The Adempiere Project

[red1]

The community's activists has come out with a suggested new project called ADEMPIERE to capture all ensuing bug fixes, enhancements and self made upgrades and Addons to the system to be directly controlled by the community instead of ComPiere Inc, USA.

Many comments are been made in the Fork Debate, and here we have to discuss ahead whether general or specific.

Can someone suggest the approriate slogan? This plus other suggestions and even webmastering are welcome to the draft content of www.adempiere.org. Carlos has done a highly praised task of suggesting Adempiere in the first place.

We have booked the domain names www.adempiere.org (under me) and www.adempiere.com (under Carlus Ruiz) and we await Trifon to take the 3rd one.

Victor Perez is booking the SF.net/adempiere namesake and begins there as the new CVS of all our work+ Compiere latest good licensed version.

We make a rule that all such domains and policies be the purview of the community headed by an Adempiere Council, of which i been asked to take temporary stewardship, of which (been power-crazed at times) gladly accept. (Now i m feeling the hangover of sleepless nites).

Anyway, the Council is a hidden project forum, where its membership is by merit of contribution to Compiere suite or addons, or even tutorials and subject matter design.

Though my style is added humour and radical freedom but there is also honour and respect as the above namesake states. I shall together with this pristine committee stage its best collaborative effort that gives an all round winner to all parties of Compiere, be it the commercial Inc in USA, the latent global (and often silently DIY) userbase, the community and business as a whole.

Among issues, if i may state in passing, it just isnt fair to hear some of the active contributors on the outskirts of SF making requests for subsistence when the Feudal Lord within the walls make millions of which those contributors have a stake in, by way of investment of effort and mind. (Hope i didnt pliagarise some Marxist Leninist here).

And i vehemently agree with the remark by Trifon that if Jorg wanted to take human resources, he should have look within his apparent flock here. Its the least decent thing to do. To put foreign mercenaries into ComPiere cubes that shall attempt to comprehend what Compiere is heading and should head, the ppl may be the best he got - right under his nose. And it takes a lot not just been technical but eloquently expressing in writing in SF. The time they spent there is burning proof of their commitment that all job interviewers try to establish painstakingly and often in vain of new knowledge workers.

Enuf said, on with the business of Adempiere. This is a community thing - nothing personal, but very social. We done our part, u do yours too. Give your suggestions in any forum public or private email, or anon, and we shall promise to attend to its merit and move fast ahead.

Compiereans of the World, Unite! U have nutin to lose, but your diskspace.

[juddm]

I like the roadmap very much - I do feel it is very development focussed and I would like to propose that we consider all aspects of targeting this project towards our customers - which are the end user businesses/organisaitons who might use the software.

Overall, we need to address:
- marketing
- knowledge
- development
- business operations
- commercial aspects

I would propose that each of these have a plan and we intgrate or join these up - that way we can ensure the survival of the project.

[afalcone]

How i've say before, the Adempiere's name is perfect for me.

Red1,

Can someone suggest the approriate slogan?

I think that we should utilize one of the main reasons that motivated this project: to make something open, but Really Open; from and for the Community. Then i thinks that we have to say something that it say this.

The slogan could be something like: Your Really Open Solution.

I want to say that OUR project is YOUR project.

My .0001 cents .

Regards

Alejandro

[red1]

I agree fully with juddm/jaztek and that Compiere is actually more of a subject matter expertise challenge rather than a technical one, and *chuckles* the Inc knows that.

We need strong experienced accountants, ex SAP or Baans or JDE guys/gals too.

[croo]

red1 asks;

Can someone suggest the approriate slogan?

Well I thought you made a great suggestion yourself in the very same post when you said

This is a community thing - nothing personal, but very social.

It's perhaps more orientated to the community than to potential business customer types visiting the site... but maybe we can use it on the .org & use something different on the .com website? Anyway it caught my attention and I liked it!

colin

[red1]

Colin, u re a genius! U sparked of my receptor cells and so i place

- Its Just A Community - Nothing Personal -

btw where is Trifon?
Anyway i granting u admin rights of this forum. Cos i need to sleep now.

[red1]

Adempiere will never be a paying club where membership is by financial consideration. Rather it will strictly be a peer 2 peer community where Adempiere merely acts as the Yellow Pages or main directory to them.

Very fitting with the new draft slogan (its still subject to the community voice), i like to suggest that the main tab page of Adempiere is nothing more but names of the community and its main policies. The other tabs shall be the project as usual stuff.

Been just names, it serves 2 purposes here.

1. It maintain individualism and peerage that is the mainstay of human motivation, creativity and cooperation. Hyperlinking their names to their websites allow them to advertise themselves without further effort as compensation to their contributive spirit. It also solves the paradox of how u may get lost in a crowded community, cant be personal but yet individual always free to speak your mind, respected & honoured

2. It proves the community part of the slogan. It shows to visitors, "Heh! This is a REAL COMMNITY!"

I hope this satisfies EVERYONE

[moyses]

I do like the slogan.

Al Pacino comes to my mind saying:

Its Just a community, nothing personal.

or maybe the other way?

It's nothing personal, It's just a Community.

Best Regards

[jsSolutions]

I'd like to echo the comment from juddm

[quote="juddm"]I like the roadmap very much - I do feel it is very development focussed and I would like to propose that we consider all aspects of targeting this project towards our customers - which are the end user businesses/organisaitons who might use the software.
[/quote]

While I like the spirit of the above proposed slogans as a rallying call for the project and for the development community, we have to remember that the project is ultimately not for us, but for the businesses that leverage our work. At some point it would be good for ADempiere the application to have a slogan that reflects its business purpose.

[croo]

we have to remember that the project is ultimately not for us, but for the businesses that leverage our work

yeah jsSolution, I did say that when I proposed the comment from red1 as the slogan ... I thought perhaps we could use it on the .org site and use something else on the .com site .... best of both worlds like!
but we still don't have a business orientated alternative ... any ideas?

At the moment I think people are more focused on the pulling all the many "technical" pieces of the project together ... but at some point the business side will have to be addressed. I think most here are more technical minded than marketing so if this is something you are more experienced in I'm sure no one would object to you taking the lead!?

colin

[red1]

(This is quite long, so dont proceed unless u read novels. )

Point taken toh it may not be apparent in the phrase. I guess the slogan is not meant to be in the form of a longer mission statement. It seems more of a rallying cry, articulating the aspirations of all.

Just like Nike's "Just Do It" or plain Yahoo! without slogan, they signify some intrinsic value they want to potray. What we want to potray is that Open Source is just not codes, not anymore. We are a bit ahead from the age of Linus Trovalds' historic move which is ancient by web standards.

We are not about to leave the era of Eric Raymond's Bazaar yet. Its his controversial thesis that is now been tested. Its now reversely proven with Compiere.

Many miscalculated thinking that "if i give open source, then my codes get downloaded by everyone, then i can charge for EVERYTHING else" Which is true, but flawed because the critical success factor to make that happen is not BOTs but humans browsing, downloading, testing, commenting, improving, selling, talking, arguing, losing, winning on those codes they downloaded.

At one time Linux community debated about making Linux non-techy and GUI like, which was a big debate. Finally the leader decided to have a heart and go for those poor souls who only knows how to hold a mouse and click on two maybe three buttons. And the GNOME era began.

Its precisely the poor users that are non-techie that gave birth to my articles, bursting up thru 300 metres of water gasping for breath. I wrote the first (historic?) article http://compiere.red1.org/POSred.pdf but got restricted suddenly on my second update by a <1mb limitation in the Contributions page of SF/Compiere.

I wasnt about to strip my tutorial of the important screenshots and illustrations that made them bloated in size. Been reader friendly was my concern. Otherwise i better not write, as only strict techies would understand.

I went high and low asking for FTP sites to post my tutorials that soon gave birth to a twin - CallOut.pdf. And then came some sisters and even a triplet.

Finally i went online and buy a hosting service, and i didnt know it comes with other goodies such as this forum and guestbook and mail etc. But the main original idea was just a FTP site for newbies to download my tutorials.

And thus your concern as one of those users (your prospects included) are supposed to be accounted here.

It has been my personal philosophy to push the bar up on Open Source to be also Open Knowledge. Thats what i declare in that POSred.pdf copyright statement, that its not enough just been Open Source, but not giving the knowledge on how to effectively use the codes.

I was and still am very delighted when a reader send me praise and u got to excuse the emotion i feel, top of the world, and not getting a single cent for those tutorials.

I was approacjed online by Marco, offering to join the Compilo and i did. In fact if i had known that Compilo was around, i wouldnt have form red1.org.

I further encourage to be open and give out knowledge as more precious than the codes themselves. Some agree, some disagree. Some asked, how in the world u gonna eat? Well, "God gave you teeth "

Been asked to lead this Adempiere is both an honour but also a risk. I m allergic to business pressures. Dont get me wrong. I work alot around business people who paid me. But they strictly pay for my time, and all info is given free and vice versa, what i know of the new features i in turn make free. I dont divulged their priveleged client info or the personal way they win business. And i m not interested to. I merely abstract or factor out the tools that they use so that others can use it. Just imagine if the Cave man patented the wheel.

Back to your concern. Therefore, saying all these, i mean to support that the end user is best served when they get the confidence they usually do from household brands. In lieu of that, they need hard evidence, and with codes, that comes with knowledge. The best custodian of such knowledge is the learning and teaching community. You may form the certification community. We just wana be the certifiers

With Open Source the parameters are bit different. But business params are the same! Customers dont give a damn what u call your ware, they wana see it in action. Their questions are often very basic but unanswerable by the technical person. I know that cos i got to answer them. And the customer is right. So i went back to my codes and ask whats wrong? Answer is "Nutin's wrong with the codes". Its the way its packaged. Its the way the Salesman is.

And we cannot switch to conventional params to fulfill those 5 layers of packaging and salesmaship that bloat the cost finally. We displace them with something next to but much better than those codes, people. People who played with those codes and are open to trade. Thats the bazaar.

The bazaar means the people are plain and accesible, to cajole, bargain, argue, propose, counter, and seal. Not the Cathedral that people fear and shun the priests, who put rules, and restrictions and disallow dissent.

JJ committed a very priestly act. I tell u why. U see, he put his codes on the web rite? And he is listed on the list. He is accessible. He is in the bazaar. But he doesnt want to. So what can he do? Simple. Dont answer. Dont appear. Dont do more. All he wanted (it seems so to me at least) is just put those codes there and wait back here. PPl pay here. Ppl dont pay there. He avoided the community. And u know why? Cos he can still afford to. His business jumps by leaps and bounds with only one staff, cos the bazaar effect helped him.

(Ok u re yawning and dozing off there, so u flipped 238 pages to this) Now the bazaar revolted and presented a new perception to the game.

Its The Community, Stupid!

Colin! Hows that for our new slogan

[croo]

Hi red1,

I don't think anyone is suggesting with move away from the bazaar, aimed to be what JJ did with Inc, or create an project who's members hold the key to some hidden knowledge of the software. But I think most if not all people, myself included, hope to make a living helping businesses implement the software. We may even get some profitable work helping them restructure their business to make it work better for them but of course the solution we are offering them is what gets us in the door. They go out looking for a new software package ... not all they business consultancy they typically get when they implement a new package.
So when we go to a new customer, he is most probably considering the likes of MS's new Dynamics package or Sage .or perhaps even one of the big boys. We can offer him a cutting edge equivalent (or hopefully better), but he needs to know about what ADempiere is ... www.adempiere.org will show him a vibrant community beavering away ok. But these people will need more, they don't understand software (or hardware), they don't understand Open Source. Actually I think the Open Source concept scares them - they don't give away their goods how can we seemly give away ours, so we need to show them that we really do understand business before they will let us rebuild theirs around our software!
Another thing we can do is to get a name (i.e. reputation) for Admepiere. We can wait a few years for one to evolve or we can be proactive and help it along by bringing it to the attention of as many people and organisations as possible ... including anyone who reviews software or reports on business/software news (such as that article on the german portal).
Now I can understand that that's not what you are about, it's not what I am about either - I'm more techie like yourself. But there were people who posted during the debate who did know more about it ... that is their skill ... so I say let them get on with it and don't worry
The important point is that everything is open & above board.
Business is not a bad thing .... it's what we are all doing... only we chose to do it in a community of equals.

that's my take on it ....

colin

[red1]

We are not about to leave the era of Eric Raymond's Bazaar yet.

i read back and like to correct this statement's context which seems wrong if its in its own paragraph. (bit silly here quoting myself)

It was meant to be same as the last statement on Linus'. What i meant is that in the internet age, ideas easily get whoosh away by a very fast succession of new ones.

That means the Bazaar idea shuld have got whoosh away. But since i couldnt get my Nostradamus hat, i tot that it still has a few moments left.


Thus what can then be a replacement of the Bazaar argument. I think its the City - Civilization concept. Then it can absorb a small cathedral inside it, maybe two.

Thats more to what i meant later about Linux consideration of non techie ppl and my tutorials.
Very regretful of the inconvenience of my WIKI command. Accept my aplogies Colin

"fools think alike and the wise seldom disagree."

[croo]

No apology is required, I was only trying to put your mind at rest!


Colin

[Rasmus Luffen]

Slogan for .com

'Cause it's Your Business'

sincerely