Hi There's been an interesting discussion going on in the OFBiz dev e-mail forum that has some ramifications on users, and any contributions they care to make. You can follow the actual discussion from starting here: http://www.nabble.com/Refactoring-Create-Order-process-during-OFBiz- Developers-Conference-Sponsored-by-Hotwax-Media-tf3118353.html#a8668236 and under a new subject line, Intellectual Property and Sandbox SVN. (not in nabble yet.)
Anyway, to over-simplify things we were discussing the procedure and legalities of making collaborative contributions to OFBiz. The way OFBiz is currently structured, any new code, because it can go right into production, needs to have a high degree of usefulness and general testing before it is even be considered for inclusion into the project. This is good, but it has meant that half-baked user contributions, or works-in-progress have often not been shared with the community, and that has meant that the community hasn't been able to do the one thing open-source software does better than any other development modality I've ever seen, make gold out of an idea and a buggy proto-type through the collaboration of many hands. I would to see if we can attract more of these works-in-progress contributions and organize them within the Apache OFBiz project so we can collaborate on their development. One idea that was proposed was to create a collaborative space outside of Apache OFBiz (external sandbox) to work on these various project. Unfortunately, collaborative works designed outside of Apache OFBiz need special treatment before they can be integrated into the project, an onerous task that limits the run-away viability of these efforts. I then suggested an svn sandbox where non-committers could work on contributions that are not fit for production, but are considered a legal Apache OFBiz contribution, but idea was nixed because it would take too much work to create and manage the space and committers, and, it'd probably be a real mess. The most workable idea at this time involves using the jira issue tracker to submit patches that implement a new feature. This solution isn't the best because it may involve a lot of patch applications, that can be alleviated if a committer creates what I'll call a feature sandbox, or inactive code in the svn repository that can be developed collaboratively. This process should go much more smoothly soon, however, as OFBiz is intending to almost double the number of committers. So, does anyone have any works-in-progress they would like to share with the community and open up to a more collaborative development? Thanks -- Daniel *-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*- Have a GREAT Day! Daniel Kunkel [EMAIL PROTECTED] BioWaves, LLC http://www.BioWaves.com 14150 NE 20th St. Suite F1 Bellevue, WA 98007 800-734-3588 425-895-0050 http://www.Apartment-Pets.com http://www.Illusion-Optical.com http://www.Card-Offer.com http://www.RackWine.com http://www.JokesBlonde.com http://www.Brain-Fun.com *-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-
