Just list some of the gains by different roles involved in the OFBIZ ecosystem:
* For OFBIZ provider business owners and end-users: As such a sophisticated business application, the training cost for new comers is much high. The cost can be branched into 2 parts: 1) Learning the business model and logic implemented by OFBIZ 2) Learning OFBIZ's unique technical platform The first part cost is no doubt value-able and unavoidable, because it's closely related to the business and specific product. But the second part is the cost that doesn't gain any direct benefits to the business. So they like to find a way to cut down such cost. To find a new developer familiar with Grails is much easier than find a new developer familiar with OFBIZ platform, isn't it? The second part cost can be cut down to 0 by hire a qualified developer. * For NEW developers: Assume the worst case, the new developers doesn't familiar either of these technologies. Then he has 2 choices: 1) Spend 2 months to get familiar with the unique OFBIZ technical platform, which may get the OFBIZ job done, but nothing else. 2) Spend 2 months to learn a technology like Grails, which can not only solve the OFBIZ related requirements, but also suitable to solve a wide-range of web development problems. Which one do you think he/she would like to spend their time into? * For current Experts: They may need to learn a new technologies, but this is one-time cost. After this, they can be released from the long-last technical platform maintain task, concentrate on the core business issues. Although I don't know them yet, I bet the maintainers of the OFBIZ technical platform may have gathered a lot of improvement idea for the core platform already, inspired by other leading platforms. But they have limited time/effort to do so, or even just wondering: does it worthwhile to re-invent the wheels? -Miles On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 13:03 -0800, Adrian Crum wrote: > Miles Huang wrote: > > The problem an OFBIZ novice commonly facing is when he/she has to go > > further than the OFBIZ OOTB functionality ( which proves he/she is becoming > > a really OFBIZ user:drunk: ). He/she have to learn a lot of techniques in > > the unique OFBIZ way > > > Theoretically the chance to migrate the whole > > OFBIZ package to Grails platform are possible (more serious research work > > needs to be done in this area), while keeping the strength of OFBIZ - the > > business level assets accumulated in years. > > So we trade new users having to learn the OFBiz way for new users having > to learn the Grails way. What have we gained? > > -Adrian