Adrian, I think that you have summed up the situation in your succinct post
- there are some service providers who are heavily invested in this project
and it is their concern for their own interests that is guiding OFBiz.
Someone new looking at OFBiz should lament the fact that so much
application value is tied to such old technology. Then they should look at
Moqui and see how easy it would be to port that value to a new platform -
at least much easier than creating a new framework - and wonder why it is
not being done.
I reject the idea that "anyone is interested in building applications on
Moqui, [...]should do it in the Moqui community". OFBiz does not belong to
the PMC; it belongs to everybody. I have a dream... sorry, got carried
away. This seems like a test of the Apache framework - does it provide for
the long-term life of a project when it conflicts with the self-interests
of the PMC?
On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 10:24 AM, Adrian Crum <
adrian.c...@sandglass-software.com> wrote:
> Switching OFBiz to a different framework has been discussed in the past,
> and I brought up the subject again in a recent thread on the dev mailing
> list. At this time, there are some PMC members who are opposed to the idea,
> so I don't see any hope for switching to Moqui in this project.
>
> If anyone is interested in building applications on Moqui, then they
> should do it in the Moqui community.
>
> I don't agree that OFBiz is a sinking ship. There are a number of service
> providers who are heavily invested in this project, and they are not going
> to throw that all away for a new one.
>
> Adrian Crum
> Sandglass Software
> www.sandglass-software.com
>
>
> On 3/7/2014 5:58 AM, Al Byers wrote:
>
>> In light of the current discussion about the future of OFBiz I thought it
>> would be worth revisiting one of my finer moments by reposting this from
>> David Jones. In today's world 12 technology years is a lifetime. It is not
>> reasonable to think that we can keep scaling the original framework.
>> Another thing to think about is that in order to attract a new group of
>> users sometimes it takes a big new idea and Moqui fills that role. We
>> should all keep in mind that OFBiz succeeded secondly because of all the
>> hard work put in by the community, but firstly because of the brilliant
>> architecture and foundation provided by David (and Andrew). When that same
>> mind applies it to fixing most of OFBiz's problems we should be talking
>> about how to transition - end of discussion, IMHO.
>>
>> I believe that it has been since David wrote this email that he has
>> integrated Elasticsearch and Drools into Moqui. Those are the kinds of
>> exciting technologies that OFBiz needs. And it is high time that we
>> stopped
>> programming in Java. I have loved the seemless transition to Groovy and I
>> like having only one scripting language. The future is going to demand
>> much
>> more flexibility than OFBiz can deliver. Moqui, with its small core size
>> and its application of FreeMarker to the frontend provides that
>> flexibility.
>>
>> I don't know exactly how the transition to Moqui should take place, but
>> that is where the discussion should take place. Anything else, and we are
>> just discussing how slowly the ship will be sinking. I think David should
>> remain in control of the core (as I think he would insist), but there are
>> a
>> lot of options for porting the mantle and crust portions. I think we
>> should
>> think outside the box and look to something like KickStarter to get it
>> done
>> quickly.
>>
>> -Al
>>
>> On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 2:26 PM, David E. Jones <d...@me.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> OFBiz has recently turned 12 years old. At the time it was written many
>>> more modern libraries either didn't exist or were not usable, including:
>>>
>>> - Groovy
>>> - ehcache
>>> - Quartz Scheduler
>>> - Atomikos
>>> - JackRabbit (and JCR in general)
>>> - Shiro
>>> - Camel
>>> - JSON-RPC, REST, JSON in general
>>> - ElasticSearch (and to some extent even Lucene)
>>> - Document and other NoSQL databases (of which ElasticSearch is sort of,
>>> but I mean CouchDB, MongoDB, Hadoop and derivatives, etc)
>>>
>>> Some of these are used, or with some customization usable, in OFBiz. Many
>>> of them overlap a lot with parts of the OFBiz framework, and unlike
>>> JPA/Hibernate sorts of things, do a better job than what is in OFBiz.
>>>
>>> Some big ones are caching, job scheduling, content management, and even
>>> searching. The OFBiz ProductSearch stuff works well enough (though not
>>> great) for smaller sets of products, but doesn't compare in flexibility,
>>> scalability, and speed to ElasticSearch and some other Lucene-based
>>> alternatives. With some simple framework extensions (like the
>>> DataDocument,
>>> DataFeed, and DataSearch features of Moqui) implementing excellent search
>>> for products would be easy, as would search for any other part of the
>>> system... and all combined in a single system-wide search or segmented as
>>> desired.
>>>
>>> Another big one, that has been most painful for me in dealing with OFBiz,
>>> is the lack of consistent scripting and expressions. Once you get used to
>>> the elegance of Groovy dealing with BSH and JUEL is downright painful...
>>> and for me anyway requires a number of misses before I finally get it
>>> working. The ${groovy:...} work-around is there, but quirky, and the
>>> resulting object is unreliable as in some OFBiz XML files it results in a
>>> String while in others it results in the actual Object the expression
>>> evaluates to.
>>>
>>> Even if it is self-serving, I agree that OFBiz was brilliant in its day,
>>> but it needs FAR more modernization than is currently happening or that
>>> is
>>> likely to happen. The new feature velocity in the framework is so slow
>>> (mostly because of the architecture and existing code, partly because of
>>> collaboration breakdown reasons), that it can't keep up with
>>> alternatives.
>>>
>>> So yes, OFBiz is great, but it exists in a world that is progressing far
>>> faster than it can. My reason for starting fresh was just that simple:
>>> development velocity.
>>>
>>> On top of that OFBiz uses certain approaches that are difficult to deploy
>>> and maintain. Try dropping all of OFBiz into a single war file for easy
>>> upload deployment on the dozens of modern cloud/PaaS services. Try adding
>>> plug-ins that require a proper init/destroy lifecycle instead of relying
>>> on
>>> static initialization and no proper tear down. Try finding framework
>>> functionality in thousands of static methods spread across dozens (or
>>> hundreds?) of classes. I know these weaknesses of OFBiz well... they are
>>> my
>>> mistakes. Correcting them is another matter... and one I didn't find
>>> possible in the context of the project with the limited time I have
>>> available. It was faster and easier to start fresh.
>>>
>>> When I started OFBiz I was 23 years old and had about 2 years of
>>> experience in ERP systems. I think it's great that there is enough
>>> interest
>>> to keep the project alive and at whatever pace keep it progressing both
>>> technically and for support of business activities. Still, something must
>>> be done for it to remain competitive with open source and commercial
>>> alternatives if it is to compete... including with what I've been calling
>>> the "Next Generation" of OFBiz, ie Moqui Framework, Mantle Business
>>> Artifacts, and the various projects and products built on them.
>>>
>>> As good as it is, there is lots of room for improvement and others are
>>> doing just that. I don't think Al was implying that "OFBiz is no longer
>>> brilliant", maybe some are overly sensitive to that. The fact is that
>>> OFBiz
>>> is what it is, and without major improvements alternatives exceed it in
>>> so
>>> many ways. It doesn't make OFBiz less brilliant, but in a sky with other
>>> bright stars its brilliance is only relevant in context.
>>>
>>> OFBiz has lots of momentum, and pretty good marketplace around it, and a
>>> lot of people are making good money doing work based on it (including
>>> me).
>>> Still, I tire frequently of explaining that so many things are known
>>> issues
>>> with the project and not easy to correct, but are corrected in the "Next
>>> Generation", ie Moqui/Mantle. Usually the fix is a hack and workaround
>>> that
>>> can't be committed because it breaks other things, just things they don't
>>> intend to use (this still has consequences for bigger projects... things
>>> all seem to come back around).
>>>
>>> So, it is what it is. I understand the motivation to paint OFBiz the best
>>> possible for marketing purposes and such... I personally did that for
>>> years
>>> in spite of known flaws. Eventually that only goes so far... OFBiz versus
>>> other open source alternatives has its pluses and minuses, and most in
>>> the
>>> community are very aware of those minuses. This causes many to drool over
>>> cleaner, newer solutions like Magento, even if it is based on a totally
>>> different underlying technology and one that doesn't scale as well or
>>> interact in enterprise environments as well.
>>>
>>> Sooner or later reality catches up... best to stay ahead of it or at
>>> least
>>> have long-term plans and alternatives to fall-back on.
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 20, 2013, at 11:10 AM, Adrian Crum <
>>> adrian.c...@sandglass-software.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> A quick clarification on this.
>>>>
>>>> "OFBiz was brilliant when David created it over ten years ago, but..."
>>>>
>>> implies OFBiz is no longer brilliant. OFBiz continues to be just as
>>> brilliant, with a talented team of developers keeping it current with
>>> current technology.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> -Adrian
>>>>
>>>> On 5/20/2013 4:04 PM, Al Byers wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Carlos,
>>>>>
>>>>> I am just starting to look around for OFBiz work and was intrigued to
>>>>>
>>>> see your email there this morning. I have been working with OFBiz for
>>> over
>>> 10 years now and am interested in what you have going.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> But I must ask if you have considered Moqui (moqui.org <
>>>>>
>>>> http://moqui.org>) - David Jones's successor to OFBiz? I was just at a
>>> small conference with David and the folks at HowWax Media and based on
>>> David's comments and what I know about Moqui from my past year of working
>>> with it, if you are starting anew, and especially if you are not using
>>> the
>>> current e-commerce features of OFBiz, then you would be well served to
>>> look
>>> at Moqui. OFBiz was brilliant when David created it over ten years ago,
>>> but
>>> technology has made great advances in that time and if you have the
>>> freedom
>>> to do so, it makes sense to start with the latest base.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I have attached David's introduction to Moqui PDF, which I don't think
>>>>>
>>>> is readily available off the moqui.org <http://moqui.org> website.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I hope to hear from you soon.
>>>>>
>>>>> Al Byers
>>>>> 801-400-5111
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 7:19 AM, Carlos Cruz <car...@nbtbizcapital.com
>>>>> <mailto:
>>>>>
>>>> car...@nbtbizcapital.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Hi;
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm looking for a Java programmer that is familiar with OFBiz.
>>>>> Particularly with OFBiz Web Services and OFBiz Entity Engine.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm interested in hosting OFBiz for some very specific industries
>>>>> and I want to develop some very specific interfaces.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is a long term project, I could be flexible with the hours.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you're interested email me for more details.
>>>>>
>>>>> Also feel free to forward this email to someone you think might be
>>>>> interested.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks!!
>>>>>
>>>>> Carlos
>>>>>
>>>>> logo-for-social-media-sites-email_signature
>>>>>
>>>>> CruzControl Radius
>>>>>
>>>>> Your Success Is Our Service
>>>>>
>>>>> www.ccradius.com <http://www.ccradius.com>
>>>>>
>>>>> email:car...@ccradius.com <mailto:email%3acar...@ccradius.com>
>>>>>
>>>>> 1-877-285-5499 <tel:1-877-285-5499>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
