For everyone interested in this: please note that the PMC is currently
discussing how to leverage this resource. The concern is that we don't
want any single person to be able to step up and post something on the
ofbiz blog and imply that it is the opinion and position of the
project as a whole (which I suppose means opinions and positions that
are discussed with the community, and then as needed voted on by the
PMC before being made public).
For example, I'm against publishing and going after some of the things
that Jacques has mentioned here. If we want good press coverage we
should find things to announce that we think the world would be
interested in and then create press releases through the ASF PRC. We
should not complain about how the press is rarely speaking about
OFBiz, and even writing things that are so incorrect that they
contradict what is written on the home page for the project.
Also, I know there are people on this mailing list who work on
opentaps and Neogia: please don't take offense at this and please know
that you are certainly contributing members of the community and your
contributions are appreciated. While other community members may not
like your business practices, it is no reason to start an in-fight and
I'm sorry that this was mentioned so publicly like this.
For everyone reading in: if you are feeling crazy about the economy or
are short on work and funds, please keep in mind the things discussed
in the recent thread that Ean Schuessler started where he mentioned
the scene from A Beautiful Mind. It doesn't do us ANY good to fight
eachother, and rather we'll all benefit a great deal more if we all
look for opportunities in the larger world instead of sniping at the
success that we see others having.
-David
On Apr 27, 2009, at 2:14 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
I have opened a community blog for Apache OFBiz at http://blogs.apache.org/
. If you are interested to write articles please ask for a login.
Last month, I read a white paper (livre blanc) from a French IT
company http://www.smile.fr/ (250 persons, 1st "open source company in
France") http://www.smile.fr/publications/livres-blancs/erp-open-source__1
and I think it's time for me to react.
This white paper is well written but they almost completly forgot
OFBiz for (IMO) obscure reasons. I think one of the most driving
causes is that companies must make money (we all need to make
money ;o). And it's even clear here (from the white paper author:
http://opensourceerpguru.com/2008/02/23/tinyerp-source-published-it-all-started-here/#commentblock)
that this company chose to work
with OpenERP (formerly Tiny ERP) and especially with OpenBravo
because of their business models (OpenBravo raised $12 million in May
last year http://ostatic.com/blog/open-source-venture-funding-in-q2-up-again)
. I think also that the leaders of such companies in
France don't want to work with permissive licences like ours.
Actually, Olivier Heintz told me 4 years ago, that it was one of the
reason the Neogia team chose GPL instead of Apache licence (they
were afraid their work would be stolen). I begin to be upset by all
this (they judge us, plublish it and make the trend) and, more than
4 years after I began to work on OFBiz, I want to speak out of
code. A community blog looks to me like the perfet tool for that (I
think also that I will finally open my own blog also, if I find
enough time for it).
Jacques
