Open For Business Q: Do we open enough for today's large business?
It's important for OFBiz to be a component plugged into current systems as a peripheral or a department ERP/CRM in large corporations. So OFBiz should be able to support 1. Portal: esay to produce portlet war files that can be deployed in specific portals. Langhua will try to do something in this area in 2009. 2. EAI: easy to build new adaptors for message bus vendors. 3. Social Network Friendly: many functions to do. Langhua will try to add OpenId and SAML support to OFBiz in 2009. 4. Deployment: I think OFBiz should keep it as a servlet application, BUT reconstruct a servlet entry class to replace/remove the build-in tomcat. As someone from CME said, why CME bought Weblogic? Weblogic bear responsibility for system crashes, that's all. OFBiz should get rid of the tomcat shell and merge into large company's system. 5. PDM: easy to import PDM data into OFBiz. 6. Other ERPs: easy to import/export data to other ERPs such as SAP, and other OFBiz instance of course. Q: Do we open enough for today's medium business? Q: Do we open enough for today's small business? We are a small (or tiny) company and we're build our project managment system on OFBiz. It's OK. Regards, Shi Yusen/Beijing Langhua Ltd. 在 2008-10-24五的 22:19 -0400，Andrew Zeneski写道： > Anil, > > These are really great questions to ask, and I am excited to see this > thread start. Let me be the first to say, I agree with you 100% that > now is the time to plan for the future. > > When we started OFBiz in 2001, the tools available were less powerful > and less appealing than the ones available today. If we were starting > today I think a lot would be different. For example, I would probably > vote for JPA over writing another persistence layer. I would vote for > using Stripes, Wicket, or maybe JSF (but v2) for presentation. On the > service layer, I would prefer to use an existing framework be it EJB > (session beans) or some flavor of an ESB (maybe ServiceMix). In the > end, focus 100% on the applications and let the other projects focus > on each specific framework piece. > > Most of all, I would vote in favor standardized deployment. OFBiz is > not SAP, we just don't have enough clout to dictate how the > application should be deployed. People bend over backwards and design > their entire infrastructure around SAP, we should do the opposite; > allow OFBiz to adjust to a company's infrastructure (without headaches). > > The last thing I would do differently, if I could figure out a way > how, is to decouple the applications. So that a CRM application does > not require the overhead needed for Orders and Products. > > Then we have the next question, what types of applications should we > focus now to be the leader in the next 5 years? Do with stick with > ERP, or do we look to make some changes? But I think this should be a > thread all in itself. > > Andrew > > > On Oct 24, 2008, at 7:36 PM, Anil Patel wrote: > > > Hi, > > I am having little difficulty to envision, What Ofbiz will look like > > a year or two down the road? > > > > I am personally satisfied with most of core technologies of ofbiz > > except for Form widget. Form widgets needs some enhancements and > > even those don't seem too difficult. Ofbiz framework technologies > > made development lot easy back in day when J2EE made things > > impossible. Now, 7 years down the road, Java enterprise application > > development tool set has changed a lot. What I am trying to get out > > of this thread is, What others in community think about it?" > > > > At different times, people have asked for ability to deploy ofbiz on > > application servers other then Tomcat, and in JEE recommended style, > > like create war or ear. I am curious what did these people do? Did > > we loose those potential ofbiz users!, Or Did they accept whatever > > is available and used ofbiz to solve their business problems. > > > > There are some JEE spec compliant technologies that we can use > > instead of home grown like, use > > 1) Ice Faces (or Myfaces) instead of Form Widget > > 2) JPA instead of Entity engine > > 3) EJB instead of Service engine > > 4) Integrate with Pluto for Portal server > > 5) use third party Content management > > > > I think Ofbiz community is more interested in solving business > > process problems instead of building cool framework. We can focus > > much more on business problems if we utilize third party framework > > technologies. Some of the frameworks have excellent support from IDE > > venders, great books are available to learn, existing pool of > > skilled developers and many more goodies that we all know. > > > > Open source ERP space is growing. We need to think fresh. Take a > > break, Plan for next 5 years, Set our goals. All other open source > > ERP/CRM applications are doing it. There is no corporation behind > > ofbiz so its community's responsibility. Put a plan together. Make > > it easy for people to contribute. I am sure there are tons of people > > in community who want to contribute but don't know how. > > > > I am worried because, After working on minilang, screen widgets, > > form widgets, service engine, entity engine for so long I almost > > forgot Java/J2EE skills set. What if Ofbiz does not remain as > > popular 5 years down the road, How am I going to pay for my > > daughters college expenses? > > > > This email is not intended to hurt anybody's feeling or scare > > anybody. Ofbiz is in great shape, I wanted to get people to speak up > > and help plan for future. > > > > Thanks and Regards > > Anil Patel >
