David Don't give up the ship yet.
Obiz in my estimation is the best thing out there from a overall
maintenance and adding to. I believed that back in 2002 when I first saw
it and believe that now.
The first problem you ran into was you started during a recession.
So people were looking for "inexpensive" solutions.
To my knowledge there is no model for software where consultant are
hired just because it is there.
Usually it takes a great deal of marketing smarts and some luck to get
your software to be used. Like the Apple/Microsoft battles of the 80's
they got a lot of free publicity.
Those of the GNU community had "other jobs" and had a passion and belief
so they contributed. The license part about if change it contribute back
also had a great deal to do with it.
Both in the Commercial and the GNU/Apache community responses to bugs
and incomplete code has also been what spurs confidence.
Bottom line even if you have to be a dishwasher to survived (past
experience from the 1970 recession) don't give up you dream. Continue to
support those that want to contribute and give Guidance. You will be
rewarded in time and get the satisfaction of a job well done.
=========================
BJ Freeman
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation
<http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=52>
Specialtymarket.com <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
Chat Y! messenger: bjfr33man
David E Jones sent the following on 9/4/2010 7:21 AM:
It is unfortunate, but it shouldn't be too surprising. In general I'd say the
current involvement of many of the people who made OFBiz what it is are barely
involved any more. The reasons are pretty simple though (IMO anyway), mainly
related to motivation and reasons for contributing code and answering questions
on the mailing lists, and also related to the resources necessary to allow a
person to do that. The main factor seems to be that when the project was
growing there were lots of consulting opportunities that paid enough to leave
extra time for people to work on pet projects and things of interest and enough
to provide motivation to do so in order to attract more and better work. That
just isn't the case any more.
For me it's been a really interesting experience. I worked a lot on helping
people and growing the community (especially attracting contributors) over the
first few years of the project because I thought the open community-driven
model was the best way to go. You don't really know what something's like until
problems arise because before that you've only really seen one side of it. Now
that I've seen the other side of this model I no longer think it the best
(especially in terms of software quality), though I still think it is a great
model for certain things. The general idea is great, but there are issues with
enough motivation and flow of resources to get, and keep, quality people
involved.
If I understand right, that's kind of what you were getting at BJ. Whatever the
case, thank you for your continued involvement in the project and your efforts
to help people who ask questions.
