That's an interesting perspective. It's definitely true that if you don't collaborate on design and underlying data and such that you'll end up with a huge mess of incompatible "features".
I agree that it is an advantage of OFBiz that when differences come up in how people want to do things it usually leads to conversation about it, and often to a reconciliation that works for various concerns, instead of just ending up in a bunch of totally different, incompatible, and marginally useful functionality for general needs. I'm definitely of the opinion that bad design is the #1 problem with enterprise software today, and doing things in a way that encourages collaboration and peer feedback can help with this a lot. It's certainly not perfect, but I'd wager that it is far better than what normally happens, and what actually happens in much other open source and commercial software. -David On Dec 17, 2009, at 4:25 PM, Jacques Le Roux wrote: > Addons are certainly a good idea. But a good handling of them is also > required (in other words they should never interfer). > I have a prospective customer (IT manager), who said that his company is > using OpenERP (Python) but he is worried about the mess > addons bring. He talked by experience... > I remember also have read that some OsCommerce (PHP) users turned to Magento > (PHP) because of addons issues > Maybe Apache Felix (OSGi Service Platform Release 4 implementation) is also > to consider. But at longer term I guess > http://felix.apache.org/site/index.html > > Also it's worth to be noted http://markmail.org/message/zyvtk67scqtriqf7 > Also http://opentaps.org/docs/index.php/Ofbiz-osgi-prototype (contributed by > Raj actually I will put it in OFBiz also a day or another) > > My 2cts > > Jacques > > From: "Bruno Busco" <bruno.bu...@gmail.com> >> Having OFBiz splitted in a core framework and add-on modules seems to >> me like a must if we want to improve features. >> Add-on modules is how many large and popular projects are built. >> Even OpenERP says to have more that 350 modules and offers different >> flavours of it here http://www.openerp.com/discover/demonstration.html >> >> I think we should start discussing on the module add-on system that we >> want to implement in OFBiz. >> I have read that there is a plan from Neogia people to introduce what >> they have developed. Is there any schedule for this? >> Are you going to write a Confluence page where we can see how it works? >> >> Are we going to host the add-on modules on a separate SVN folder? >> >> Thank you, >> Bruno >> >> 2009/10/29 Tim Ruppert <tim.rupp...@hotwaxmedia.com>: >>> This sounds fantastic Marc - it's amazing to see many of the software >>> providers out there coming together to back this idea. This has the unique >>> opportunity of taking everything that OFBiz does to the next level. >>> >>> I guess the big question is, what's next to help get some of these backend >>> ideas back into this newly refined mission? We're more than happy to devote >>> resources to making this happen. >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Ruppert >>> -- >>> Tim Ruppert >>> HotWax Media >>> http://www.hotwaxmedia.com >>> >>> o:801.649.6594 >>> f:801.649.6595 >>> >>> On Oct 29, 2009, at 7:47 AM, Marc Morin wrote: >>> >>>> As many of you know, we at Emforium have been busy building out a full set >>>> of business software application to provide an "ALL-IN" comprehensive >>>> solution for the small business market. When we started the evaluation over >>>> a year ago, Ofbiz was the selected platform of choice. Other components are >>>> Zimbra for email and concrete5 for web. >>>> >>>> Over this time, we've spent our efforts providing an entirely new UI front >>>> end for the backend applications: sales order, inventory, CRM, admin, >>>> reports, multi tenancy, published datasets (makes solution targeted for any >>>> market or geography), etc... >>>> >>>> We have expressed privately that Ofbiz needs to have a new mission in >>>> order to really drive it's importance and relevance as an open source >>>> project. As it stands, it's scope is very wide, and not targeted a >>>> providing and out-of-the box solution to any problem, save ecommerce (even >>>> then, lot's of styling work usually needed). >>>> >>>> We would be 100% behind this direction for Ofbiz. We'd want to contribute >>>> back components now that are Emforium proprietary and would work to reduce >>>> the amount of deviation between our proprietary solution and this newly >>>> stated direction. >>>> >>>> Marc >>> >>> >> > >
