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Posted to dev@ofbiz.apache.org by David E Jones <jo...@hotwaxmedia.com> on 2008/05/02 03:15:00 UTC
Re: Next Ofbiz release
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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
Posted by 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
>>
>>
>
>