Thanks very much James. This FAQ will help enable new contributors and make their lives easier as they get started.
On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 7:57 AM Sendoro Juma <[email protected]> wrote: > +1 > > > On May 14, 2019 at 11:16 PM James Dailey <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi all - Please note recent changes and updates to the project FAQ. > If you see any issues with this, please let me know, make a comment on > that page: > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ > > I'm including it here in the hopes it gets a few more reads. > > Thanks > @jdailey67 > > Fineract FAQ <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ> > > > > > > - What is this project about? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-Whatisthisprojectabout?> > - Is this Mifos? > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-IsthisMifos?> > - What is the difference between Fineract and Fineract-CN? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-WhatisthedifferencebetweenFineractandFineract-CN?> > - Do I have to get the code to use the solution? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-DoIhavetogetthecodetousethesolution?> > - What is the process for getting the code and setting up a > development environment? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-Whatistheprocessforgettingthecodeandsettingupadevelopmentenvironment?> > - How do I get up to speed on development tasks? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-HowdoIgetuptospeedondevelopmenttasks?> > - What is our Consensus approach? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-WhatisourConsensusapproach?> > - I'm new to Open Source, what is this all about? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-I'mnewtoOpenSource,whatisthisallabout?> > - Where do I find .... > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-WheredoIfind....> > - Where do I get the Pentaho Reports? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-WheredoIgetthePentahoReports?> > - How do I set this up on my machine? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-HowdoIsetthisuponmymachine?> > - How do I get something changed in the code? How do I get a feature > added? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-HowdoIgetsomethingchangedinthecode?HowdoIgetafeatureadded?> > - I have a great idea for a collaboration tool for the community, how > do I make that happen? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-Ihaveagreatideaforacollaborationtoolforthecommunity,howdoImakethathappen?> > - I represent a Company and want to contribute, how do I do that? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-IrepresentaCompanyandwanttocontribute,howdoIdothat?> > - I found a security flaw, where do I report that? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-Ifoundasecurityflaw,wheredoIreportthat?> > - How do I raise a difficult or sensitive topic? > > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FAQ#FAQ-HowdoIraiseadifficultorsensitivetopic?> > > > What is this project about? > > Fineract provides a reliable, robust, and affordable solution for > entrepreneurs, financial institutions, and service providers to offer > financial services to the world’s 2 billion underbanked and unbanked. > Fineract is aimed at innovative mobile and cloud-based solutions, and > enables digital transaction accounts for all. > > The domain of fineract includes accounts, held by customers, with > transactions made to those accounts. The types of accounts include credit > accounts (e.g. loans to customers) and debit accounts (current accounts and > savings accounts), and for credit accounts there are different kinds of > interest rate schemes or shared profit schemes. There is other > functionality that supports use cases for teller operations, basic treasury > management, accounting, portfolio management, authentication, account > opening (including KYC), and similar topics that are common to a retail > banking operation. > > Initially aimed at Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), Savings Cooperatives, > and Credit Unions, the fineract solution is not limited to those specific > institutions. A number of finTech innovators have used fineract as their > backend solution for offering "Direct Banking" or "Neo-Banking" solutions > as well as for "Agent Management" in some contexts. The backend account > transaction system is a common requirement in many systems in financial > services. > > Fineract was donated by Mifos.org, a US based charity with a financial > inclusion mission. While many members of the PMC trace their involvement to > the project to financial inclusion, the intent of the project is to attract > a range of innovators involved in offering account services to consumers > everywhere. Financial services should be available to all. > > Open source allows for the project to build the needed building blocks > that all kinds of financial institutions can use but we anticipate an > ecosystem of providers taking this code and building solutions on top of > it. We encourage that and fully expect those builders to send their > development priorities and in-house dev teams to the project. We require > that virtuous cycle. > > We imagine a world where financial services are offered by a wide range of > providers using *commodity* open source software utilizing the most > modern approaches. > > > Who is using fineract? > > (For clarity, those using the mifos.org released solutions, prior to > incubation at apache foundation, are not counted in this project.) Fineract > is used by many small to medium sized financial institutions in dozens of > countries. Larger institutions are considering the use of fineract > side-by-side with their existing core banking solution (CBS). The > side-by-side strategy allows for innovative offerings to be done without > the licensing costs usually associated with commercial CBS. Fineract has > also been adopted by finTechs to be the backend transaction account engine, > and is being used in testing-lab environments to assist with system > integrations. > > With proper hosting and front end dev, Fineract is suitable to Credit > Unions, Microfinance Institutions, Agent Banking solutions, Savings > Associations, Building Societies, Cooperatives, small Commercial Banks, > NeoBanks, and Direct Banking solutions. Our vision is that these > institutions may download and use directly, but perhaps more likely, to > hire a provider or integrator to provide the complete solution to them. Our > users are thus both the institutions where fineract is in place and the > system integrators and vendors where fineract is a significant part of > their offering. > Is this Mifos? > > The Mifos Initiative, a 501c3 US Charity, contributed the code and remains > involved with a wrapper and other systems that run "on top of" fineract. > Many of the developers are on both listservs. However, if you are looking > for information on the latest mifos release, please proceed to: > https://mifos.org/take-action/get-mifos/#download. Please understand > that devs at fineract may not respond to questions about mifos code. > What is the difference between Fineract and Fineract-CN? > > Fineract 1.x is a mature platform with open APIs, while Fineract CN is a > cloud native, microservice architecture also supporting open banking APIs. > > Fineract1.x is a completely different code project from fineract-CN. In > terms of github repositories, fineract1.x is contained in one repo, while > fineract-CN is held in dozens of separate github repos - one for each > microservice. In Fineract1.x the packages encapsulate the different > functional blocks - e.g. accounts vs transactions, while in Fineract-CN > these are separate microservices. > > Fineract1.x, prior to its donation to Apache was called mifosX, and > by-design consists of a "headless" solution. That is, fineract1.x is all > about the APIs. Front end applications can be developed separately and > connected to fineract1.x (For clarity, Mifos at https://github.com/openmf has > a number of front ends to illustrate available functionality; these are not > maintained by fineract, and devs on fineract will not respond to issues > related to the front ends there.) > > *Fineract CN* operates on the principle that financial services are an > innovative space and so each fineract microservice encapsulates a domain > that can be combined with other microservices to create new platform > offerings. Fineract CN microservices can be combined to create new software > platforms for digital financial service providers. Fineract CN is still in > its early days, but preliminary tests have shown that a simple > single-instance laptop deployment of Fineract CN can process over 1000 > transactions/second. Fineract CN also includes a fully Apache-licensed > backoffice UI. > Do I have to get the code to use the solution? > > If all you want is to use the solution, or to demo it, we recommend you > use one of the available builds rather than setting up a development > environment yourself. The builds, found at http://fineract.apache.org/ > (Downloads) > are provided for convenience and should not be used in a production > environment without fully working out details of operations (e.g. data > backup) and security. Also, Mifos volunteers continue to post builds for > specific hosting solutions at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mifos_X > (e.g. Azure and AWS). > What is the process for getting the code and setting up a development > environment? > > Please see Contributor's Zone > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Contributor%27s+Zone>, > essentially you need to get your environment ready, then download from the > github source and use one of the common IDEs. > > In general we ask that you take the time to read the instructions and > familiarize yourself with the listserv before posting questions about > building the solution. You can search the listserv archives at > https://lists.apache.org/list.html?fineract.apache.org . If you find > something missing from the instructions, we welcome contributions of that > sort as well. Note that the listserv search is time delimited, so that for > example this search gets 24 months: > https://lists.apache.org/[email protected]:lte=24M:pentaho > (see > lte=24M) where search term is "pentaho". > How do I get up to speed on development tasks? > > Please see Contributor's Zone > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Contributor%27s+Zone> > > > There are two issue trackers. > > - fineract1.x at > https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/FINERACT/summary > - fineract-CN at > > https://issues.apache.org/jira/projects/FINCN/issues/FINCN-26?filter=allopenissues > > > A good thing to do is to review an open ticket, especially one with back > and forth between devs on the listserv or one that is scheduled for an > upcoming release. It is also useful to review existing pull requests (PRs). > Pull Requests (PRs) are found here → > https://github.com/apache/fineract/pulls > What is our Consensus approach? > > Every open source project has to adopt some way to come to agreement on > new features, new code enhancements, new project directions and fineract > now uses a lazy consensus approach. In this approach, the changes and > issues are raised and people are given time to reject or discuss the > changes, and we rely on contributors to fully vett changes in an > appropriate way and have their code reviewed. > > This is documented at Committer's Zone > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Committer%27s+Zone> > and Changing Processes > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Changing+Processes> . > Please note that we expect discussion on the listserv to be the > primary mode of communication. "If it didn't happen on the list, it didn't > happen." > I'm new to Open Source, what is this all about? > > Welcome. You may want to first read something about how open source > projects function (like this > <https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source>) and in particular > how the Apache Foundation works. > https://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html. If you are > interested in contributing to the project, a good way to get started is to > subscribe to the listserv, review the functional specs on this wiki, browse > the issue tickets, and start to play around with a build of the software. > Open source can be a great way to find your community, contribute and get > feedback, and put your work into public view. This is true for both code > and the variety of other content needed. > Where do I find .... > > We get a lot of questions about where to find documentation or the answer > to a specific thing. We do appreciate when people take the time to try to > find the answer before asking. Once you have new content to propose, a > ticket or an improvement to documentation, we encourage you to get involved > on that. Not all contributions are code, take, for example, this FAQ. > Where do I get the Pentaho Reports? > > Fineract does not ship Pentaho reports or the related libraries, due to > compliance issues with Apache licence. Please head over to the Mifos > community <https://github.com/openmf> who maintains distributions of > Fineract that include pentaho. > How do I set this up on my machine? > > First, are you a developer? If you are not, then you may not want to run > fineract on your local machine. Instead you may want to find one of the > demo environments already established or make use of one of the existing > cloud deployments. Also, fineract does not come with a native front end > UX. The UX is part of the distributions that are provided by third > parties, including the aforementioned Mifos Community. > > If you are a developer, then please see how to set up sections on the > wiki. > > Fineract1.x Fineract User Zone > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/Fineract+User+Zone> > > FneractCN FINERACT CN > <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FINERACT/FINERACT+CN> > How do I get something changed in the code? How do I get a feature added? > > The project is always interested in ideas about features. That said, we > notice some people expect that a feature requested is automatically > developed and incorporated. That is not the case. If you have code to > suggest, first discuss on the list, add an issue to the issue tracker, and > then find someone to help you contribute that feature. You are still not > guaranteed that your feature will make it in, because it must also be > accepted by the community. > I have a great idea for a collaboration tool for the community, how do I > make that happen? > > We know there are lots of great collaboration tools. To keep things > consistent across Apache, there is a philosophy of using current tools > rather than cutting edge, while acknowledging there's always something new > and cool. We use email listservs for their backwards compatibility, > searchability, and simplicity. This wiki has hooks to the issue > tracker (JIRA) and github commit entries hook to the same JIRA tickets for > all Pull Requests (PRs). A good flow is: > > email discourse >> wiki entry |or| issue (JIRA) > > development sprint >> Pull Request >> email list for review and > confirmation > I represent a Company and want to contribute, how do I do that? > > As stated on http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html, "companies > and individuals can donate resources and be assured that those resources > will be used for the public benefit". If you have developers working at > your company, you may encourage them to work on the project, but note that > "All of the ASF including the board, the other officers, the committers, > and the members, are participating as individuals." and further "the ASF > does not allow corporations to participate directly in Apache project > management or other governance activities at the ASF; only individuals." > http://community.apache.org/projectIndependence.html > I found a security flaw, where do I report that? > > Security is a mandatory feature in Apache projects. Please report your bug > to security AT fineract.apache.org. > How do I raise a difficult or sensitive topic? > > In general, you are invited to discuss problems you see with the Fineract > project > openly, on the [email protected] list. In some limited cases, > please send an email to private @ fineract.apache.org > <[email protected]>. Addressing problems early and openly will > keep most problems from becoming too large to handle. A good rule of thumb > is to compose and then wait overnight before firing off that flame. > > > >
