Re: OFBiz/opentaps as a small business accounting package?

[David E. Jones]

-David


On Jan 20, 2007, at 3:49 AM, Ian McNulty wrote:

Maybe all of this discussion is being difficult because of one simple thing: Apache OFBiz is NOT like oscommerce, ubuntu, etc. It is NOT meant to be a use as-is, out of the box, piece of software. It is meant to be, is designed as, and is implemented as a foundation and starting point for custom enterprise solutions, be they for one company or one thousand companies. Why would we want to be an OOTB project? There are lots of those for ecommerce and small business systems and I see no reason to compete there. It is a market well served. We're going after the tough market with medium sized businesses that need custom stuff to grow. The OOTB solutions are way too limiting, making it impossible to scale operations. The traditional enterprise systems can be customized to do exactly what they need, but cost more than their entire yearly revenue. Looking around the OFBiz documents and such I don't think this distinction is adequately represented, so I added some text similar to the above to the home page of ofbiz.apache.org. It should be public within a few hours, ie whenever the next deployment job runs.

Chris, David, Everybody.





http://www.zen-cart.com/forum

http://forums.oscommerce.com

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

Yes. I know php is nasty. But that's not the point.

Look at the accessibility and structure of the interface.

All user levels are accommodated.

All find their natural place.



A working model of how to build a user base surely, if nothing else?

Ian




Chris Howe wrote:

One last thought on the subject before I have my porridge and another lie down ;) I'm wondering if any of you guys have ever taken a good hard look at the osCommerce, Zen Cart or Ubuntu forums? Nearly a quarter of a million members on Ubuntu. 120K on osCommerce. 2,347 and 824 currently active respectively at this very moment as we speak

Ian,

While I certainly enjoy the analogies, who are you
ultimately suggesting create these lowest common
denominator (LCD) documents?
As has already been mentioned, once you pass that
"aha" moment in OFBiz, it's difficult to understand
why the engineering documentation didn't make sense
the first time around.  3D vector calculus, as you put
it, seems so elementary obvious at that point that
it's difficult to convey it in simpler terms; even
though you remember it not being obvious when you
started.  I don't think it's very time/quality
productive for someone who's passed that "aha" moment
to produce this documentation; at least not without
the aid of an "uninitiated".
If you'd like to be that test subject, I'm sure there
are a mess of people, including myself, that would be
willing to help explain things to you as you make your
way through the concepts, documenting as you go.  But
the POV of the documentation cannot be from someone
who's already gotten the bird off the ground, because
they're not really sure which button they pressed to
make it all seem second nature.


--- Ian McNulty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

David,

I don't get the proposition that there are 100
different pilot roles.

There are many 1,000s  of different destinations.
Maybe more than a dozen different pilot roles (commercial, fighter,

They all fly planes. They all start off on fixed wing, single

flight-engineering etc.

But it is very basic. The need to understand lift,
drag, how to calculate take off velocities etc. But I doubt if

number is.

So why can't the target be whatever denominators are
common to all pilots?

How to find the door handle and the start button

gonna fly.

Ian




David E. Jones wrote:

bomber, spotter, etc.). But but there IS a lowest common denominator. engine props. They all need to understand basic navigation, aerodynamics, they start of with 3D vector calculus or need to know what a Reynold's would be top of my list. If they can't find those then they ain't never

On Jan 20, 2007, at 1:25 AM, Ian McNulty wrote:

David,

I can see where you're coming from on this. This

project is better

documented than anything else I've seen in the

field.You yourself

have produced a truly awesome amount of

documentation. I don't know

where you find the time. All are extremely well

written, very clear,

very well laid out. A model of their kind. (No

I'm not sucking up - I

mean it :) So what could possibly be the problem.

I found the Introduction Videos and Diagrams page

you link to here a

couple of days ago myself.

It was whilst working through these videos that

the light bulb went off.

What you're talking us through is a diagram of

the wiring harness of

a jumbo jet.

Essential for the engineers who need to service

it.

Absolutely the last kind of map a pilot wants to

find on his lap.

Know what I mean?

Uh, yeah, that's because it is meant to cover the

framework, not the

applications. The two are very different, change

very differently,

need to be understood by different people in

different ways, etc. My

current estimate is that to produce something

adequate for a "pilot",

given that there are about 100 different "pilot"

roles in OFBiz, would

require many times the effort to produce that the

framework videos

with their diagrams, reference materials,

transcriptions, etc. Right

now I don't have the $500k to get into that... and

the $40k already

spent on the documents which are now PDF-dumped

into the

docs.ofbiz.org site was clearly inadequate,

especially as it is mostly

reference materials (which is why you won't find

how-to stuff in the

reference guides, they are references after all,

just for reference

purposes). The Application Overview for Users is

probably more of what

you're looking for, though that section only

represents maybe 3-5% of

what is in OFBiz right now.

Of course, that's assuming such documents could

even be written in a

way that is close to generally useful. How do I

use it? Well, that

depends on what you want to do... and

unfortunately across a few

different industries that list grows into hundreds

of thousands of

activities...

So, that's the big question with any document: who

is the target

audience? The more specific the answer, the better

the document will

address their needs. But who is the target

audience for OFBiz? ... ?

-David

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