@sraps,
> Then you will have to go and sue Tiny, Axelor and others on doing just right > that. Or other people will. About Tiny: for the report designer shared funding module at least, there is no GPL violation at all as only the OpenOffice plugin part (connecting by webservice) is paid. This is also the case of most of the Axelor office modules. The part linking in an language API manner of the open office designer is in Launchpad, GPL and free. Sorry if you don't like it but that's the fact. Now I admit the situation is less clear to me for the db synchro (I don't know how it technically works), or the migrations (but that's arguably borderline). In any case Tiny - or even possibly Axelor - could double license their work because THEY ARE THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS so at worst it could be legal just as MySQL does for instance; YOU MY FRIEND, AREN'T AN OPENERP COPYRIGHT OWNER AND THAT MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE SO YOU CAN'T JUST CHOOSE IF YOU WILL PLAY NICE OR NOT TODAY. But obviously it would require some legal polish, that's more or less what I was talking about. Especially would they double license something, they should make it clear to community GPL contributor they could do so. Magento for instance exactly does that. I'm not saying it's good, but it's safe for the editor. Now they might find smart ways to get their work paid without to ever have to enter that sloppy double license game. > Tricks like some Partners are doing, effectively not making the code free and > inaccessible to the community. Well I think you are getting a bit paranoiac here. I don't see so many partners not playing the game. the vast majority of them are real active contributors because they just understood that they would be stronger by sharing and increasing OpenERP momentum rather than just playing little tricks on their side. Oh yes, there were a few OpenERP forks, now those are clearly dead ends of the History. When a partner do not publish a module, I think that's mostly because he had to code something quick on a low budget that wouldn't make sense in general and there is already enough crap modules and it's not a good idea to pollute the bad module list even more. But again one shot implementation is OK for the GPL. What is not OK is you trying to re-sale your stuff here and that's why I was patiently explaining it to you ;-) And bare in mind that the situation just improved recently as Tiny just offered a new quasi garbage repository where everyone can share a module even if unsure about the scope and quality: https://code.launchpad.net/~openerp-community/openobject-addons/trunk-addons-community IMHO you should just push your modules there for now, it's just up to you. > Oh, and please show some respect The difference between you and me is probably I just pushed two modules there over the last week (not counting the others), and that's only a beginning. Don't come and speak about respect when you are pissing on the GPL and the editor that are enabling you to make money. Respect those basic rules, come back later. Words are words, actions are what ultimately define what you are. > > I doubt that ordinary user would be able to make use of bazaar to download > the module he desires. I think that's over and ordinary people can now download the modules. I think they are working on making that obvious too. They do improve when people behave in constructive ways but it does cost them time/money doing all that my friend. Also, I see LOTS of people getting the wrong signal: just because they can download the solution/modules easily for free they think it will be cheap. Lots of them are then finding themselves in deep trouble when they realize later how complex it is to get all working in production. Every time Tiny lower the entry barrier, there will be more frustrated users losing money because they were not filtered out because OpenERP is not mature enough for them now. For us integrators it also sucks because its makes it harder to explain why it will cost what it costs despite the nice screencasts. So IMHO the priority is first to imrpove quality, then lower the entry barrier, and that's exactly what does Tiny with their limited resources (not everyone at Tiny work as an editor, lot's of the guys are busy integrating, while Tiny is trying to shift to a better editor work if you guys consider let it happen). Yes OpenERP is sometimes a very good choice. We have customers paying their ERP like 2 to 4 times cheaper by choosing OpenERP, not to speak about the better coverage and them ending up smarter at the end. BUT OpenERP is still the good choice only in marginal situations (just like SAP R3 or a Linux Desktop is not for everybody). So it's perfectly obvious that if you don't filter properly those who will benefit from it and those who won't lot's of users will end up with a higher TCO with OpenERP! So IMHO, you have to inform your customers, select them properly and in the meantime help the community getting OpenERP more and more competitive for the other users who would better not choose it yet according to their needs and earnings. Now a few things my dear sraps: 1) I think you totally underestimate how fucking hard it is for Tiny to sustain so many things for free (just deduce their schedules by their commit hours). I know a lot of companies who started oss softwares. Later on, with kids and a real life, they got so bored by that mass of naive naysayers that lots of them ended up stopping oss support and starting proprietary/saas products instead to get the bill paid. Is that what you whish?. I looked all other oss ERP's deeply and found none coming even close. Of course JBoss might be free oss and very professionnal and blablabla, but that's not a fucking full blown ERP rivaling with SAP. In a word, for the vast majority of FLOSS, the situation was way much easier than for a full blown ERP. Just think that the OpenERP team could just take a well paid regular job, get their money, go back home, end of the story. They do way more than that and that's and they don't need naive naysayers. 2) I agree 200% that Tiny should absolutely find a way to have affordable partner prices for countries that are not so rich. Compiere got the Adempiere fork launched partially because of that. I hope they will come up with a solution but let's face it's not easy and they do have some fix western costs. I already had the occasion to tell it to Fabien and he told me that they have a solution for India and China, which is already a start. Indeed, I totally understand your Latvia customers will not pay you enough to afford a Tiny partnership. That's definitely an urgent issue for Tiny. So sraps, it's not about the partnership being too expensive. Let's take my current employer (Smile.fr), they are now making a good money form OpenERP integration and on the contrary, you can think that partnership is very cheap compared to what others oss editors charge and that's a tragic loss for Tiny and that's bad for everybody because as a consequence they don't earn enough money to improve their ERP quicky enough just like they could. So In my opinion there are only three problems here: a) you are playing a dangerous game. We are not lawyers and have busy agenda just like you, but you are not sending the right signal and you could even eventually get in trouble one day. GPL is being more and more defended those days, lot's of cheaters are getting caught nowadays, and actually I believe that's a good new for oss editors to be able to sustain their business model. b) Tiny should absolutely modulate their partnership price according to the earning of the partners or by default at least to the cost of living of the partner customers. c) Tiny should clarify the some licensing issues (license of shared funding, license of Axelor modules, migrations, contributor license agreement, is OpenERP protected against unfair Saas competition -> No I think) My subversive 0.02 $ Raphaël Valyi.[/code] ------------------------ http://www.smile.fr -------------------- m2f -------------------- -- http://www.openobject.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=35052#35052 -------------------- m2f --------------------
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