This is an interesting question... and one that should probably be discussed
frequently as things tend to change over time.
In general though the goal of OFBiz is as stated on the home page. It is meant to be a
comprehensive enterprise information automation system. The core of the project is intended to
include a general framework for efficiently building applications, plus a complete set of
applications (data model, services, UI elements) to automate general business processes and support
"most of what most companies need to operate". On top of those we also have (and plan to
have more of) a number of more "special purpose" applications that are used for specific
types of users or organizations.
The stuff that Jacopo quoted below was meant to tie into the "World Domination"
joke that was part of the JavaOne presentation. In other words, it was a little
tongue-in-cheek. Of course, these things could really happen, and we're certainly on a
growth curve and that may lead to these things.
Like you mentioned Jacopo, how much and how soon this happens will depend on
how much contribute to the project.
The real key for that is pretty simple. If everyone who offers services based
on OFBiz, or who extends or customizes OFBiz for their organization, or who
create derivative works (open source or commercial) would follow a little three
step process whenever they develop something, the project would have (with the
current community, as I estimate it from the hip) around 20-30 times the
involvement it does now (in SVN, Jira, mailing lists, etc). Here is the little
three step process:
1. identify what is general or makes sense to parameterize and what is specific
to their requirements
2. implement the general or easily parameterizable elements and contribute them
to the open source project (which will soon result in streamlining that by the
people involved becoming committers and PMC members)
3. configure or extend the functionality in OFBiz to meet requirements being
pursued
The only reason OFBiz exists right now is that there are a number of people and
organizations who do this now, and have done this for a number of years.
It does require a little bit more work to do this, but mostly just when getting
started with and used to doing things this way. In the long run because things
are better thought out and more reusable for current and future projects this
actually results in far less work, and not by a little, but rather by a LOT!
So, there's my attempt at food for thought... and discussion.
-David
Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
Hi,
in my opinion the community and the OFBiz project in general will
greatly benefit if we explicitly define and publish (in the main page of
the site) a general, ambitious goal for the project.
Of course, each and every single step in the direction of reaching the
goal will be uncertain and undefined in its details and will mostly
depend on contributor's efforts, sponsors etc...
However the final long term goal should be clearly defined.
I think that we should start from the great plan that David prepared for
the Java ONE conference:
"- The Next 6 Years
- First Year: Complete build out of enterprise applications for OOTB
use by a wide variety of organizations
- In 2 Years: the market leader for medium and large scale retail
applications (ecommerce and POS)
- In 4 Years: more installed ERP seats than SAP and more CRM seats than
Siebel and SalesForce.com
- In 6 Years: 20% of global economic activity managed with OFBiz"
What do you think about this?
Jacopo
