User:Trifonnt/MyThoughts

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Strange live

Working in Open Source space is very hard sometime or probably most of the time. Contributor's work is in public space and everyone can see it and make comments. I do not speak only for source code, but wiki contributions, forums posts and so on. Contribution to Open Source project has many faces and this is good as all we are good in different areas. Open Source project gather contributors at one space and gives them freedom to express their self. All this is very very nice, BUT, there is always one big BUT. This word makes me sad sometimes, not the word itself but the words which come after BUT. For me Open Source first of all means Free Will to do something, FREE will to comment something, and so on. Just FREE, like i'm free to do it. I do not want anyone to push me to do anything in my Open Source project especially when this man is a man like me, who works side by side with me. I understand that first job of people is for commercial companies with strict rules for everything, but applying rules to Open Source most of the times leads to mistakes. In Adempiere project i was one of the developers who expressed his opinion against rules and i made it not because i do not like rules, but because rules can't work in the Free world. At least rules which demand a contributor to do something when other contributor contribute. I do not see how a contributor can demand other contributor to review his contribution. Contributor can ask for opinion of other contributor, but trying to push other contributor to do something is just something which is not going to happen. Words 'demand' and 'rule' live outside the Free will world of Open Source and are not compatible with the Free world of Open Source. In Adempiere project we have one prove of my words - Policy which demanded a peer review of committed code was reverted, because trackers were left in not appropriate state (in most of the cases second developer do not took the demanded action). I write this words because i want to remember my thoughts and writing is the best way to save thoughts in time. I predicted that push of rules in Adempiere would fail, but my prediction increased my bad karma image and my image of complainer which makes me sad. I'm not a complainer, i'm a contributor. I was trying to show to other developers that rules will fail but i didn't found enough understanding at that past moment. Sometimes i wish not to see such bad things, i wish to be calm and nice guy applauding nice contributors and consuming their work anonymously. Trifonnt 10:24, 15 February 2008 (EST)


Open Source’s Missed Opportunity

Trifonnt 03:07, 18 January 2008 (EST)

Requirements of very small companies

  • sf.netInteresting post from OpenBravo forums.

How customers should approach Open source vendor

Very good post from Matt Asay


Yes, I get quite a few requests to have Alfresco integrate with JBoss and Liferay, and I've done business with both. But I didn't need a committee to tell me that. Customers did. Customers have yet to request integration with Compiere, for example, so we haven't done it. Someday we probably will. But when customers vote with dollars.


Interesting requirement: Map Your Contacts By Region


Select a group of accounts based on geography...let's say all accounts in Texas. Then be able to map those accounts on an interactive map that will show the locations of each of those accounts as push pins. When you roll over each push pin, it pops up the name of the account and any specified modules like opportunities, calendar etc. Another cool feature would be select any two accounts to calculate the distance/drive time and even download directions.

Trifonnt 02:07, 11 December 2007 (EST)


Number of Adempiere developers

22 May 2008.

Adempiere has 70 registered developers in sf.net.

trifon 03:28, 22 May 2008 (EDT)


11 December 2007.

Adempiere has 56 registered developers in sf.net.

Trifonnt 02:07, 11 December 2007 (EST)

Risk to be Open Source developer

Here i will try to identify some of the negative sides of being Open Source developer. This are real examples which happen to me and make me sad.

  • Help a user and after few days/weeks/months receive a spam message from the company where user work or from him personally.
    • NEVER help a user in private emails. Private emails are for paid support only!
  • Many times colleagues or other people tell me that i must increase my prices. It sounds quite good as advice, but the bad side is when they start working with you they are not so happy to pay you recommended by them price. ALWAYS RESPECT YOUR PRICE!

It is your price which is good for you and under your conditions.

  • Many times Managers invite me on a beer and pay the bill. In a return after few days they send me contacts of their employees to help them with technical question. Bad understanding of Open Source model. The fact that source are free do not gives them right to think that i will help their employees for free. It is developers time which must be paid, no matter if he works on Open Source project or commercial project.

Trifonnt 14:43, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Idea for additional meta data: AD_Table NamedQuery

JPA has very nice feature 'Named Query'. It would make Application Dictionary more reach if Adempiere has such feature. This idea is very near to Finders, but it allows more wide range of queries. Trifonnt 19:17, 26 October 2007 (EDT)


Idea for additional java interface: DocumentConversion

Adempiere ERP-CRM has processes which generate new document from existing document. For example Generate Invoice from Sales Order. This are quite useful processes, but currently they are not designed with the idea for extendability's. For example if user define new fields in Sales Order and would like to see values of this fields transfered to Invoice and Shipment later then he must modify source code of GenerateInvoice and GenerateShipment processes. This is not easy and i think that design can be improved. Possible improvements:

  • Define new java interface and invoke classes which implement this interface. This require changes in existing GenerateXxx classes.
  • Define new structure in Application Dictionary which will describe which fields must be transfered during Document Generation process.

Trifonnt 17:59, 26 October 2007 (EDT)


Data Services

Rob Cardwell has very interesting article: Data Services: A Fundamental Building Block of SOA.

In middle of this article i found that Adempiere has this beautiful functionality.

This approach requires tools that can capture existing data structures from reverse-engineered relational database schema's, and can map these existing structures into more business-oriented data views.

Adempiere AD(Application dictionary) on which all tables and windows are based provides meta data for all data structures in the system and even for all graphical components! But with Adempiere user do not need to reverse-engineer database system, all data structures have business oriented view by design.

Trifonnt 22:51, 28 September 2007 (EDT)


Why fights in Open Source projects are bad?

Link to Adempiere post: here

What an ERP system MUST NOT allow user to do?

Recently i read a urgent post in OpenBravo forum.

i have deleted "big bazzar and System", the default clients and i can't enter to OpenBravo now what is the solution?

Interesting? This sounds like:

i have deleted "Local Disk C and D" and i can't enter my windows system what is the solution?

One of the most valuable ideas in Compiere is IsActive column and restriction to delete records in most of the tables. It is good if user can delete some Client, but System records must never be deletable! This makes another question to me. Is ERP for every user? My answer at this moment is NO. User who implement ERP must be very careful, conscious and most importantly must always make backup of data.

Trifonnt 17:01, 4 September 2007 (EDT)


OpenBravo Green?

Recently OpenBravo Green came into my mind(Jordi Mash told me about OpenBravo Green at Adempiere conference in Belrin) and i decided to review it and to check status.

First of all they have good document with intentions and requirements. Good number of frameworks and technologies are listed at this page: Design principles for Openbravo Green

They have a prototype and online demo, but i failed to login into demo page. OpenBravo Green demo

Source code of prototye was more interesting for me and it was the reason that made me write this post.

  • I expected to see more commnents and more TODOs. It is prototype and important is to see what developer intend to do than what has been done. Visibility of ideas and intentions is more important than actual work finished. This is not a minus it is just a note and wish from my side.
  • Source code dissapointed me, because:
    • I saw one regular web based application. No trace from the idea of Model Driven Architecture or Application dictionary. Probably model classes were generated by some tool, but no evidence or comment in the code or in the wiki pages.
    • Only one author, no participataion from community.
    • Author is Adrian Romero, who is very good POS developer(Tina POS), but i doubt about his experience in ERP systems and Application Driven systems. It looks that he is the only active visible OpenBravo developer.


Adempiere: Which is first Data or Code?

Recently i modified very deeply core of Adempiere in order to simplify development and to speed it up. I wasn't sure that such modification is possible and i was very happy when it happened and when at the end it even worked. After some tests i decided to revert to old version of persistent classes (X_xxx) and i deleted newly generated classes and started well known old GenerateModel, but... It failed because GenerateModel needs persistent classes in order to connect to Database. But developer can't generate persistent classes because GenerateModel can't connect to DB. So we got cycle... And here comes my question: Which is first Data or Code? I think that design of GenerateModel can be improved:


Trifonnt 12:55, 19 August 2007 (EDT)

Does Community Open Source project need roadmap?

  • What does Roadmap means for a project?
  • Goolge define:Roadmap says few things, but i like mostly one of them:
A program for future development indicating what will be developed and when.

My opinion is that it statement must be more like:

A program for future development indicating what will be developed, who will be developed it and when.
  • Three very important conditions in order to have Roadmap:
    • Functionality

This is easy to be done. We all want functionality and with pleasure we will advice what to be done. So i think that here ANY project can produce good number of items.

    • Who will develop it?

UPS, here the firts problems comes. In order to develop something WE need knowledge, so from the big list of ALL only developers can participate in development. All this means that in Roadmap, Open Source project must identify developers or companies that will create new functionality. Ok, let's say that i would like to build this new functionality and i write my name against the feature.

    • When functionality will be developed?

Who knows? Who can answer? Who is responsible? It looks that WHEN brings more question than it answers. In Open Source project if no one commits his time to develop given functionality no one can answer the questions. Moreover if someone commit his free time does anyone has rights to push him for specific date? I do not think so... It is developers free will to participate and create functionality. And as you guess in most of the time it is hard to find free time for building big functionality.

My personal opinion is that spending time to create Roadmap without committed developers/companies against specific functionality is just big wast of time. Even worst it is confusing for the end user who read Roadmap and wait for new version and new functionality.

My big excuse to the users who will be frustrated from ssch Roadmaps. Trifonnt 19:31, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

To be ADempiere Developer or Adempiere Businessman(Seller)

I work with Adempiere/Compiere since more than 3 years. I must say that i like the product and area very much. I like to develop extensions for Adempiere and i do it everyday for 10-12 hours a day and sometimes more. I know it is not healthy, but... But last weeks i started to feel tired from all the rules for Developers and all fights in forums and in email lists. Also i realized that Business people around Adempiere do not have such limitations as Developers. For example:

  • On www.adempierebusiness.com there are 30 registered Implementation Partners. Good number.
    • What does this Implementation Partners give to Adempiere project?

Some of them nothing. Well business people say that if we limit and ask for money then this will stop add option of Adempiere. But may i ask how developers can survive?

    • What they get?

FREE Advertisement. Perfect... I think that Adempiere is the only project that allows such thing. Most of other Open Source projects take money for advertisement and put money back into the project.

  • I have read that some of Adempiere Implementation Partners do not work for less than 50 000 USD. Amount which i as developer do not had chance to see till now. Who knows someday Clients may find that contracting developer is much faster and cheaper...
  • User expect developers to provide FREE help in Adempiere forums, which gives additional workload to developers.
  • Developers are expected to be open and expose all their information to community.

So:

  • I found that i had made mistake.

It looks that to be Businessman and make money around Adempiere is much easy and painless than to be Adempiere developer. :(

  • I think to reconsider my role in Adempiere project. Role of Implementation Partner looks much safer and giving more incomes.
  • I should start making advertisements from now... So here it is: I can provide Adempiere on Site Implementation for 1500 EURO / week + expenses(hotel + ticket) in case i need to move to other location.