The OFBiz BIRT application

[Pierre Smits <pi...@gmail.com>]

Taher, All,

Please read my comment(s) inline.

Regards,

Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 11:40 AM, Taher Alkhateeb <
slidingfilaments@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> This thread has been going on forever perhaps we are discussing things too
> generically. Let me try to put a concrete example based on the suggestions
> from everyone.
>
> Take the BIRT component as an example. What kind of work is needed for it?
>

Best is to look at the individual issues in JIRA regarding the application.
see here:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/issues/?jql=project%20%3D%20OFBIZ%20AND%20component%20%3D%20%22specialpurpose%2Fbirt%22%20AND%20resolution%20%3D%20Unresolved

If you feel that there is something missing (bugs, improvements) just add
those to the list. When you have created your issue in JIRA and you need
the advice of others (working on framework elements or on any other
aspect), you always may solicit their input.



> well you have the following:
>
> - Code to integrate it into the framework (BirtWorker.java,
> BirtFactory.java, integrating with controller, etc ...)
> - Code inside BIRT reports to generate the data specific for each report.
> - Code that can be generic (such as in a BIRT library) to unify all reports
> and minimize code repetition, standardize data preparation, etc...
>
> So, maintaining and improving this component requires expertise in BIRT &
> also expertise in the framework itself. Now imagine the following scenario
>
> - The core committers decide to create a change to the framework
> - The change requires modification of the integration code, not the
> reporting specific code.
> - The integration code requires expertise in the internals of the framework
>
> Now without support and guidance of the core team nobody will be able to
> upgrade the component to remain compatible with trunk. I am willing for
> example, to help as much as I can with this component. I am comfortable
> with BIRT and can provide contributions, but what about the integration
> code. Who maintains it?


Best way to approach this is on a case by case scenario. If you have a
patch available that you want to have committed, solicit the assistance of
one of the committers. And persevere.


> Are there enough _experienced_ developers who are
> comfortable with the framework internals and yet want to support BIRT on
> the higher level (reports)?
>
> Sub-projects require available resources. As mentioned in the beginning of
> this thread OFBiz really has a problem with resources and a handful of
> people are doing the real heavy lifting. Without such individuals I see a
> small chance of any sub-projects to survive. We are not the Linux Kernel
> project where you have developers left, right and center. If we were, we
> would have projects and sub-projects and sub-sub-sub-projects without a
> problem.
>
> See my posting titled: 'OFBiz and how to move forward'


> My 2 cents!
>
> Taher Alkhateeb
>