Oh, I see. You're right. Contributing back some common functions is great.:)
在 2008-09-13六的 08:37 -0600，David E Jones写道： > On Sep 13, 2008, at 3:24 AM, Shi Yusen wrote: > > > David, > > > > Great to know your guys have more and more consulting business! > > Well, I wasn't actually referring to the business I'm involved in, but > rather a more general trend, based on a notice of how certain people > have been notably absent from participation in the last few months who > were significantly more active before. > > > Then, should there be a rule/promise to control the time split of > > commitors? 50:50? I think customers can understand such conditions. > > Have you really thought this through? > > First off, how would the open source project enforce such a rule? Or > if you meant for a business to self impose the rule, why would they? > > Second, how could a consulting company remain profitable after > throwing away 50% of its potential profits? That may be possible in > China selling to US/EU/etc where wages are typically low locally and > hourly fees have less downward price pressure, but that's not true in > the USA. For the business I'm involved in, and every consulting > business I've ever been involved in, the profit percentage is not even > near 50%, and during periods of growth with significant investments in > training usually the profit percentage is in the uncomfortable single > digit range. In other words, taking out 50% of potential profits would > generally cause the business to hit bankruptcy as soon as cash > reserves are consumed by the large monthly losses (and most smaller > and newer services businesses, like most of the ones around OFBiz) > also don't have large cash reserves. In other words, a policy like > this would kill a company within a few months. If OFBiz as an open > source project were somehow to enforce such a policy it would destroy > all services companies within a few months, and the open source > project would be a ghost town a few months after. > > In general most contributions coming into OFBiz are the result of the > need of an end-user company. The way they become part of OFBiz is that > either the employees or contractors helping the end-user company make > it a priority to develop in such a way that as much as possible can be > contributed to OFBiz. What this usually means is using a combination > of generic and configurable features going into the open source > project, and then customizations and configurations used to bridge the > last gap between what newly exists in the open source project, and > what the client actually needs. > > In other words, most functionality comes from paying work, and not > from people guessing about new features, then implementing and > contributing them out of good will. Also, most good functionality is > driven by real-world requirements that someone is willing to pay for, > and most of the stuff people develop by guessing about what is needed > end up being useless and eventually eliminated from the project (I > know this from hundreds of thousands of lines of my own work turning > out to be useless, and most of that is long gone from the project!). > > So no, this policy would not be good for any service provider > business, or for the open source project. > > The best policy for service provider companies and end-user company > employees working on OFBiz is to make contributions back to the open > source project a priority, and use some of the techniques I mentioned > above to facilitate this and make more of it possible and even natural. > > -David > > > > 在 2008-09-12五的 09:59 -0600，David E. Jones写道： > >> Thanks again for working on this Jacopo. I made some edits and > >> added a few little comments, and I can't think of > >> anything else to put in there, so to me that means it's ready to > >> submit. ;) > >> > >> Comments and informal votes are welcome. I'll submit this later > >> today or tomorrow. > >> > >> -David > >> > >> > >> Jacopo Cappellato wrote: > >>> This is a draft for the Board Report for OFBiz, due this month. > >>> Please review, > >>> > >>> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/ASF+Board+Report > >>> +2008-09+DRAFT > >>> > >>> Jacopo > >>> > > >
