about releasing the R4
> framework.
>
> -Adrian
>
> David E Jones wrote:
>
>>
>> Do you mean "branch" or "fork"?
>>
>> Do a release branch, yes, as explained in the message, just like the
>> release4.0 branch. The intent is to create a binary distribution of just the
>> framework.
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>> On May 4, 2008, at 1:07 PM, BJ Freeman wrote:
>>
>>  from what I read it seems you will be branching the framwork.
>>> is this accruate?
>>>
>>> David E Jones sent the following on 5/3/2008 10:44 AM:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Could you be more specific? I don't understand the question.
>>>>
>>>> -David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On May 3, 2008, at 10:17 AM, BJ Freeman wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  what will happen to the effort to keep the applications working with
>>>>> the
>>>>> frame work?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> David E Jones sent the following on 5/2/2008 1:09 PM:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, exactly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The main intent is to release something that is easier to test and
>>>>>> release to attract end-users. Part of the point of attracting
>>>>>> end-users
>>>>>> is to popularize the OFBiz framework way of doing things (a business
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> service oriented application architecture as opposed to an object
>>>>>> oriented one).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -David
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On May 2, 2008, at 1:24 PM, Joe Eckard wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  When you're speaking of releasing the framework, is the intent to
>>>>>>> distribute something standalone that could be downloaded / used (and
>>>>>>> tested / maintained) separately from the business applications?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -Joe
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On May 1, 2008, at 9:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework
>>>>>>>> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future
>>>>>>>> so
>>>>>>>> we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put
>>>>>>>> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to the
>>>>>>>> world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material, and
>>>>>>>> another part of it would be some press releases that go through the
>>>>>>>> ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to get
>>>>>>>> involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for
>>>>>>>> now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention of
>>>>>>>> contributors to the relevant materials.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -David
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Adrian Crum <ad...@hlmksw.com>]

I was confused about that. I thought we were talking about releasing the 
R4 framework.

-Adrian

David E Jones wrote:
> 
> Do you mean "branch" or "fork"?
> 
> Do a release branch, yes, as explained in the message, just like the 
> release4.0 branch. The intent is to create a binary distribution of just 
> the framework.
> 
> -David
> 
> 
> On May 4, 2008, at 1:07 PM, BJ Freeman wrote:
> 
>> from what I read it seems you will be branching the framwork.
>> is this accruate?
>>
>> David E Jones sent the following on 5/3/2008 10:44 AM:
>>>
>>> Could you be more specific? I don't understand the question.
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 3, 2008, at 10:17 AM, BJ Freeman wrote:
>>>
>>>> what will happen to the effort to keep the applications working with 
>>>> the
>>>> frame work?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> David E Jones sent the following on 5/2/2008 1:09 PM:
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, exactly.
>>>>>
>>>>> The main intent is to release something that is easier to test and
>>>>> release to attract end-users. Part of the point of attracting 
>>>>> end-users
>>>>> is to popularize the OFBiz framework way of doing things (a 
>>>>> business and
>>>>> service oriented application architecture as opposed to an object
>>>>> oriented one).
>>>>>
>>>>> -David
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On May 2, 2008, at 1:24 PM, Joe Eckard wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> When you're speaking of releasing the framework, is the intent to
>>>>>> distribute something standalone that could be downloaded / used (and
>>>>>> tested / maintained) separately from the business applications?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Joe
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On May 1, 2008, at 9:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework
>>>>>>> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near 
>>>>>>> future so
>>>>>>> we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put
>>>>>>> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to the
>>>>>>> world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material, and
>>>>>>> another part of it would be some press releases that go through the
>>>>>>> ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to get
>>>>>>> involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for
>>>>>>> now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention of
>>>>>>> contributors to the relevant materials.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -David
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
> 
> 

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

Do you mean "branch" or "fork"?

Do a release branch, yes, as explained in the message, just like the  
release4.0 branch. The intent is to create a binary distribution of  
just the framework.

-David


On May 4, 2008, at 1:07 PM, BJ Freeman wrote:

> from what I read it seems you will be branching the framwork.
> is this accruate?
>
> David E Jones sent the following on 5/3/2008 10:44 AM:
>>
>> Could you be more specific? I don't understand the question.
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>> On May 3, 2008, at 10:17 AM, BJ Freeman wrote:
>>
>>> what will happen to the effort to keep the applications working  
>>> with the
>>> frame work?
>>>
>>>
>>> David E Jones sent the following on 5/2/2008 1:09 PM:
>>>>
>>>> Yes, exactly.
>>>>
>>>> The main intent is to release something that is easier to test and
>>>> release to attract end-users. Part of the point of attracting end- 
>>>> users
>>>> is to popularize the OFBiz framework way of doing things (a  
>>>> business and
>>>> service oriented application architecture as opposed to an object
>>>> oriented one).
>>>>
>>>> -David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On May 2, 2008, at 1:24 PM, Joe Eckard wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> When you're speaking of releasing the framework, is the intent to
>>>>> distribute something standalone that could be downloaded / used  
>>>>> (and
>>>>> tested / maintained) separately from the business applications?
>>>>>
>>>>> -Joe
>>>>>
>>>>> On May 1, 2008, at 9:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework
>>>>>> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near  
>>>>>> future so
>>>>>> we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to  
>>>>>> put
>>>>>> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out  
>>>>>> to the
>>>>>> world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material,  
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> another part of it would be some press releases that go through  
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to  
>>>>>> get
>>>>>> involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for
>>>>>> now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention of
>>>>>> contributors to the relevant materials.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -David
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[BJ Freeman <bj...@free-man.net>]

from what I read it seems you will be branching the framwork.
is this accruate?

David E Jones sent the following on 5/3/2008 10:44 AM:
> 
> Could you be more specific? I don't understand the question.
> 
> -David
> 
> 
> On May 3, 2008, at 10:17 AM, BJ Freeman wrote:
> 
>> what will happen to the effort to keep the applications working with the
>> frame work?
>>
>>
>> David E Jones sent the following on 5/2/2008 1:09 PM:
>>>
>>> Yes, exactly.
>>>
>>> The main intent is to release something that is easier to test and
>>> release to attract end-users. Part of the point of attracting end-users
>>> is to popularize the OFBiz framework way of doing things (a business and
>>> service oriented application architecture as opposed to an object
>>> oriented one).
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 2, 2008, at 1:24 PM, Joe Eckard wrote:
>>>
>>>> When you're speaking of releasing the framework, is the intent to
>>>> distribute something standalone that could be downloaded / used (and
>>>> tested / maintained) separately from the business applications?
>>>>
>>>> -Joe
>>>>
>>>> On May 1, 2008, at 9:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework
>>>>> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future so
>>>>> we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>>>>>
>>>>> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put
>>>>> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to the
>>>>> world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material, and
>>>>> another part of it would be some press releases that go through the
>>>>> ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to get
>>>>> involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for
>>>>> now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention of
>>>>> contributors to the relevant materials.
>>>>>
>>>>> -David
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

Could you be more specific? I don't understand the question.

-David


On May 3, 2008, at 10:17 AM, BJ Freeman wrote:

> what will happen to the effort to keep the applications working with  
> the
> frame work?
>
>
> David E Jones sent the following on 5/2/2008 1:09 PM:
>>
>> Yes, exactly.
>>
>> The main intent is to release something that is easier to test and
>> release to attract end-users. Part of the point of attracting end- 
>> users
>> is to popularize the OFBiz framework way of doing things (a  
>> business and
>> service oriented application architecture as opposed to an object
>> oriented one).
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>> On May 2, 2008, at 1:24 PM, Joe Eckard wrote:
>>
>>> When you're speaking of releasing the framework, is the intent to
>>> distribute something standalone that could be downloaded / used (and
>>> tested / maintained) separately from the business applications?
>>>
>>> -Joe
>>>
>>> On May 1, 2008, at 9:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework
>>>> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near  
>>>> future so
>>>> we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>>>>
>>>> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put
>>>> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to  
>>>> the
>>>> world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material, and
>>>> another part of it would be some press releases that go through the
>>>> ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to get
>>>> involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for
>>>> now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention of
>>>> contributors to the relevant materials.
>>>>
>>>> -David
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[BJ Freeman <bj...@free-man.net>]

what will happen to the effort to keep the applications working with the
 frame work?


David E Jones sent the following on 5/2/2008 1:09 PM:
> 
> Yes, exactly.
> 
> The main intent is to release something that is easier to test and
> release to attract end-users. Part of the point of attracting end-users
> is to popularize the OFBiz framework way of doing things (a business and
> service oriented application architecture as opposed to an object
> oriented one).
> 
> -David
> 
> 
> On May 2, 2008, at 1:24 PM, Joe Eckard wrote:
> 
>> When you're speaking of releasing the framework, is the intent to
>> distribute something standalone that could be downloaded / used (and
>> tested / maintained) separately from the business applications?
>>
>> -Joe
>>
>> On May 1, 2008, at 9:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework
>>> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future so
>>> we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>>>
>>> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put
>>> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to the
>>> world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material, and
>>> another part of it would be some press releases that go through the
>>> ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to get
>>> involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for
>>> now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention of
>>> contributors to the relevant materials.
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

Yes, exactly.

The main intent is to release something that is easier to test and  
release to attract end-users. Part of the point of attracting end- 
users is to popularize the OFBiz framework way of doing things (a  
business and service oriented application architecture as opposed to  
an object oriented one).

-David


On May 2, 2008, at 1:24 PM, Joe Eckard wrote:

> When you're speaking of releasing the framework, is the intent to  
> distribute something standalone that could be downloaded / used (and  
> tested / maintained) separately from the business applications?
>
> -Joe
>
> On May 1, 2008, at 9:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>
>>
>> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework  
>> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future  
>> so we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>>
>> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put  
>> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to  
>> the world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material,  
>> and another part of it would be some press releases that go through  
>> the ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to  
>> get involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it  
>> for now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention  
>> of contributors to the relevant materials.
>>
>> -David
>>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Joe Eckard <jo...@redrocketcorp.com>]

When you're speaking of releasing the framework, is the intent to  
distribute something standalone that could be downloaded / used (and  
tested / maintained) separately from the business applications?

-Joe

On May 1, 2008, at 9:15 PM, David E Jones wrote:

>
> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework  
> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future  
> so we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>
> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put  
> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to  
> the world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material,  
> and another part of it would be some press releases that go through  
> the ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to  
> get involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it  
> for now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention  
> of contributors to the relevant materials.
>
> -David
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

That would be great Adrian. I noticed you were working on the example  
component, which will be part of this framework release. Actually, the  
example and webtools components are the only ones that really have a  
UI to them, so work in those areas would be especially great right now.

For the press release: I'll definitely keep you in the loop. I'm not  
totally sure how that will work, but I think we need to create a draft  
or at least tell the story and then the Apache PRC folks can help us  
refine and distribute it.

-David


On May 2, 2008, at 8:39 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:

> I can spend some time going through the UI and make sure it's  
> compatible with the latest IE. I was planning on doing that anyway.
>
> Plus, I have experience with preparing press releases.
>
> -Adrian
>
> David E Jones wrote:
>> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework  
>> shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future  
>> so we can release something and keep it stable for a while...
>> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put  
>> some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to  
>> the world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material,  
>> and another part of it would be some press releases that go through  
>> the ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to  
>> get involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it  
>> for now, but there is certainly room for public credit and mention  
>> of contributors to the relevant materials.
>> -David
>> On Apr 29, 2008, at 10:06 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>>
>>> On Apr 29, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote:
>>>> David E Jones wrote:
>>>>> This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach  
>>>>> in general to this sort of release management is that it assumes  
>>>>> top-down management of a project.
>>>>>
>>>>> In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the  
>>>>> nature of OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF  
>>>>> projects, and many other open source projects, are community  
>>>>> driven but are also more limited in scope and have either an  
>>>>> existing specification to work toward, or have a sufficiently  
>>>>> limited scope that the definition of targets for a release is  
>>>>> not overly burdensome.
>>>>>
>>>>> With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact  
>>>>> that the scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz  
>>>>> need over time, for themselves or their clients/customers. If we  
>>>>> had a budget for driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the  
>>>>> same volume of progress it would have to be around $5-10M per  
>>>>> year (my own estimate of course, no Gartner or the like has  
>>>>> deigned to look into this).
>>>>>
>>>>> In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community  
>>>>> driven open source enterprise automation project out there. The  
>>>>> closest alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a  
>>>>> community driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly  
>>>>> stepped out of the picture.
>>>>>
>>>>> So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive  
>>>>> things in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what  
>>>>> works according to what people are willing and able to contribute.
>>>> I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that  
>>>> we shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go  
>>>> back to a top-down model". We know that the top-down model always  
>>>> leads to lock in and all the other negatives of a single  
>>>> monolithic vendor. The Linux kernel has already shown that you  
>>>> can get distributed scale with multiple large vendor players  
>>>> giving the power assist. I think that's the future we want to be  
>>>> living in.
>>>
>>> I can't speak for everyone here, but my opinion of the driving  
>>> force behind OFBiz is definitely the community. My comments were  
>>> not meant to imply that certain things can't happen without  
>>> corporate or other sponsorship from a big enough single entity,  
>>> but that such is not the nature of the OFBiz community or any  
>>> community driven projects, so we have to rely on what people are  
>>> willing to contribute, a la the community driven open source model.
>>>
>>> That said, one of the big objectives as I see it now for OFBiz is  
>>> to develop the community, a sort of business development for open  
>>> source projects. Our focus in the past for community develop has  
>>> been mostly around fostering and encouraging contributors. Now  
>>> that we have a strong framework and generic business artifacts  
>>> base in order for adoption of OFBiz to grow we need stronger  
>>> service providers and a wider community of users, whether or not  
>>> they also participate as contributors.
>>>
>>> My reasoning behind that is that most enterprise (and other)  
>>> products are created and driven by a central company and to a  
>>> large extent it is the reputation and name of that company that  
>>> drives people to accept and desire the software offered.
>>>
>>> While OFBiz itself can be a brand that we as a community promote,  
>>> OFBiz itself has no funds for marketing or evangelism, leaving the  
>>> burden of those efforts to the community, to whoever wants to  
>>> contribute such things. In order for large companies to use OFBiz  
>>> on a wider basis they need a reputation and name to sell to  
>>> stakeholders in their organization. Eventually I hope that OFBiz  
>>> will have such a name on its own, but for now that's sadly not the  
>>> case.
>>>
>>> In short if we can work together to attract larger services  
>>> organizations to the OFBiz community and to grow services  
>>> organizations working based on OFBiz it will open things up for  
>>> the next stage of growth and progress for the project.
>>>
>>> Right now there are large services organizations using OFBiz, but  
>>> not advertising such or proposing it to their clients so much,  
>>> partly because of limited internal skilled people available (from  
>>> what I can tell...). Most of their projects are because their  
>>> clients are requesting OFBiz, but the services organizations are  
>>> not recommending it. Some examples I'm aware of include Euro/Amer  
>>> companies like Accenture and Indian companies like TCS, Satyam, etc.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure if these companies are used to recommending solutions  
>>> and doing marketing, but they are the largest organizations  
>>> involved with OFBiz (aside from end-users) and because OFBiz  
>>> doesn't have it's own marketing budget and coordinated efforts,  
>>> the service providers are the only ones with a sufficient  
>>> commercial interest to invest in this.
>>>
>>> Now, if we could get press attention even though we don't have  
>>> money to push it we might make some great progress. However, and  
>>> this might be based on my jaded view of the world, but most press  
>>> organizations talk about what is making money, even in the open  
>>> source world. Apache gets in the news sometimes because of games  
>>> played with Sun and others, and because of large user bases for  
>>> lower level tools in many cases.
>>>
>>> Anyway, this is a big effort going forward that I've been thinking  
>>> about lately, ie the business development around OFBiz... not so  
>>> much of OFBiz itself as that only applies so much, but around OFBiz.
>>>
>>> That said one of our big tools for that is to do GA binary  
>>> releases and make a big stink about them. That's probably the  
>>> strongest tool any open source project has.
>>>
>>> To start that off I'd like to focus on the framework and do a  
>>> release branch and a GA binary release of it. After that we'd move  
>>> on to the base applications along with the framework. For the  
>>> framework itself the things that we need help with and to consider  
>>> are:
>>>
>>> 1. is there anything in the framework that we should or want to  
>>> clean up before we do a release and "set things in stone" more  
>>> than they are now?
>>>
>>> 2. are there new features that we've been talking about for while  
>>> that we should just develop and include? (the entity field  
>>> automatic auditing feature is one I decided to spend a couple of  
>>> hours adding yesterday; LDAP auth OOTB would be another nice one  
>>> to add, and I'm sure there are more)
>>>
>>> 3. are there critical bugs or security holes we should fix? (one  
>>> thing that comes to mind is tools and default behavior where  
>>> applicable to protect against XSS/cross-site-scripting)
>>>
>>> 4. who can help with this? who can help test and write unit tests  
>>> for the framework? who can help implement new features and fix  
>>> bugs and such?
>>>
>>> What we really need here from contributors is pro-active effort.  
>>> If you'd like to help but you're not sure what to work on you can  
>>> ask, but please be sensitive about requesting assistance or  
>>> mentoring from core developers or other contributors as that may  
>>> keep them from doing things that can be directly contributed. In  
>>> other words, we need people who can help get this done and while  
>>> we're at it if there are others who want to get involved please do  
>>> in a pro-active, self-motivated way.
>>>
>>> BTW, sorry for hijacking your comment Ean... I've been thinking  
>>> about this a lot lately and responding to your comment seemed to  
>>> flow into this.
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
>>>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Adrian Crum <ad...@hlmksw.com>]

I can spend some time going through the UI and make sure it's compatible 
with the latest IE. I was planning on doing that anyway.

Plus, I have experience with preparing press releases.

-Adrian

David E Jones wrote:
> 
> Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework shaped 
> up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future so we can 
> release something and keep it stable for a while...
> 
> Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put some 
> stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to the world. 
> Part of that would be more docs and marketing material, and another part 
> of it would be some press releases that go through the ASF public 
> relations group. If any one or any company wants to get involved with 
> that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for now, but there is 
> certainly room for public credit and mention of contributors to the 
> relevant materials.
> 
> -David
> 
> 
> On Apr 29, 2008, at 10:06 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>>
>> On Apr 29, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote:
>>> David E Jones wrote:
>>>> This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach in 
>>>> general to this sort of release management is that it assumes 
>>>> top-down management of a project.
>>>>
>>>> In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the nature 
>>>> of OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF projects, and 
>>>> many other open source projects, are community driven but are also 
>>>> more limited in scope and have either an existing specification to 
>>>> work toward, or have a sufficiently limited scope that the 
>>>> definition of targets for a release is not overly burdensome.
>>>>
>>>> With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that 
>>>> the scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need over 
>>>> time, for themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a budget 
>>>> for driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the same volume of 
>>>> progress it would have to be around $5-10M per year (my own estimate 
>>>> of course, no Gartner or the like has deigned to look into this).
>>>>
>>>> In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community 
>>>> driven open source enterprise automation project out there. The 
>>>> closest alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a 
>>>> community driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly 
>>>> stepped out of the picture.
>>>>
>>>> So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive 
>>>> things in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what works 
>>>> according to what people are willing and able to contribute.
>>> I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that we 
>>> shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go back to 
>>> a top-down model". We know that the top-down model always leads to 
>>> lock in and all the other negatives of a single monolithic vendor. 
>>> The Linux kernel has already shown that you can get distributed scale 
>>> with multiple large vendor players giving the power assist. I think 
>>> that's the future we want to be living in.
>>
>> I can't speak for everyone here, but my opinion of the driving force 
>> behind OFBiz is definitely the community. My comments were not meant 
>> to imply that certain things can't happen without corporate or other 
>> sponsorship from a big enough single entity, but that such is not the 
>> nature of the OFBiz community or any community driven projects, so we 
>> have to rely on what people are willing to contribute, a la the 
>> community driven open source model.
>>
>> That said, one of the big objectives as I see it now for OFBiz is to 
>> develop the community, a sort of business development for open source 
>> projects. Our focus in the past for community develop has been mostly 
>> around fostering and encouraging contributors. Now that we have a 
>> strong framework and generic business artifacts base in order for 
>> adoption of OFBiz to grow we need stronger service providers and a 
>> wider community of users, whether or not they also participate as 
>> contributors.
>>
>> My reasoning behind that is that most enterprise (and other) products 
>> are created and driven by a central company and to a large extent it 
>> is the reputation and name of that company that drives people to 
>> accept and desire the software offered.
>>
>> While OFBiz itself can be a brand that we as a community promote, 
>> OFBiz itself has no funds for marketing or evangelism, leaving the 
>> burden of those efforts to the community, to whoever wants to 
>> contribute such things. In order for large companies to use OFBiz on a 
>> wider basis they need a reputation and name to sell to stakeholders in 
>> their organization. Eventually I hope that OFBiz will have such a name 
>> on its own, but for now that's sadly not the case.
>>
>> In short if we can work together to attract larger services 
>> organizations to the OFBiz community and to grow services 
>> organizations working based on OFBiz it will open things up for the 
>> next stage of growth and progress for the project.
>>
>> Right now there are large services organizations using OFBiz, but not 
>> advertising such or proposing it to their clients so much, partly 
>> because of limited internal skilled people available (from what I can 
>> tell...). Most of their projects are because their clients are 
>> requesting OFBiz, but the services organizations are not recommending 
>> it. Some examples I'm aware of include Euro/Amer companies like 
>> Accenture and Indian companies like TCS, Satyam, etc.
>>
>> I'm not sure if these companies are used to recommending solutions and 
>> doing marketing, but they are the largest organizations involved with 
>> OFBiz (aside from end-users) and because OFBiz doesn't have it's own 
>> marketing budget and coordinated efforts, the service providers are 
>> the only ones with a sufficient commercial interest to invest in this.
>>
>> Now, if we could get press attention even though we don't have money 
>> to push it we might make some great progress. However, and this might 
>> be based on my jaded view of the world, but most press organizations 
>> talk about what is making money, even in the open source world. Apache 
>> gets in the news sometimes because of games played with Sun and 
>> others, and because of large user bases for lower level tools in many 
>> cases.
>>
>> Anyway, this is a big effort going forward that I've been thinking 
>> about lately, ie the business development around OFBiz... not so much 
>> of OFBiz itself as that only applies so much, but around OFBiz.
>>
>> That said one of our big tools for that is to do GA binary releases 
>> and make a big stink about them. That's probably the strongest tool 
>> any open source project has.
>>
>> To start that off I'd like to focus on the framework and do a release 
>> branch and a GA binary release of it. After that we'd move on to the 
>> base applications along with the framework. For the framework itself 
>> the things that we need help with and to consider are:
>>
>> 1. is there anything in the framework that we should or want to clean 
>> up before we do a release and "set things in stone" more than they are 
>> now?
>>
>> 2. are there new features that we've been talking about for while that 
>> we should just develop and include? (the entity field automatic 
>> auditing feature is one I decided to spend a couple of hours adding 
>> yesterday; LDAP auth OOTB would be another nice one to add, and I'm 
>> sure there are more)
>>
>> 3. are there critical bugs or security holes we should fix? (one thing 
>> that comes to mind is tools and default behavior where applicable to 
>> protect against XSS/cross-site-scripting)
>>
>> 4. who can help with this? who can help test and write unit tests for 
>> the framework? who can help implement new features and fix bugs and such?
>>
>> What we really need here from contributors is pro-active effort. If 
>> you'd like to help but you're not sure what to work on you can ask, 
>> but please be sensitive about requesting assistance or mentoring from 
>> core developers or other contributors as that may keep them from doing 
>> things that can be directly contributed. In other words, we need 
>> people who can help get this done and while we're at it if there are 
>> others who want to get involved please do in a pro-active, 
>> self-motivated way.
>>
>> BTW, sorry for hijacking your comment Ean... I've been thinking about 
>> this a lot lately and responding to your comment seemed to flow into 
>> this.
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
> 
> 

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

Any other comments on this? I'd really love to get the framework  
shaped up and cleaned up as much as we plan to for the near future so  
we can release something and keep it stable for a while...

Related to this, when we release the framework I really want to put  
some stuff together to talk it up and get the ideas in it out to the  
world. Part of that would be more docs and marketing material, and  
another part of it would be some press releases that go through the  
ASF public relations group. If any one or any company wants to get  
involved with that please speak up! I'll try to coordinate it for now,  
but there is certainly room for public credit and mention of  
contributors to the relevant materials.

-David


On Apr 29, 2008, at 10:06 PM, David E Jones wrote:
>
> On Apr 29, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote:
>> David E Jones wrote:
>>> This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach  
>>> in general to this sort of release management is that it assumes  
>>> top-down management of a project.
>>>
>>> In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the  
>>> nature of OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF  
>>> projects, and many other open source projects, are community  
>>> driven but are also more limited in scope and have either an  
>>> existing specification to work toward, or have a sufficiently  
>>> limited scope that the definition of targets for a release is not  
>>> overly burdensome.
>>>
>>> With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that  
>>> the scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need  
>>> over time, for themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a  
>>> budget for driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the same  
>>> volume of progress it would have to be around $5-10M per year (my  
>>> own estimate of course, no Gartner or the like has deigned to look  
>>> into this).
>>>
>>> In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community  
>>> driven open source enterprise automation project out there. The  
>>> closest alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a  
>>> community driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly  
>>> stepped out of the picture.
>>>
>>> So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive  
>>> things in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what  
>>> works according to what people are willing and able to contribute.
>> I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that  
>> we shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go  
>> back to a top-down model". We know that the top-down model always  
>> leads to lock in and all the other negatives of a single monolithic  
>> vendor. The Linux kernel has already shown that you can get  
>> distributed scale with multiple large vendor players giving the  
>> power assist. I think that's the future we want to be living in.
>
> I can't speak for everyone here, but my opinion of the driving force  
> behind OFBiz is definitely the community. My comments were not meant  
> to imply that certain things can't happen without corporate or other  
> sponsorship from a big enough single entity, but that such is not  
> the nature of the OFBiz community or any community driven projects,  
> so we have to rely on what people are willing to contribute, a la  
> the community driven open source model.
>
> That said, one of the big objectives as I see it now for OFBiz is to  
> develop the community, a sort of business development for open  
> source projects. Our focus in the past for community develop has  
> been mostly around fostering and encouraging contributors. Now that  
> we have a strong framework and generic business artifacts base in  
> order for adoption of OFBiz to grow we need stronger service  
> providers and a wider community of users, whether or not they also  
> participate as contributors.
>
> My reasoning behind that is that most enterprise (and other)  
> products are created and driven by a central company and to a large  
> extent it is the reputation and name of that company that drives  
> people to accept and desire the software offered.
>
> While OFBiz itself can be a brand that we as a community promote,  
> OFBiz itself has no funds for marketing or evangelism, leaving the  
> burden of those efforts to the community, to whoever wants to  
> contribute such things. In order for large companies to use OFBiz on  
> a wider basis they need a reputation and name to sell to  
> stakeholders in their organization. Eventually I hope that OFBiz  
> will have such a name on its own, but for now that's sadly not the  
> case.
>
> In short if we can work together to attract larger services  
> organizations to the OFBiz community and to grow services  
> organizations working based on OFBiz it will open things up for the  
> next stage of growth and progress for the project.
>
> Right now there are large services organizations using OFBiz, but  
> not advertising such or proposing it to their clients so much,  
> partly because of limited internal skilled people available (from  
> what I can tell...). Most of their projects are because their  
> clients are requesting OFBiz, but the services organizations are not  
> recommending it. Some examples I'm aware of include Euro/Amer  
> companies like Accenture and Indian companies like TCS, Satyam, etc.
>
> I'm not sure if these companies are used to recommending solutions  
> and doing marketing, but they are the largest organizations involved  
> with OFBiz (aside from end-users) and because OFBiz doesn't have  
> it's own marketing budget and coordinated efforts, the service  
> providers are the only ones with a sufficient commercial interest to  
> invest in this.
>
> Now, if we could get press attention even though we don't have money  
> to push it we might make some great progress. However, and this  
> might be based on my jaded view of the world, but most press  
> organizations talk about what is making money, even in the open  
> source world. Apache gets in the news sometimes because of games  
> played with Sun and others, and because of large user bases for  
> lower level tools in many cases.
>
> Anyway, this is a big effort going forward that I've been thinking  
> about lately, ie the business development around OFBiz... not so  
> much of OFBiz itself as that only applies so much, but around OFBiz.
>
> That said one of our big tools for that is to do GA binary releases  
> and make a big stink about them. That's probably the strongest tool  
> any open source project has.
>
> To start that off I'd like to focus on the framework and do a  
> release branch and a GA binary release of it. After that we'd move  
> on to the base applications along with the framework. For the  
> framework itself the things that we need help with and to consider  
> are:
>
> 1. is there anything in the framework that we should or want to  
> clean up before we do a release and "set things in stone" more than  
> they are now?
>
> 2. are there new features that we've been talking about for while  
> that we should just develop and include? (the entity field automatic  
> auditing feature is one I decided to spend a couple of hours adding  
> yesterday; LDAP auth OOTB would be another nice one to add, and I'm  
> sure there are more)
>
> 3. are there critical bugs or security holes we should fix? (one  
> thing that comes to mind is tools and default behavior where  
> applicable to protect against XSS/cross-site-scripting)
>
> 4. who can help with this? who can help test and write unit tests  
> for the framework? who can help implement new features and fix bugs  
> and such?
>
> What we really need here from contributors is pro-active effort. If  
> you'd like to help but you're not sure what to work on you can ask,  
> but please be sensitive about requesting assistance or mentoring  
> from core developers or other contributors as that may keep them  
> from doing things that can be directly contributed. In other words,  
> we need people who can help get this done and while we're at it if  
> there are others who want to get involved please do in a pro-active,  
> self-motivated way.
>
> BTW, sorry for hijacking your comment Ean... I've been thinking  
> about this a lot lately and responding to your comment seemed to  
> flow into this.
>
> -David
>
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

Thanks for your comments Shi. This is great stuff, and looking forward  
to working with you more and seeing the results of these efforts.

On the requirements versus implementation thing (with design in the  
middle), I agree that is a huge deal. It is almost impossible to  
expect a single person (a superman as you call it!) that can really do  
both the business and the technical sides of any enterprise system  
really well.

I've spent most of that last few months working on improving and  
better defining these things at Hotwax Media (especially now that we  
have around 50 people in the company in different roles and with  
different expertise).

I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done through OFBiz  
itself to help service providers do a better job with these sorts of  
things, but if anyone has ideas for anything we can do together to  
help service providers grow, let's get it on the table. I have been  
considering a book of some sort since I have put together enough  
material in the last few months to easily fill a book on the topic...

-David


On Apr 30, 2008, at 12:37 AM, Shi Yusen wrote:
> +1.
>
> David mentioned a main puzzle for OFBiz: how to lower down the
> requirements on a OFBiz programmer. Currently, a qualified OFBiz
> programmer must be a superman. I think split the requirements to
> consultant part and programmer part may help. As we know, in large
> service providers, consultants contact customers and sometimes even  
> have
> the power to change customers' decissions on IT platforms.
>
> For consultants, a standard OFBiz consulting proceedure is required.
>> From our limited pratices, perhaps fish-born diagram is an  
>> effective way
> to help consultants setup a bridge between OFBiz customers and OFBiz
> programmers. The main born is the core business process of a customer
> and every small born is a component in OFBiz such as order, catalog  
> and
> etc.
>
> Making a room for consultants, having a room for OFBiz.
>
> BTW, here are our contribution plan of this year on OFBiz (for
> programmers ^_^, you can get the plan's Chinese version here:
> http://www.langhua.cn/jianjie/dev-plan-2008.html):
> 1. Digital Signature component (based on OpenOCES, coming soon)
> 2. Single Sign On component based on CAS
> 3. Continue the Simplified Chinese translation
> 4. Portlets based on rmiservice component
> 5. OFBiz + jBPM (coming soon)
>
> Regards,
>
> Shi Yusen/Beijing Langhua Ltd.
>
>
> 在 2008-04-29二的 22:06 -0600，David E Jones写道：
>> On Apr 29, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote:
>>> David E Jones wrote:
>>>> This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach in
>>>> general to this sort of release management is that it assumes top-
>>>> down management of a project.
>>>>
>>>> In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the nature
>>>> of OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF projects, and
>>>> many other open source projects, are community driven but are also
>>>> more limited in scope and have either an existing specification to
>>>> work toward, or have a sufficiently limited scope that the
>>>> definition of targets for a release is not overly burdensome.
>>>>
>>>> With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that
>>>> the scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need over
>>>> time, for themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a budget
>>>> for driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the same volume of
>>>> progress it would have to be around $5-10M per year (my own
>>>> estimate of course, no Gartner or the like has deigned to look into
>>>> this).
>>>>
>>>> In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community
>>>> driven open source enterprise automation project out there. The
>>>> closest alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a
>>>> community driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly
>>>> stepped out of the picture.
>>>>
>>>> So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive
>>>> things in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what
>>>> works according to what people are willing and able to contribute.
>>> I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that we
>>> shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go back to
>>> a top-down model". We know that the top-down model always leads to
>>> lock in and all the other negatives of a single monolithic vendor.
>>> The Linux kernel has already shown that you can get distributed
>>> scale with multiple large vendor players giving the power assist. I
>>> think that's the future we want to be living in.
>>
>> I can't speak for everyone here, but my opinion of the driving force
>> behind OFBiz is definitely the community. My comments were not meant
>> to imply that certain things can't happen without corporate or other
>> sponsorship from a big enough single entity, but that such is not the
>> nature of the OFBiz community or any community driven projects, so we
>> have to rely on what people are willing to contribute, a la the
>> community driven open source model.
>>
>> That said, one of the big objectives as I see it now for OFBiz is to
>> develop the community, a sort of business development for open source
>> projects. Our focus in the past for community develop has been mostly
>> around fostering and encouraging contributors. Now that we have a
>> strong framework and generic business artifacts base in order for
>> adoption of OFBiz to grow we need stronger service providers and a
>> wider community of users, whether or not they also participate as
>> contributors.
>>
>> My reasoning behind that is that most enterprise (and other) products
>> are created and driven by a central company and to a large extent it
>> is the reputation and name of that company that drives people to
>> accept and desire the software offered.
>>
>> While OFBiz itself can be a brand that we as a community promote,
>> OFBiz itself has no funds for marketing or evangelism, leaving the
>> burden of those efforts to the community, to whoever wants to
>> contribute such things. In order for large companies to use OFBiz  
>> on a
>> wider basis they need a reputation and name to sell to stakeholders  
>> in
>> their organization. Eventually I hope that OFBiz will have such a  
>> name
>> on its own, but for now that's sadly not the case.
>>
>> In short if we can work together to attract larger services
>> organizations to the OFBiz community and to grow services
>> organizations working based on OFBiz it will open things up for the
>> next stage of growth and progress for the project.
>>
>> Right now there are large services organizations using OFBiz, but not
>> advertising such or proposing it to their clients so much, partly
>> because of limited internal skilled people available (from what I can
>> tell...). Most of their projects are because their clients are
>> requesting OFBiz, but the services organizations are not recommending
>> it. Some examples I'm aware of include Euro/Amer companies like
>> Accenture and Indian companies like TCS, Satyam, etc.
>>
>> I'm not sure if these companies are used to recommending solutions  
>> and
>> doing marketing, but they are the largest organizations involved with
>> OFBiz (aside from end-users) and because OFBiz doesn't have it's own
>> marketing budget and coordinated efforts, the service providers are
>> the only ones with a sufficient commercial interest to invest in  
>> this.
>>
>> Now, if we could get press attention even though we don't have money
>> to push it we might make some great progress. However, and this might
>> be based on my jaded view of the world, but most press organizations
>> talk about what is making money, even in the open source world.  
>> Apache
>> gets in the news sometimes because of games played with Sun and
>> others, and because of large user bases for lower level tools in many
>> cases.
>>
>> Anyway, this is a big effort going forward that I've been thinking
>> about lately, ie the business development around OFBiz... not so much
>> of OFBiz itself as that only applies so much, but around OFBiz.
>>
>> That said one of our big tools for that is to do GA binary releases
>> and make a big stink about them. That's probably the strongest tool
>> any open source project has.
>>
>> To start that off I'd like to focus on the framework and do a release
>> branch and a GA binary release of it. After that we'd move on to the
>> base applications along with the framework. For the framework itself
>> the things that we need help with and to consider are:
>>
>> 1. is there anything in the framework that we should or want to clean
>> up before we do a release and "set things in stone" more than they  
>> are
>> now?
>>
>> 2. are there new features that we've been talking about for while  
>> that
>> we should just develop and include? (the entity field automatic
>> auditing feature is one I decided to spend a couple of hours adding
>> yesterday; LDAP auth OOTB would be another nice one to add, and I'm
>> sure there are more)
>>
>> 3. are there critical bugs or security holes we should fix? (one  
>> thing
>> that comes to mind is tools and default behavior where applicable to
>> protect against XSS/cross-site-scripting)
>>
>> 4. who can help with this? who can help test and write unit tests for
>> the framework? who can help implement new features and fix bugs and
>> such?
>>
>> What we really need here from contributors is pro-active effort. If
>> you'd like to help but you're not sure what to work on you can ask,
>> but please be sensitive about requesting assistance or mentoring from
>> core developers or other contributors as that may keep them from  
>> doing
>> things that can be directly contributed. In other words, we need
>> people who can help get this done and while we're at it if there are
>> others who want to get involved please do in a pro-active, self-
>> motivated way.
>>
>> BTW, sorry for hijacking your comment Ean... I've been thinking about
>> this a lot lately and responding to your comment seemed to flow into
>> this.
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Shi Yusen <sh...@langhua.cn>]

+1.

David mentioned a main puzzle for OFBiz: how to lower down the
requirements on a OFBiz programmer. Currently, a qualified OFBiz
programmer must be a superman. I think split the requirements to
consultant part and programmer part may help. As we know, in large
service providers, consultants contact customers and sometimes even have
the power to change customers' decissions on IT platforms.

For consultants, a standard OFBiz consulting proceedure is required.
>>From our limited pratices, perhaps fish-born diagram is an effective way
to help consultants setup a bridge between OFBiz customers and OFBiz
programmers. The main born is the core business process of a customer
and every small born is a component in OFBiz such as order, catalog and
etc.

Making a room for consultants, having a room for OFBiz.

BTW, here are our contribution plan of this year on OFBiz (for
programmers ^_^, you can get the plan's Chinese version here:
http://www.langhua.cn/jianjie/dev-plan-2008.html):
1. Digital Signature component (based on OpenOCES, coming soon)
2. Single Sign On component based on CAS
3. Continue the Simplified Chinese translation
4. Portlets based on rmiservice component
5. OFBiz + jBPM (coming soon)

Regards,

Shi Yusen/Beijing Langhua Ltd.


在 2008-04-29二的 22:06 -0600，David E Jones写道：
> On Apr 29, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> > David E Jones wrote:
> >> This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach in  
> >> general to this sort of release management is that it assumes top- 
> >> down management of a project.
> >>
> >> In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the nature  
> >> of OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF projects, and  
> >> many other open source projects, are community driven but are also  
> >> more limited in scope and have either an existing specification to  
> >> work toward, or have a sufficiently limited scope that the  
> >> definition of targets for a release is not overly burdensome.
> >>
> >> With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that  
> >> the scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need over  
> >> time, for themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a budget  
> >> for driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the same volume of  
> >> progress it would have to be around $5-10M per year (my own  
> >> estimate of course, no Gartner or the like has deigned to look into  
> >> this).
> >>
> >> In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community  
> >> driven open source enterprise automation project out there. The  
> >> closest alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a  
> >> community driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly  
> >> stepped out of the picture.
> >>
> >> So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive  
> >> things in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what  
> >> works according to what people are willing and able to contribute.
> > I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that we  
> > shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go back to  
> > a top-down model". We know that the top-down model always leads to  
> > lock in and all the other negatives of a single monolithic vendor.  
> > The Linux kernel has already shown that you can get distributed  
> > scale with multiple large vendor players giving the power assist. I  
> > think that's the future we want to be living in.
> 
> I can't speak for everyone here, but my opinion of the driving force  
> behind OFBiz is definitely the community. My comments were not meant  
> to imply that certain things can't happen without corporate or other  
> sponsorship from a big enough single entity, but that such is not the  
> nature of the OFBiz community or any community driven projects, so we  
> have to rely on what people are willing to contribute, a la the  
> community driven open source model.
> 
> That said, one of the big objectives as I see it now for OFBiz is to  
> develop the community, a sort of business development for open source  
> projects. Our focus in the past for community develop has been mostly  
> around fostering and encouraging contributors. Now that we have a  
> strong framework and generic business artifacts base in order for  
> adoption of OFBiz to grow we need stronger service providers and a  
> wider community of users, whether or not they also participate as  
> contributors.
> 
> My reasoning behind that is that most enterprise (and other) products  
> are created and driven by a central company and to a large extent it  
> is the reputation and name of that company that drives people to  
> accept and desire the software offered.
> 
> While OFBiz itself can be a brand that we as a community promote,  
> OFBiz itself has no funds for marketing or evangelism, leaving the  
> burden of those efforts to the community, to whoever wants to  
> contribute such things. In order for large companies to use OFBiz on a  
> wider basis they need a reputation and name to sell to stakeholders in  
> their organization. Eventually I hope that OFBiz will have such a name  
> on its own, but for now that's sadly not the case.
> 
> In short if we can work together to attract larger services  
> organizations to the OFBiz community and to grow services  
> organizations working based on OFBiz it will open things up for the  
> next stage of growth and progress for the project.
> 
> Right now there are large services organizations using OFBiz, but not  
> advertising such or proposing it to their clients so much, partly  
> because of limited internal skilled people available (from what I can  
> tell...). Most of their projects are because their clients are  
> requesting OFBiz, but the services organizations are not recommending  
> it. Some examples I'm aware of include Euro/Amer companies like  
> Accenture and Indian companies like TCS, Satyam, etc.
> 
> I'm not sure if these companies are used to recommending solutions and  
> doing marketing, but they are the largest organizations involved with  
> OFBiz (aside from end-users) and because OFBiz doesn't have it's own  
> marketing budget and coordinated efforts, the service providers are  
> the only ones with a sufficient commercial interest to invest in this.
> 
> Now, if we could get press attention even though we don't have money  
> to push it we might make some great progress. However, and this might  
> be based on my jaded view of the world, but most press organizations  
> talk about what is making money, even in the open source world. Apache  
> gets in the news sometimes because of games played with Sun and  
> others, and because of large user bases for lower level tools in many  
> cases.
> 
> Anyway, this is a big effort going forward that I've been thinking  
> about lately, ie the business development around OFBiz... not so much  
> of OFBiz itself as that only applies so much, but around OFBiz.
> 
> That said one of our big tools for that is to do GA binary releases  
> and make a big stink about them. That's probably the strongest tool  
> any open source project has.
> 
> To start that off I'd like to focus on the framework and do a release  
> branch and a GA binary release of it. After that we'd move on to the  
> base applications along with the framework. For the framework itself  
> the things that we need help with and to consider are:
> 
> 1. is there anything in the framework that we should or want to clean  
> up before we do a release and "set things in stone" more than they are  
> now?
> 
> 2. are there new features that we've been talking about for while that  
> we should just develop and include? (the entity field automatic  
> auditing feature is one I decided to spend a couple of hours adding  
> yesterday; LDAP auth OOTB would be another nice one to add, and I'm  
> sure there are more)
> 
> 3. are there critical bugs or security holes we should fix? (one thing  
> that comes to mind is tools and default behavior where applicable to  
> protect against XSS/cross-site-scripting)
> 
> 4. who can help with this? who can help test and write unit tests for  
> the framework? who can help implement new features and fix bugs and  
> such?
> 
> What we really need here from contributors is pro-active effort. If  
> you'd like to help but you're not sure what to work on you can ask,  
> but please be sensitive about requesting assistance or mentoring from  
> core developers or other contributors as that may keep them from doing  
> things that can be directly contributed. In other words, we need  
> people who can help get this done and while we're at it if there are  
> others who want to get involved please do in a pro-active, self- 
> motivated way.
> 
> BTW, sorry for hijacking your comment Ean... I've been thinking about  
> this a lot lately and responding to your comment seemed to flow into  
> this.
> 
> -David
> 
> 

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

On Apr 29, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> David E Jones wrote:
>> This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach in  
>> general to this sort of release management is that it assumes top- 
>> down management of a project.
>>
>> In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the nature  
>> of OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF projects, and  
>> many other open source projects, are community driven but are also  
>> more limited in scope and have either an existing specification to  
>> work toward, or have a sufficiently limited scope that the  
>> definition of targets for a release is not overly burdensome.
>>
>> With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that  
>> the scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need over  
>> time, for themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a budget  
>> for driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the same volume of  
>> progress it would have to be around $5-10M per year (my own  
>> estimate of course, no Gartner or the like has deigned to look into  
>> this).
>>
>> In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community  
>> driven open source enterprise automation project out there. The  
>> closest alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a  
>> community driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly  
>> stepped out of the picture.
>>
>> So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive  
>> things in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what  
>> works according to what people are willing and able to contribute.
> I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that we  
> shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go back to  
> a top-down model". We know that the top-down model always leads to  
> lock in and all the other negatives of a single monolithic vendor.  
> The Linux kernel has already shown that you can get distributed  
> scale with multiple large vendor players giving the power assist. I  
> think that's the future we want to be living in.

I can't speak for everyone here, but my opinion of the driving force  
behind OFBiz is definitely the community. My comments were not meant  
to imply that certain things can't happen without corporate or other  
sponsorship from a big enough single entity, but that such is not the  
nature of the OFBiz community or any community driven projects, so we  
have to rely on what people are willing to contribute, a la the  
community driven open source model.

That said, one of the big objectives as I see it now for OFBiz is to  
develop the community, a sort of business development for open source  
projects. Our focus in the past for community develop has been mostly  
around fostering and encouraging contributors. Now that we have a  
strong framework and generic business artifacts base in order for  
adoption of OFBiz to grow we need stronger service providers and a  
wider community of users, whether or not they also participate as  
contributors.

My reasoning behind that is that most enterprise (and other) products  
are created and driven by a central company and to a large extent it  
is the reputation and name of that company that drives people to  
accept and desire the software offered.

While OFBiz itself can be a brand that we as a community promote,  
OFBiz itself has no funds for marketing or evangelism, leaving the  
burden of those efforts to the community, to whoever wants to  
contribute such things. In order for large companies to use OFBiz on a  
wider basis they need a reputation and name to sell to stakeholders in  
their organization. Eventually I hope that OFBiz will have such a name  
on its own, but for now that's sadly not the case.

In short if we can work together to attract larger services  
organizations to the OFBiz community and to grow services  
organizations working based on OFBiz it will open things up for the  
next stage of growth and progress for the project.

Right now there are large services organizations using OFBiz, but not  
advertising such or proposing it to their clients so much, partly  
because of limited internal skilled people available (from what I can  
tell...). Most of their projects are because their clients are  
requesting OFBiz, but the services organizations are not recommending  
it. Some examples I'm aware of include Euro/Amer companies like  
Accenture and Indian companies like TCS, Satyam, etc.

I'm not sure if these companies are used to recommending solutions and  
doing marketing, but they are the largest organizations involved with  
OFBiz (aside from end-users) and because OFBiz doesn't have it's own  
marketing budget and coordinated efforts, the service providers are  
the only ones with a sufficient commercial interest to invest in this.

Now, if we could get press attention even though we don't have money  
to push it we might make some great progress. However, and this might  
be based on my jaded view of the world, but most press organizations  
talk about what is making money, even in the open source world. Apache  
gets in the news sometimes because of games played with Sun and  
others, and because of large user bases for lower level tools in many  
cases.

Anyway, this is a big effort going forward that I've been thinking  
about lately, ie the business development around OFBiz... not so much  
of OFBiz itself as that only applies so much, but around OFBiz.

That said one of our big tools for that is to do GA binary releases  
and make a big stink about them. That's probably the strongest tool  
any open source project has.

To start that off I'd like to focus on the framework and do a release  
branch and a GA binary release of it. After that we'd move on to the  
base applications along with the framework. For the framework itself  
the things that we need help with and to consider are:

1. is there anything in the framework that we should or want to clean  
up before we do a release and "set things in stone" more than they are  
now?

2. are there new features that we've been talking about for while that  
we should just develop and include? (the entity field automatic  
auditing feature is one I decided to spend a couple of hours adding  
yesterday; LDAP auth OOTB would be another nice one to add, and I'm  
sure there are more)

3. are there critical bugs or security holes we should fix? (one thing  
that comes to mind is tools and default behavior where applicable to  
protect against XSS/cross-site-scripting)

4. who can help with this? who can help test and write unit tests for  
the framework? who can help implement new features and fix bugs and  
such?

What we really need here from contributors is pro-active effort. If  
you'd like to help but you're not sure what to work on you can ask,  
but please be sensitive about requesting assistance or mentoring from  
core developers or other contributors as that may keep them from doing  
things that can be directly contributed. In other words, we need  
people who can help get this done and while we're at it if there are  
others who want to get involved please do in a pro-active, self- 
motivated way.

BTW, sorry for hijacking your comment Ean... I've been thinking about  
this a lot lately and responding to your comment seemed to flow into  
this.

-David

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Jacques Le Roux <ja...@les7arts.com>]

+1 :o)

Jacques

From: "Ean Schuessler" <ea...@brainfood.com>
> David E Jones wrote:
>> This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach in 
>> general to this sort of release management is that it assumes top-down 
>> management of a project.
>>
>> In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the nature of 
>> OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF projects, and many 
>> other open source projects, are community driven but are also more 
>> limited in scope and have either an existing specification to work 
>> toward, or have a sufficiently limited scope that the definition of 
>> targets for a release is not overly burdensome.
>>
>> With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that the 
>> scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need over time, 
>> for themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a budget for 
>> driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the same volume of 
>> progress it would have to be around $5-10M per year (my own estimate 
>> of course, no Gartner or the like has deigned to look into this).
>>
>> In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community driven 
>> open source enterprise automation project out there. The closest 
>> alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a community 
>> driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly stepped out of 
>> the picture.
>>
>> So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive things 
>> in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what works 
>> according to what people are willing and able to contribute.
> I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that we 
> shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go back to a 
> top-down model". We know that the top-down model always leads to lock in 
> and all the other negatives of a single monolithic vendor. The Linux 
> kernel has already shown that you can get distributed scale with 
> multiple large vendor players giving the power assist. I think that's 
> the future we want to be living in.
> 
> -- 
> Ean Schuessler, CTO
> ean@brainfood.com
> 214-720-0700 x 315
> Brainfood, Inc.
> http://www.brainfood.com
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Ean Schuessler <ea...@brainfood.com>]

David E Jones wrote:
> This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach in 
> general to this sort of release management is that it assumes top-down 
> management of a project.
>
> In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the nature of 
> OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF projects, and many 
> other open source projects, are community driven but are also more 
> limited in scope and have either an existing specification to work 
> toward, or have a sufficiently limited scope that the definition of 
> targets for a release is not overly burdensome.
>
> With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that the 
> scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need over time, 
> for themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a budget for 
> driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the same volume of 
> progress it would have to be around $5-10M per year (my own estimate 
> of course, no Gartner or the like has deigned to look into this).
>
> In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community driven 
> open source enterprise automation project out there. The closest 
> alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a community 
> driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly stepped out of 
> the picture.
>
> So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive things 
> in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what works 
> according to what people are willing and able to contribute.
I think if we really believe in the community oriented model that we 
shouldn't view ourselves as "just waiting for a budget to go back to a 
top-down model". We know that the top-down model always leads to lock in 
and all the other negatives of a single monolithic vendor. The Linux 
kernel has already shown that you can get distributed scale with 
multiple large vendor players giving the power assist. I think that's 
the future we want to be living in.

-- 
Ean Schuessler, CTO
ean@brainfood.com
214-720-0700 x 315
Brainfood, Inc.
http://www.brainfood.com

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

This is a great tool. The problem with the tool and the approach in  
general to this sort of release management is that it assumes top-down  
management of a project.

In the Release Plan document it starts out by explaining the nature of  
OFBiz and the community that drives it. Most ASF projects, and many  
other open source projects, are community driven but are also more  
limited in scope and have either an existing specification to work  
toward, or have a sufficiently limited scope that the definition of  
targets for a release is not overly burdensome.

With OFBiz it's not just the size of the scope, but the fact that the  
scope depends on what different contributors to OFBiz need over time,  
for themselves or their clients/customers. If we had a budget for  
driving OFBiz top-down that could result in the same volume of  
progress it would have to be around $5-10M per year (my own estimate  
of course, no Gartner or the like has deigned to look into this).

In short there is a reason why OFBiz is the only real community driven  
open source enterprise automation project out there. The closest  
alternative is probably Adempiere, but that is more of a community  
driven effort to replace a bad vendor that has mostly stepped out of  
the picture.

So, until someone comes along with a sufficient budget to drive things  
in a more "traditional" way, we have to stick with what works  
according to what people are willing and able to contribute.

-David


On Apr 14, 2008, at 7:45 AM, Bruno Busco wrote:
> Jacques,
> what I was speaking about was the release management functionality  
> in JIRA
> that I will try to resume here:
> - The jira project administrator defines one or more versions (say  
> OFBIZ
> 4.1, OFBIZ 4.2, OFBIZ 5.0) using the "adminster project" link and  
> then the
> "versions manage" link.
> - The release manager then can schedule all the open issues to be  
> resolved
> in one of the future versions setting the "Fix version" field of  
> each issue.
> By doing this when looking at the "road map" all programmed future  
> versions
> are listed and for each version the list of issue that must be  
> resolved to
> release the version are listed (with the status fixed, open etc.)
> - When all the issue that were scheduled for a version are resolved  
> the
> version can be released using the the "adminster project" link and  
> then the
> "versions manage" link.
> - When a version is released it does not appear any more in the  
> "road map"
> page but in the "change log" page. Here there will always be  
> available the
> list of all the version released with the list of all the issues  
> resolved in
> each.
>
> When defining future versions an estimated (or desired) date can  
> also be
> specified and so a clear road map is evident to everybody.
> Everyone will see when next version will be released and above all  
> what
> issues is going to resolve and what issues are not going to be  
> resolved
> becouse are scheduled for a successive release or not scheduled at  
> all.
>
> -Bruno
>
> 2008/4/14, Jacques Le Roux <ja...@les7arts.com>:
>>
>> Hi Bruno,
>>
>> Could you tell us more about this ? (leasy request to avoid to read  
>> the
>> documentation, you may reply by a RTFM if you like ;o)
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Jacques
>>
>> From: "Bruno Busco" <br...@gmail.com>
>>
>>> Thank you David,
>>> so, if I well understand, having release 4.0 been released about  
>>> an year
>>> ago, we should have next release soon!
>>> BTW I think that using JIRA release management features (roadmap,  
>>> change
>>> log
>>> and issue fix version) will be of great help to the community.  
>>> Take this
>>> as
>>> just a suggestion from a JIRA fun ;-).
>>>
>>> -Bruno
>>>
>>>
>>> 2008/4/10, David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Release+Plan
>>>>
>>>> -David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 10, 2008, at 11:32 AM, Bruno Busco wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> i would like to ask if there is a roadmap to the next Ofbiz  
>>>>> release
>>>> (or
>>>>> release candidate).
>>>>>
>>>>> When (based on time or based on task/functionality to be
>>>> implemented) is
>>>>> it
>>>>> planned?
>>>>> I do not see the JIRA roadmap feature used here but I think it  
>>>>> would
>>>> be
>>>>> great.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> - Bruno
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Jacques Le Roux <ja...@les7arts.com>]

Thanks Bruno,

David as well explained why OFBiz does not use such tools... yet...

Jacques
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bruno Busco 
  To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org ; Jacques Le Roux 
  Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 3:58 PM
  Subject: Re: Next Ofbiz release


  For more information please read here http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/docs/latest/version_management.html
  (this is not a RTFM !!  ;-)

  -Bruno


  2008/4/14, Bruno Busco <br...@gmail.com>:
    Jacques,
    what I was speaking about was the release management functionality in JIRA that I will try to resume here:
    - The jira project administrator defines one or more versions (say OFBIZ 4.1, OFBIZ 4.2, OFBIZ 5.0) using the "adminster project" link and then the "versions manage" link.
    - The release manager then can schedule all the open issues to be resolved in one of the future versions setting the "Fix version" field of each issue. By doing this when looking at the "road map" all programmed future versions are listed and for each version the list of issue that must be resolved to release the version are listed (with the status fixed, open etc.)
    - When all the issue that were scheduled for a version are resolved the version can be released using the the "adminster project" link and then the "versions manage" link.
    - When a version is released it does not appear any more in the "road map" page but in the "change log" page. Here there will always be available the list of all the version released with the list of all the issues resolved in each.

    When defining future versions an estimated (or desired) date can also be specified and so a clear road map is evident to everybody.
    Everyone will see when next version will be released and above all what issues is going to resolve and what issues are not going to be resolved becouse are scheduled for a successive release or not scheduled at all.

    -Bruno


    2008/4/14, Jacques Le Roux <ja...@les7arts.com>:
      Hi Bruno,

      Could you tell us more about this ? (leasy request to avoid to read the documentation, you may reply by a RTFM if you like ;o)

      Thanks

      Jacques

      From: "Bruno Busco" <br...@gmail.com>


        Thank you David,
        so, if I well understand, having release 4.0 been released about an year
        ago, we should have next release soon!
        BTW I think that using JIRA release management features (roadmap, change log
        and issue fix version) will be of great help to the community. Take this as
        just a suggestion from a JIRA fun ;-).

        -Bruno


        2008/4/10, David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>:



          http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Release+Plan

          -David


          On Apr 10, 2008, at 11:32 AM, Bruno Busco wrote:

          > Hi,
          > i would like to ask if there is a roadmap to the next Ofbiz release (or
          > release candidate).
          >
          > When (based on time or based on task/functionality to be implemented) is
          > it
          > planned?
          > I do not see the JIRA roadmap feature used here but I think it would be
          > great.
          >
          > Thanks,
          > - Bruno
          >

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Bruno Busco <br...@gmail.com>]

For more information please read here
http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/docs/latest/version_management.html
(this is not a RTFM !!  ;-)

-Bruno

2008/4/14, Bruno Busco <br...@gmail.com>:
>
> Jacques,
> what I was speaking about was the release management functionality in JIRA
> that I will try to resume here:
> - The jira project administrator defines one or more versions (say OFBIZ
> 4.1, OFBIZ 4.2, OFBIZ 5.0) using the "adminster project" link and then the
> "versions manage" link.
> - The release manager then can schedule all the open issues to be resolved
> in one of the future versions setting the "Fix version" field of each issue.
> By doing this when looking at the "road map" all programmed future versions
> are listed and for each version the list of issue that must be resolved to
> release the version are listed (with the status fixed, open etc.)
> - When all the issue that were scheduled for a version are resolved the
> version can be released using the the "adminster project" link and then the
> "versions manage" link.
> - When a version is released it does not appear any more in the "road map"
> page but in the "change log" page. Here there will always be available the
> list of all the version released with the list of all the issues resolved in
> each.
>
> When defining future versions an estimated (or desired) date can also be
> specified and so a clear road map is evident to everybody.
> Everyone will see when next version will be released and above all what
> issues is going to resolve and what issues are not going to be resolved
> becouse are scheduled for a successive release or not scheduled at all.
>
> -Bruno
>
> 2008/4/14, Jacques Le Roux <ja...@les7arts.com>:
> >
> > Hi Bruno,
> >
> > Could you tell us more about this ? (leasy request to avoid to read the
> > documentation, you may reply by a RTFM if you like ;o)
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Jacques
> >
> > From: "Bruno Busco" <br...@gmail.com>
> >
> > > Thank you David,
> > > so, if I well understand, having release 4.0 been released about an
> > > year
> > > ago, we should have next release soon!
> > > BTW I think that using JIRA release management features (roadmap,
> > > change log
> > > and issue fix version) will be of great help to the community. Take
> > > this as
> > > just a suggestion from a JIRA fun ;-).
> > >
> > > -Bruno
> > >
> > >
> > > 2008/4/10, David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>:
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Release+Plan
> > > >
> > > > -David
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Apr 10, 2008, at 11:32 AM, Bruno Busco wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hi,
> > > > > i would like to ask if there is a roadmap to the next Ofbiz
> > > > release (or
> > > > > release candidate).
> > > > >
> > > > > When (based on time or based on task/functionality to be
> > > > implemented) is
> > > > > it
> > > > > planned?
> > > > > I do not see the JIRA roadmap feature used here but I think it
> > > > would be
> > > > > great.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > - Bruno
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Bruno Busco <br...@gmail.com>]

Jacques,
what I was speaking about was the release management functionality in JIRA
that I will try to resume here:
- The jira project administrator defines one or more versions (say OFBIZ
4.1, OFBIZ 4.2, OFBIZ 5.0) using the "adminster project" link and then the
"versions manage" link.
- The release manager then can schedule all the open issues to be resolved
in one of the future versions setting the "Fix version" field of each issue.
By doing this when looking at the "road map" all programmed future versions
are listed and for each version the list of issue that must be resolved to
release the version are listed (with the status fixed, open etc.)
- When all the issue that were scheduled for a version are resolved the
version can be released using the the "adminster project" link and then the
"versions manage" link.
- When a version is released it does not appear any more in the "road map"
page but in the "change log" page. Here there will always be available the
list of all the version released with the list of all the issues resolved in
each.

When defining future versions an estimated (or desired) date can also be
specified and so a clear road map is evident to everybody.
Everyone will see when next version will be released and above all what
issues is going to resolve and what issues are not going to be resolved
becouse are scheduled for a successive release or not scheduled at all.

-Bruno

2008/4/14, Jacques Le Roux <ja...@les7arts.com>:
>
> Hi Bruno,
>
> Could you tell us more about this ? (leasy request to avoid to read the
> documentation, you may reply by a RTFM if you like ;o)
>
> Thanks
>
> Jacques
>
> From: "Bruno Busco" <br...@gmail.com>
>
> > Thank you David,
> > so, if I well understand, having release 4.0 been released about an year
> > ago, we should have next release soon!
> > BTW I think that using JIRA release management features (roadmap, change
> > log
> > and issue fix version) will be of great help to the community. Take this
> > as
> > just a suggestion from a JIRA fun ;-).
> >
> > -Bruno
> >
> >
> > 2008/4/10, David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Release+Plan
> > >
> > > -David
> > >
> > >
> > > On Apr 10, 2008, at 11:32 AM, Bruno Busco wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > > i would like to ask if there is a roadmap to the next Ofbiz release
> > > (or
> > > > release candidate).
> > > >
> > > > When (based on time or based on task/functionality to be
> > > implemented) is
> > > > it
> > > > planned?
> > > > I do not see the JIRA roadmap feature used here but I think it would
> > > be
> > > > great.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > - Bruno
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Jacques Le Roux <ja...@les7arts.com>]

Hi Bruno,

Could you tell us more about this ? (leasy request to avoid to read the documentation, you may reply by a RTFM if you like ;o)

Thanks

Jacques

From: "Bruno Busco" <br...@gmail.com>
> Thank you David,
> so, if I well understand, having release 4.0 been released about an year
> ago, we should have next release soon!
> BTW I think that using JIRA release management features (roadmap, change log
> and issue fix version) will be of great help to the community. Take this as
> just a suggestion from a JIRA fun ;-).
> 
> -Bruno
> 
> 
> 2008/4/10, David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>:
>>
>>
>> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Release+Plan
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>> On Apr 10, 2008, at 11:32 AM, Bruno Busco wrote:
>>
>> > Hi,
>> > i would like to ask if there is a roadmap to the next Ofbiz release (or
>> > release candidate).
>> >
>> > When (based on time or based on task/functionality to be implemented) is
>> > it
>> > planned?
>> > I do not see the JIRA roadmap feature used here but I think it would be
>> > great.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > - Bruno
>> >
>>
>>
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[Bruno Busco <br...@gmail.com>]

Thank you David,
so, if I well understand, having release 4.0 been released about an year
ago, we should have next release soon!
BTW I think that using JIRA release management features (roadmap, change log
and issue fix version) will be of great help to the community. Take this as
just a suggestion from a JIRA fun ;-).

-Bruno


2008/4/10, David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>:
>
>
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Release+Plan
>
> -David
>
>
> On Apr 10, 2008, at 11:32 AM, Bruno Busco wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > i would like to ask if there is a roadmap to the next Ofbiz release (or
> > release candidate).
> >
> > When (based on time or based on task/functionality to be implemented) is
> > it
> > planned?
> > I do not see the JIRA roadmap feature used here but I think it would be
> > great.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > - Bruno
> >
>
>

Re: Next Ofbiz release

[David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com>]

http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/Release+Plan

-David


On Apr 10, 2008, at 11:32 AM, Bruno Busco wrote:
> Hi,
> i would like to ask if there is a roadmap to the next Ofbiz release  
> (or
> release candidate).
>
> When (based on time or based on task/functionality to be  
> implemented) is it
> planned?
> I do not see the JIRA roadmap feature used here but I think it would  
> be
> great.
>
> Thanks,
> - Bruno