On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 6:21 PM, Kurt Haselwimmer <[email protected]>wrote:
> [...] > > Maybe I am missing something, but if I am it means it has not been > sufficiently signposted, as, for example, I have spent hours on the openERP > website trying to figure out if there is a way to attach simple courier > tracking information to a sales order once it has been despatched. As a > comparison - it took me a total of 5 minutes and $25 to find and buy such a > module ( > http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=extension/extension/info&extension_id=2389) > for opencart, plus a further 10 minutes to install it. > > Kurt > Hello Kurt, Well, for sure, you make a point about Launchpad and the lack of developer communication about the website module before it was announced. But, as for your Opencart example, it's really related to the business model and to the license. How much does it cost to develop such a Opencart shipping module? Probably not 25 USD. May be 5 000 USD or more... That is if I'm assured by the licensing that I can sell 200 of them, I raise the money and do the upfront development and create such a module and the sell it. This is the logic in an "open core" model such as Opencart or Magento. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_core But with Linux which is GPL or with OpenERP which is AGPL, this is impossible: because the license allows the first customer to republish the module under the AGPL license. It probably even goes in his own interest to publish the module and get other people maintaining it instead of depending on a unique IT supplier. So potentially you'll sell it only once or twice! If it still cost 5 000 USD to develop but brings you less than 100 USD from selling it, it's not really a good deal for the software editor, right? Then you understand better there are fundamental differences between open core and copyleft licensing business model such as Linux or OpenERP. In the later model, indeed, conquering a new feature will cost more money to the 1st one who will need it. But then it's free for everybody else and as it's open source, it tends to consolidate to something sustainable instead of say a Magento module. Now of course this is a caricature, some companies, even OpenERP SA still do upfront investment because they bet that it allows them to achieve a good market position to then sell their related services. But in any case it's still a very different economics than the Open core model. Is it' a bad model? Well when you look at where Linux is today and even OpenERP, I'm convinced it's really not a bad model, even if it may take more time to reach maturity. A bad side effect is that documentation tend to be scarce because nobody is incentivated to do it because software editors in fact make a living selling implementation and maintenance services to fund theses developments, so not justifying, just explaining, this is one of the reason documentation tends to be poor. If module editor or OpenERP SA would make it from selling the code, the documentation would certainly be better. As OpenERP is now selling a SaaS plateform, you can however expect a business model shift with better documentation about the core. I feel these business economics could be better explained because newcomers are really confused about this and loose time until they get it. -- Raphaël Valyi Founder and consultant http://twitter.com/rvalyi <http://twitter.com/#!/rvalyi> +55 21 2516 2954 www.akretion.com
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