Le 22/06/2014 04:12, Ron Wheeler a écrit :
On 21/06/2014 3:30 PM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
Le 21/06/2014 17:41, Ron Wheeler a écrit :
I understand the costs of open source but most are in a bit better shape.
We use around 50 OSS packages in our own software.
I guess most other projects have not the scope of an ERP. This is one of the
problem with OFBiz documentation: where should it stop.
On the other hand I agree that documentations like setups and such need to up
to date an as clear as possible.
This is where the PMC needs to settle on a scope for the docs.
This also makes me look at documentation very critically since I understand how
the cost of using OSS depends to a great degree on the documentation.
It appears that there is a lot of documentation for OfBiz but it is in a lot of
places and a lot has not been update as things change.
It's impossible to centralize others efforts...
I would think that it is worthwhile to reach out to those who are writing
external docs to find out why they are not contributing it.
Do they want more recognition or want to drive traffic to their sites? Is
there something that could be done to recognize contributions?
First we would need to be aware of them...
Do they feel that adding it to the OfBiz site would be presumptuous without
"permission? Perhaps they just need to be invited..
Read the top of the OFBiz (open) wiki about that
It's even difficult to be sure about our own documentation. I tend to think now that we should rather remove all what is wrong, or even deprecated,
rather than trying to barely keep those alive.
I agree.
There has to be an appreciation of TCO for the project before a new document is
started.
Unfortunately I ran into problems in the very first step where the installation docs were both wrong and outdated in ways that made me question
the project management of the project. This has an impact on the long-term cost of going with OfBiz.
Yes, that should ever be reported like you did. In order for us to keep thing
cleans, thanks for your effort!
I would recommend using JIRA issues be created to at least build a list of
defects, if the person reporting them can't fix them.
However, there is no reason not to make corrections of things if you know the
answer.
You must have access to the wiki
Jacques
I appreciate that this is a volunteer organization and that project management is not easy in this environment but that just makes it harder not
optional.
I also appreciate that the development team includes important contributors for
whom, English is not their first language.
It is easy for me to fix the problems that this causes, if the facts are
correct and written down in some form.
It is easy to reword a paragraph but almost impossible to make up content that
does not exist.
Je puis lire et parler français et écrire avec difficulté.
Je confirme, en effet !
Jacques
However, Google translate is still one of my best friends!
It also helps clean up English.
It is sometimes helpful to run an English paragraph through Google to see if it
is sufficiently clear for Google to translate correctly.
Often a simple restructuring of the English to fix Google's French translation
makes the paragraph much easier to read.
Ron
On 20/06/2014 4:23 PM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
Le 16/06/2014 22:54, Ron Wheeler a écrit :
A bit of both. There were some encouraging words written in earlier exchanges about documentation but a release just got approved with no
comments or questions about documentation.
I had high hopes that OfBiz would be a more polished product that was ready for
use.
I am disappointed in the on-line and wiki documentation.
The UI does not seem very user-friendly. It seems that the end-to-end processes
reflect the framework rather than the use case.
Without any documentation, it is hard to know if my investigation of simple
processes has been done correctly.
I am still looking to see if it has the functionality that I need but am
starting to look at other alternatives since I have not found what I need.
The user list seems to be mostly web companies that are focused on eCommerce.
I think the community is more diverse but "web companies focused on eCommerce"
are more vocal indeed.
Many seem to be selling customization services or customized versions of OfBiz.
Few, not many, you can refer to the top of this page
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/Apache+OFBiz+User+List
I am looking for a product that I can install and turn over to an accountant and a bookkeeper to setup the chart of accounts, the parties, AR
and AP while I focus on the product catalog and delivery tracking.
It appears that I will have to invest a large amount of time in explaining the
framework and UI to people who just want accounting to work.
I do not need more overhead.
There is a price to pay to be free
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Loup_et_le_Chien (I guess you know how to use
Google translate)
If the people who are using it to generate income are not willing to invest in UI and documentation and there are no big corporations using it
who are willing to invest in supporting it, I am worried that it will never get to be a polished product.
I think Adrian already well explained this point. To add something: I'm currently working on a project where OFBiz is only seen as a services
engine, most people using OFBiz don't care about its UI, because of what Adrian explained.
Jacques
I do like the technology of the framework and could extend it if I had to since it does fit with our core competencies as far as software
development goes. It does have a lot of functionality that I think could help improve some of our processes.
As I said earlier, I am willing to help out with documentation if we do go ahead but I do not have the time to dig for facts that other team
members already possess but are too lazy or whatever to share.
Probably just more ranting!
Ron
On 16/06/2014 2:28 PM, Adrian Crum wrote:
I'm confused. Are you asking for guidance to improve the project, or are you simply ranting because the project doesn't measure up to your
standards?
Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com
On 6/16/2014 11:13 AM, Ron Wheeler wrote:
On 16/06/2014 1:46 PM, Adrian Crum wrote:
Keep in mind that this is an all volunteer, open source project.
Therefore, there is no "industry standard."
Does the same assumption apply that volunteers can not write code that
meets industry standards for quality or functionality just because they
are not paid?
There are a number of Apache projects that have very good documentation.
Those who have contributed documentation in the past learned by using
the software and asking questions on the user mailing list.
No wonder the docs are in such poor shape.
It is hard enough to write docs but to expect that users are going to
reverse-engineer use cases and UI functionality from code and config
files or playing with screens to write docs for code that someone else
writes is way too much to expect from a volunteer.
Ron
Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com
On 6/16/2014 10:26 AM, Ron Wheeler wrote:
And where would I get the facts to include in the documentation?
Is there a secret place where the people writing code write down what
the user is supposed to do with the code (use cases)?
The copy of the distribution that I downloaded did not even include a
draft Release Note.
Does the PMC consider that the documentation currently existing to be
correct, complete and in line with what is industry standard for a
version 12.x.x release?
Ron
On 16/06/2014 11:33 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:
This is a maintenance release, so it includes any documentation that
existed when the release branch was created.
If you would like to see more documentation included in the trunk,
then feel free to submit patches to Jira.
Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com
On 6/16/2014 8:15 AM, Ron Wheeler wrote:
-1
Given the errors in the wiki documentation and the lack of on-line
help, it is hard to see how this could be considered "tested" (try to
install it using the docs for a "recommended" production database and
you can see it is not possible that it passed "manual tests" unless
the
test suite is too trivial to be taken seriously) or "complete"
(on-line
help just opens a page of sections headings that does not do anything
when you click on it).
I don't see any Release notes in the distribution.
Are the new features at least documented?
Did the use cases for the new features and bug fixes get into the
documentation?
If the PMC group continues to allow new releases to be made without
any
attention to documentation, OfBiz will never get the documentation
that
it needs. At least make documentation of items that are worked on in a
release, mandatory.
Is it possible for the PMC to set some targets for a target level of
documentation so that there is a baseline set of JIRA issues on which
the PMC agrees?
Ron
On 16/06/2014 9:25 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
+1
Jacopo
On Jun 9, 2014, at 4:09 PM, Jacopo Cappellato
<jacopo.cappell...@hotwaxmedia.com> wrote:
This is the vote thread to release a new (bug fix) release for the
12.04 branch. This new release, "Apache OFBiz 12.04.03" (major
release number: "12.04"; minor release number: "03"), will supersede
the release "Apache OFBiz 12.04.02".
The release files can be downloaded from here:
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/ofbiz/
(committers only) or from here:
http://people.apache.org/~jacopoc/dist/
(everyone else)
and are:
* apache-ofbiz-12.04.03.zip: the release package, based on the 12.04
branch at revision 1601320 (latest as of now)
* KEYS: text file with keys
* apache-ofbiz-12.04.03.zip.asc: the detached signature file
* apache-ofbiz-12.04.03.zip.md5, apache-ofbiz-12.04.03.zip.sha:
hashes
Please download and test the zip file and its signatures (for
instructions on testing the signatures see
http://www.apache.org/info/verification.html).
Vote:
[ +1] release as Apache OFBiz 12.04.03
[ -1] do not release
This vote will be closed in 5 days.
For more details about this process please read
http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html
The following text is quoted from the above url:
"Votes on whether a package is ready to be released use majority
approval -- i.e. at least three PMC members must vote affirmatively
for release, and there must be more positive than negative votes.
Releases may not be vetoed. Generally the community will cancel the
release vote if anyone identifies serious problems, but in most
cases
the ultimate decision, lies with the individual serving as release
manager."
Kind Regards,
Jacopo
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