I understand the costs of open source but most are in a bit better shape.
We use around 50 OSS packages in our own software.
This also makes me look at documentation very critically since I
understand how the cost of using OSS depends to a great degree on the
documentation.
It appears that there is a lot of documentation for OfBiz but it is in a
lot of places and a lot has not been update as things change.
Unfortunately I ran into problems in the very first step where the
installation docs were both wrong and outdated in ways that made me
question the project management of the project. This has an impact on
the long-term cost of going with OfBiz.
I appreciate that this is a volunteer organization and that project
management is not easy in this environment but that just makes it harder
not optional.
I also appreciate that the development team includes important
contributors for whom, English is not their first language.
It is easy for me to fix the problems that this causes, if the facts are
correct and written down in some form.
It is easy to reword a paragraph but almost impossible to make up
content that does not exist.
Je puis lire et parler français et écrire avec difficulté.
However, Google translate is still one of my best friends!
It also helps clean up English.
It is sometimes helpful to run an English paragraph through Google to
see if it is sufficiently clear for Google to translate correctly.
Often a simple restructuring of the English to fix Google's French
translation makes the paragraph much easier to read.
Ron
On 20/06/2014 4:23 PM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
Le 16/06/2014 22:54, Ron Wheeler a écrit :
A bit of both. There were some encouraging words written in earlier
exchanges about documentation but a release just got approved with no
comments or questions about documentation.
I had high hopes that OfBiz would be a more polished product that was
ready for use.
I am disappointed in the on-line and wiki documentation.
The UI does not seem very user-friendly. It seems that the end-to-end
processes reflect the framework rather than the use case.
Without any documentation, it is hard to know if my investigation of
simple processes has been done correctly.
I am still looking to see if it has the functionality that I need but
am starting to look at other alternatives since I have not found what
I need.
The user list seems to be mostly web companies that are focused on
eCommerce.
I think the community is more diverse but "web companies focused on
eCommerce" are more vocal indeed.
Many seem to be selling customization services or customized versions
of OfBiz.
Few, not many, you can refer to the top of this page
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Apache+OFBiz+User+List
I am looking for a product that I can install and turn over to an
accountant and a bookkeeper to setup the chart of accounts, the
parties, AR and AP while I focus on the product catalog and delivery
tracking.
It appears that I will have to invest a large amount of time in
explaining the framework and UI to people who just want accounting to
work.
I do not need more overhead.
There is a price to pay to be free
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Loup_et_le_Chien (I guess you know how
to use Google translate)
If the people who are using it to generate income are not willing to
invest in UI and documentation and there are no big corporations
using it who are willing to invest in supporting it, I am worried
that it will never get to be a polished product.
I think Adrian already well explained this point. To add something:
I'm currently working on a project where OFBiz is only seen as a
services engine, most people using OFBiz don't care about its UI,
because of what Adrian explained.
Jacques
I do like the technology of the framework and could extend it if I
had to since it does fit with our core competencies as far as
software development goes. It does have a lot of functionality that I
think could help improve some of our processes.
As I said earlier, I am willing to help out with documentation if we
do go ahead but I do not have the time to dig for facts that other
team members already possess but are too lazy or whatever to share.
Probably just more ranting!
Ron
On 16/06/2014 2:28 PM, Adrian Crum wrote:
I'm confused. Are you asking for guidance to improve the project, or
are you simply ranting because the project doesn't measure up to
your standards?
Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com
On 6/16/2014 11:13 AM, Ron Wheeler wrote:
On 16/06/2014 1:46 PM, Adrian Crum wrote:
Keep in mind that this is an all volunteer, open source project.
Therefore, there is no "industry standard."
Does the same assumption apply that volunteers can not write code that
meets industry standards for quality or functionality just because
they
are not paid?
There are a number of Apache projects that have very good
documentation.
Those who have contributed documentation in the past learned by using
the software and asking questions on the user mailing list.
No wonder the docs are in such poor shape.
It is hard enough to write docs but to expect that users are going to
reverse-engineer use cases and UI functionality from code and config
files or playing with screens to write docs for code that someone else
writes is way too much to expect from a volunteer.
Ron
Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com
On 6/16/2014 10:26 AM, Ron Wheeler wrote:
And where would I get the facts to include in the documentation?
Is there a secret place where the people writing code write down
what
the user is supposed to do with the code (use cases)?
The copy of the distribution that I downloaded did not even
include a
draft Release Note.
Does the PMC consider that the documentation currently existing
to be
correct, complete and in line with what is industry standard for a
version 12.x.x release?
Ron
On 16/06/2014 11:33 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:
This is a maintenance release, so it includes any documentation
that
existed when the release branch was created.
If you would like to see more documentation included in the trunk,
then feel free to submit patches to Jira.
Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com
On 6/16/2014 8:15 AM, Ron Wheeler wrote:
-1
Given the errors in the wiki documentation and the lack of
on-line
help, it is hard to see how this could be considered "tested"
(try to
install it using the docs for a "recommended" production
database and
you can see it is not possible that it passed "manual tests"
unless
the
test suite is too trivial to be taken seriously) or "complete"
(on-line
help just opens a page of sections headings that does not do
anything
when you click on it).
I don't see any Release notes in the distribution.
Are the new features at least documented?
Did the use cases for the new features and bug fixes get into the
documentation?
If the PMC group continues to allow new releases to be made
without
any
attention to documentation, OfBiz will never get the documentation
that
it needs. At least make documentation of items that are worked
on in a
release, mandatory.
Is it possible for the PMC to set some targets for a target
level of
documentation so that there is a baseline set of JIRA issues on
which
the PMC agrees?
Ron
On 16/06/2014 9:25 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
+1
Jacopo
On Jun 9, 2014, at 4:09 PM, Jacopo Cappellato
<jacopo.cappell...@hotwaxmedia.com> wrote:
This is the vote thread to release a new (bug fix) release
for the
12.04 branch. This new release, "Apache OFBiz 12.04.03" (major
release number: "12.04"; minor release number: "03"), will
supersede
the release "Apache OFBiz 12.04.02".
The release files can be downloaded from here:
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/ofbiz/
(committers only) or from here:
http://people.apache.org/~jacopoc/dist/
(everyone else)
and are:
* apache-ofbiz-12.04.03.zip: the release package, based on
the 12.04
branch at revision 1601320 (latest as of now)
* KEYS: text file with keys
* apache-ofbiz-12.04.03.zip.asc: the detached signature file
* apache-ofbiz-12.04.03.zip.md5, apache-ofbiz-12.04.03.zip.sha:
hashes
Please download and test the zip file and its signatures (for
instructions on testing the signatures see
http://www.apache.org/info/verification.html).
Vote:
[ +1] release as Apache OFBiz 12.04.03
[ -1] do not release
This vote will be closed in 5 days.
For more details about this process please read
http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html
The following text is quoted from the above url:
"Votes on whether a package is ready to be released use majority
approval -- i.e. at least three PMC members must vote
affirmatively
for release, and there must be more positive than negative
votes.
Releases may not be vetoed. Generally the community will
cancel the
release vote if anyone identifies serious problems, but in most
cases
the ultimate decision, lies with the individual serving as
release
manager."
Kind Regards,
Jacopo
--
Ron Wheeler
President
Artifact Software Inc
email: rwhee...@artifact-software.com
skype: ronaldmwheeler
phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102