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Linux Business The Almighty Buck

Compiere on Postgres/MySQL 255

Posted by Hemos from the the-raising-of-awareness dept.
Tim Griffin writes " Compiere (arguably the most comprehensive open source ERP/CRM solution) has recently taken an interesting approach to harnessing community support for adding database independence to their product (currently it requires Oracle). They are taking pledged donations to help get the ball rolling on the project Certainly there are many feature requests in OSS I'd gladly pledge towards. Is this feature pledging a sustainability model for opensource developers/companies? Other examples, such as Blender3d which raised 100,000 EUR in 7 weeks, point in that direction. Perhaps in the future we may even see these pledge requests linked within the GUI itself? "
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Compiere on Postgres/MySQL More

Compiere on Postgres/MySQL

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  • Makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscoward@NOSpam.yahoo.com> on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:01AM (#7376840) Journal
    I was discussing a similar problem with some musicians the other day: how to pay for creative work?

    Our solution was sponsoring, in one way or another: support from wealthier individuals or firms, getting advertising and honorable mentions in return.

    The basis was the way traditional musicians are paid in Africa, which is by singing the praises of whoever gives them money. Since such musicians (like griots) are also respected on who is who in the community, their voices are sometimes worth a lot.

    In software, why not something along the lines of "such and such paid for this feature", an eternal mention of one's contribution to the project. It worked for Bach and Mozart, why not for OSS today?

    • Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iantri ( 687643 ) <iantri.gmx@net> on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:04AM (#7376854) Homepage
      How long until advertisements right in the software?

      Voila. Adware.

      • Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ianoo ( 711633 )
        You've just got to look at the backlash when it was reported Mandrake had an adware installer and screensaver to see that this is unlikely to work in open source software communities. Personally I won't even install software with adverts or software that shows adverts if you don't buy it (Opera). I think it's the most annoying business model possible.
        • I guess you never watch TV nor listen to the radio. You a winner.

        • You've just got to look at the backlash when it was reported Mandrake had an adware installer and screensaver to see that this is unlikely to work in open source software communities.

          But many of those are the same open source communities that used to believe you could get something for nothing. Today, even the biggest OSS projects, things like Linux and OpenOffice, have found that ultimately, you do need some source of income if you're going to keep good people working on good output for an extended per

      • Even more pertinent... How long until giant fucking banner ads appear all over the Slashdot main page?

        Oh wait...

    • Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ececheira ( 86172 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:06AM (#7376867)
      Our solution was sponsoring, in one way or another: support from wealthier individuals or firms, getting advertising and honorable mentions in return.

      The way that you describe is exactly how the fine arts world works. For orchestra concerts, ballets, operas, museum exhibitions and the like, ticket sales *never* cover all of the costs. It's up to wealthy donors to subsidize the work and in return their name goes into a program and sometimes they get buildings named for them.

      • Re:Makes sense (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The way that you describe is exactly how the fine arts world works.

        The problem here is that while the Rolling Stones make a guaranteed MEEELION DOOOLARS per gig and a Money exhibition attracts literally millions of visitors most of the 'fine arts' would be hard pushed to cover the cost of the Starbucks bill from ticket sales.

        As a filthy rich art lover I get a building named after me for sponsoring the ballet - what do I get for sponsoring something smaller? If I sponsor my local school hockey team I get
        • But sponsoring some open source development, young band, or other similar project just doesn't seem to give me anything other than a warm fluffy feel.

          That is, unless you indirectly profit from the sponsoring you do. If you pay $100,000 to sponsor OpenOffice as a business and 3 months later can drop your $200,000 in MS Office licensing, that's a quite good return.

    • Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fuzzybunny ( 112938 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:09AM (#7376880) Homepage Journal

      This has existed for centuries in the arts and sciences--it's called having a patron.

      Emperors, kings and generally rich old farts loved having court musicians, artists, and poets. It's an intriguing idea, especially if you could couple it with tax breaks for the donor.

      Frankly, if I had a few million to spare, I'd love to support unemployed hackers to write FuzzyBunnyWare, with a great big ugly grinning picture of yours truly on the startup splash screen.

      • Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)

        by kevinvee ( 581676 )
        A single patron can start to cause a lot of problems, as we've already seen with all the musicians, artists, and poets that you mentioned. Their (the donors) ideas are the only ones that get seen through, since they control the purse strings. (FuzzyBunnyWare anyone?)

        This was one of the contributing factors to all of the revolutions seen in the 1770s, the death of classicism (with patronage) and the birth of romanticism (with paid-for instead of pledged-for services such as concerts).

        This 'pledged-by-the
        • " A single patron can start to cause a lot of problems, as we've already seen with all the musicians, artists, and poets that you mentioned. Their (the donors) ideas are the only ones that get seen through, since they control the purse strings."

          And that's why they are paid. I'm sorry, this culture of complete independence has gotten out of hand. Since when is performing work for someone else viewed as a problem? They couldn't do exactly what they wanted to - they should cry on someone else's shoulders,
      • As a painter, I'd like to add to your point that much of the best art ever created was directly supported by the patronage of powerful individuals (sometimes in the name of the State, often in the name of the Church).

        Of course you'd be in pretty deep trouble if you painted an unflattering Lorenzo the Magnificent, but hey, you could always move to a rival town and sell it to the rival boss...

    • Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Funny)

      by BabyDave ( 575083 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:20AM (#7376921)
      In software, why not something along the lines of "such and such paid for this feature", an eternal mention of one's contribution to the project.

      Me: File->Save
      Clippy: Interested in savings? [Bank name]'s savings accounts have the highest interest rates around.
      Me: Go away! Tools->Options
      Clippy: For all your tools and hardware needs, why not visit [Hardware store]
      Me: Bugger off! How do I turn this off? Help->Contents
      Clippy: Do you need help using your computer? Have you considered taking a computer training course? Why not try ...
      Me: Aargh! (puts foot through screen)
      Clippy: Do you have comprehensive medical insurance?

    • In software, why not something along the lines of "such and such paid for this feature", an eternal mention of one's contribution to the project. It worked for Bach and Mozart, why not for OSS today?

      Just yesterday I saw Amadeus by Peter Shaffer (it was a fourth time I've seen this play, one of the best versions I might add) and I can assure you that it didn't work for Mozart at all. Of course we could seek parallels of Antonio Salieri to Bill Gates and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Richard Stallman, bu

      • You miss the point: Mozart (and Salieri and many other musicians) lived almost entirely from patronage. Did Mozart not name some of his symphonies after his patrons? I don't know how your brain flipped into comparing Salieri with Microsoft, this is bizarre.

        But the point is that art does not always sell, sometimes, often, it has to be sponsored, and although this seems scary, it's a model with a long tradition that has often worked very well indeed.

        Sponsors can be stupid and brutal but they can also be g

  • Me too... (Score:5, Funny)

    by swordboy ( 472941 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:02AM (#7376847) Journal
    I'm taking a similar approach [paypal.com] to employment independence. For only a few dollars a month, you could help me sit on the couch every day.
  • Perhaps in the future we may even see these pledge requests linked within the GUI itself?

    No, that's already patented? I can hear the lawyers howling already!

  • License (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Quill_28 ( 553921 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:07AM (#7376874) Journal
    I am curious.

    Why did they choose Postgresql and not MySQL?

    Was it because of the license(BSD vs GPL)? postgresql is considered more advanced than MySQL? both? something else?

    • It would seem my question about the license is silly. Ignore this post, must be too early in the morning.

    • Re:License (Score:5, Informative)

      by antis0c ( 133550 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:31AM (#7376973)
      PostgreSQL is more feature rich than MySQL. Whether or not it's more "advanced" depends on what you are using it for.

      And no, I know MySQL has transactions through InnoDB, however MySQL doesn't have stored procedures, which also means no triggers. PostgreSQL not only has procedures but it has inheritance, overloading, and support for pl/PHP, pl/Perl, pl/Python and a host of other languages you can write stored procedures in.

      Theres a bunch of differences between MySQL and PostgreSQL, neither of which make either one better overall. It's a matter of the application of each which determines if one is better.
      • WHile MySQL has other strengths (most notably MySQL is strong where you do not WANT full ACID support, while PostgreSQL is strong where you do).

        Triggers are very important for any business-critical database, as is the requirement that a database raise an exception when it cannot insert EXACTLY what you tell it to into the database.

        For example, if you insert a number into MySQL that is too large for its data type, MySQL will truncate it (NOT good for accounting), while PostgreSQL will terminate the transaction and happily raise an exception! THis behavior is NOT ACID complient.

        MySQL has some other strengths-- it provides a set of generic non-ACID compliant tools (such as HEAP tables) that enterprise databases cannot afford to offer.

        • For example, if you insert a number into MySQL that is too large for its data type, MySQL will truncate it (NOT good for accounting), while PostgreSQL will terminate the transaction and happily raise an exception! THis behavior is NOT ACID complient.

          OK, you got me. Why can't you just roll back the entire transaction, and issue an error message indicating that the data provided was invalid? How is that in any way non-ACID-compliant? (Or are you saying that PostgreSQL doesn't respond this way, and that's

      • 5.0 has stored procedures in it now (and its close to alpha). Its the ANSI stored procedure language so its documented and decently easy to use. It should only be a short time before you can use other languages to (and you can already write functions in C, Perl, and PHP).
    • At the time they made the decision to start building the bridge MySQL didn't support triggers, transactions, and stored procedures.

      Triggers are not currently supported, and I believe that the transactions and stored procedures are not as functionals as Oracle's. While PostgreSQL doesn't support these as fully either, it does support triggers which are not trivial to emulate in java (not to mention resource intensive)

      At least, that's what I remember from a year ago when they were discussing it...

      -A
    • it says any target db will require stored functions ("but not triggers or procedures"). that kinda lets mysql out.

      incidently they say that their first porting effort failed b/c "Compiere is using embedded transactions" which postgresql doesn't support. I think he means nested transactions which indeed no open source database supports yet... at least not postgresql or firebird or mysql. :(
    • Take a look at SapDB [sapdb.org]. Now if people could explain why this is not given the same level of exposure as MySQL & Postgre

      • Re:License (Score:2, Informative)

        by Insurgent2 ( 615836 )
        SapDB is a very powerful system, but if people think Postgres is difficult to setup/maintain...SapDB is 100 times more weenie oriented.
        Why SapDB never got the exposure of others is hard to say. Some think it's because of the source code which is apparently very complex, hard to follow with few comments preventing outside people from writing additions/improvements for it. Others say it was simply Sap announcing that it was going OSS and then never doing any other promotion on it. Me, I think it wasn't succe
  • I have already ported this to postgres on the weekend.

    Compiere.pgsql [sourceforge.net]

    mike

    • Re:Why do you need donations (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stienman ( 51024 ) <adavisNO@SPAMubasics.com> on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:43AM (#7377020) Homepage Journal
      Porting the table structure is not the same as, oh, porting the actual program so that it reads and writes to PostgreSQL.

      What exactly do you mean by giving us a database configuration file, and then saying you've ported compiere to postgresql? Where are the modified java files?

      -Adam
      • If I recall, for the port to actually function, it needed additional transaction support.

        Also, IIRC, the data model had long since been ported by the developers to PostgreSQL, however, the effort came to a halt when they decided they needed additional feature support from PostgreSQL or significant code changes in their Java client.

        So, unless you have more than just DDL, I don't think you have much to offer here.

  • The claim is QT 4 of 2003 (and other claims) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:14AM (#7376897)
    The claim was made this 'port' would have aviablity in Qt 4 of 2003.

    No sign of that happening.

    Some other data for the slashdot readers.

    Other 'claims' from the http://www.compiere.org/technology/independence.ht ml page:

    "but you can get an invoice"

    and

    "As a proof of concept, ComPiere plans to provide a porting kit for one database to be selected yet."

    Now I "donated" over $100 on this last year for a PostgreSQL port.

    1) I have not gotten a invoice.
    2) Phone calls to Mr. Janke have not been returned to answer the question 'what is the status of the port'
    3) Now what I "donated money" for - a PostgreSQL port - may not be done, and instead a MySQL port may be done instead?

    As you can guess, I'm "Happy" about the progress thus far.

    On the mailing list some people have talked about a PostgreSQL fork of his code and Mr. Janke had made mention of some PostgreSQL work done 2 years ago, but to my knowledge, none of that code is 'out there' for the public to see.

    At present, the development environment is Jbuilder...perhaps a seperate slashdotting can happen and convice them to move to Eclipse?

    • At present, the development environment is Jbuilder...perhaps a seperate slashdotting can happen and convice them to move to Eclipse?

      JBuilder to Eclipse? That would be a good thing?

      JBuilder Personal is a free download and is the best IDE I have ever used, bar none. It comes with a GUI builder and a graphical debugger. It is a *hell* of a lot faster than eclipse, whose editor is unbareably slow on by 1.3GHz machine. JBuilder is the faster Java application I have ever used.

      Not because eclipse is open s

  • BitTorrent (Score:2, Funny)

    by Phantasmo ( 586700 )
    BitTorrent regularly asks me for donations when I start it up.

    Unfortunately, if I answer, "No, I haven't donated," it segfaults. I can't tell whether or not that's by design.

  • Why should we contribute to this? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by @madeus ( 24818 ) <slashdot_24818@mac.com> on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:23AM (#7376936)
    Nuts to this! Seriously! Why should we contribute to this?

    It makes sense for them to do this port. They should have made it work on at least either Postgres/MySQL in the first place. It's their own fault, they have clearly dug their own hole and now they want us to give them money to buy a ladder to help them out of it.

    If the program was coded well, it wouldn't be more than a few days work (they should just need to change a very small number of functions, the ones that act as an abstraction layer to the DB). If they haven't, that's their problem and they have a lot more than just backend portability to worry about.

    In even reasonably complex projects I always use an abstraction layer so I have the option to change the DB at will. In fact, you might say I use two layers - one layer for the DB, and another layer in the form of the functions I call to get data (which call the DB layer), and I usually have a set of 'core' functions which are not called directly from any user facing elements but only from libraries which do the actual data retrieval.

    I'd also add it acts as an excellent way of reducing the number of bugs - by forcing the use of abstracted interfaces I find the enforced simplicity of the interfaces cuts down on the bug rate (by breaking down the code in to easily maintainable and re-useable chunks with easy to test input and output).

    So in this case I say:

    Lack of abstraction == no cookie for you! Bad developer!
    • Actually, abstraction from the database is exactly the issue.

      Having done commercial code using the same practices and having used it to convert my own GPL project (from storing nested and dependant data as XML to SQL of all things) at Savannah to I can testify to this. It's easy if you actually design your software (not just sit down and bash the keys randomly like a code monkey), it just requires planning and a commitment to professional practice, specifically a commitment to good design, which should be
    • They should have made it work on at least either Postgres/MySQL in the first place. It's their own fault, they have clearly dug their own hole

      Not all projects start from a clean slate. This post [slashdot.org] explains a bit.

  • ERP/CRM?? (Score:4, Informative)

    by batura ( 651273 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:29AM (#7376961)
    I didn't know what this was, so from their webpage:

    What are ERP Software Solutions? ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning and is the software to support your entire business processes. ERP Software Solutions typically consists of modules such as Marketing and Sales, Field Service, Production, Inventory Control, Procurement, Distribution, Human Resources, Finance and Accounting.

    What are CRM Software Solutions? CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and is the software to support your business process to find, get and retain customers. CRM Software Solutions typically consist of modules such as Sales Force Automation, Call Management, Self Service.

  • KDE does this (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In any KDE program, click Help on the menu bar, then select About KDE at the bottom. You will see four tabs, each with Information on how you can help improve KDE.

    In fact, you can help right now KDE 3.2 Beta. [kde.org] has just been released. Try it out, report any bugs or problems [kde.org] to help improve KDE, so KDE 3.2 will be a success when its released around Christmas.

  • Why open source in this field? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Psychic Burrito ( 611532 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:33AM (#7376979)
    I think ERP + CRM applications are only interesting for large companies that have a lot of money - can anybody tell me why it's better for the community that these companies do not have to spend so much money?

    Heck, the E in ERP stands for Enterprise, doesn't it? And "ressource planning" bascially stands for "how to spend your money the best way" - if these enterprises have so much money, why shouldn't they spend a bit on software? Please enlighten me, thanks.
    • Ideas cannot be owned nor sold.
    • It seems logical, but it's not true. Many smaller companies have ERP software, even if it is not always called that way.
      A web-shop can make use of Compiere for inventory management, and a small distributor with a warehouse as well. There's also a general bookkeeping module.
      I'm not sure what other modules compiere already has, but what it has is already quite useful for many smaller companies.

      And even if it was for big companies? Open source is not so much about software that costs no money, as you are well
    • Thats easy really. Its all about the small to medium sized businesses. How many small businesses have you ever come across that could really use some good groupware software or other things but can't afford them? I saw several while I was contracting. If these companies can save a few dollars and get the tools to help them compete on a larger level its a good thing. See the economy is really driven by small businesses. When lots of small companies are doing well there are more jobs. Boeing, Ford, GM
    • The E in ERP does stand for Enterprise, but that's more for marketing the name than anything. What the products actually aim to provide is a toolset for planning all of the resources managed by an organization.

      A good ERP system when implemented to support solid business processes can drastically improve a company's productivity and operating efficiency. This is true for small, medium and large companies. The reason that most people associate ERP with LARGE corporations is because they typically implem
    • CRM can be quite usefull for smaller companies .
      The ability to keep track of your customers and provide better support is a neccesasity if smaller companies want to keep there clients .
    • Just because the word "enterprise" is tossed about doesn't mean its a HUGE company with endless resources.

      Even a small business can benefit from an ERP solution, but they cant afford one.

      OSS ERP gives them an option.

      and CRM is useful even in the smallest of businesses, if you have more then one customer...

      Going to PostgreSQL helps greatly ... most of us cant afford Oracle, if we could, we would afford a 'commercial' ERP package..
  • Well, that would probably get a lot more people to avail themselves of paid distribution services (which hopefully would omit the beg-ware), but the net effect would be me getting rid of my computers...

    I have enough aggravation listening to the constant pledge drives of my local public radio station (I kid you not, a drive once every 3 months or less). I don't need more of it from my web browser or whatever else. I use open source stuff precisely because it tends to make it easier to avoid ads begging me

  • Old news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ebuck ( 585470 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:54AM (#7377069)
    Compiere has been hounded for a postgresql database port for a long time now.

    They have had a committee to oversee it, they have had numerous people (of varying skill) offer to contribute, and they have had a stunning lack of progress.

    Their opinion has not changed much, which is, "If you have the Enterprise needing such software, Oracle is nothing more than a drop in the bucket" Eventually, they complained that it would be a finiancial burden to make the port happen. That's when someone indicated a "donation" web page should be set up (as a compromise).

    I see the donation webpage as nothing more than an attempt to keep the port from never happening, by addressing the one point of money (raised when it became obovious that many wanted the feature, but few would donate time or money)

  • Open source? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by joshv ( 13017 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @09:55AM (#7377072)
    But it requires Oracle. Huh. An Open source product that requires the purchase of a proprietary software product. Kinda defeats the purpose. No?

    Personally though I don't understand why application developers use a database for anything other than storage. If all you are doing is simple inserts, selects, updates and deletes it should be very easy, if not trivial to make the application database independent.

    Stored procs, triggers, etc, are evil as they spread your application logic all over the place and there are no standards for how they are implemented by different vendors. It's hard enough to find a relatively standard subset of SQL semantics.

    -josh
    • "An Open source product that requires the purchase of a proprietary software product. Kinda defeats the purpose. No?"

      It's VERY useful. The runtime Oracle license is inexpensive (compared to proprietary ERP software), and you can alter the Compiere code as you please.

    • Re:Open source? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by krumms ( 613921 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:17AM (#7377196) Journal
      Stored procs etc. are fantastic if you know what platform you're building for (and that target platform has been set in stone).

      I'm building an in-house piece of software in this manner, and stored procs alone saved me LOTS of work - particularly with respect to security checking. All the necessary checking is done automatically when the user logs into the database. Furthermore, users can be assigned roles within the system automatically as a knock-on effect.

      I thought about trying to go database independant for a while, but the sheer amount of time saved for an application with a 95% chance of always running on a particular platform with a particular RDBMS compared to doing it all in the code ... well, it's a no brainer.

      However neat it is, cross-platform isn't always The Way.

      But I completely agree with you with respect to open source projects and db independance. That said, this project hasn't always been open source right? Perhaps that's half an answer as to why they built it the way they did ...
      • You may have already thought of this, but it probably would be helpful to factor out your persistence layer even though you're not expecting to need another back-end soon. It's cool to be able to make a persistence test harness (test your stored procs instead of your whole app, reducing the LOC you have to look through for each bug) even if you don't need another back-end.

        OTOH, in a project that's actually funded, sometimes it's better to just hack something, QA it until it works, and ship it, and fix the

    • Re:Open source? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Stone316 ( 629009 )
      If all your doing is simple DML then your not using a database to its full potential. I've been a DBA for 7 years now, a few of those years spent in development shops. Lets take Oracle for example, there are tons of features in there to help performance, managability, etc and alot of them are unique to Oracle.

      Database independance is all fine and dandy but its a trade off. Your trading for time to market. ie, if your application is complex then your going to end up writing features that are probably a

    • ERP Applications aren't that simple (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cybrthng ( 22291 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:28AM (#7377239) Homepage Journal
      I don't know if you have EVER use an enterprise applicaiton before. Even if it IS just select/inserts/deletes for basic GL/AP/AR applications you are talking about people, systems and components requiring gigs to terrabytes of data and hundreds if not THOUSANDS of concurrent users.

      MySQL can't handle flash back transactions, doesn't support load balancing, hot site, and paralell or clustered transactions. I need all of these to support an enterprise environment!

      Sure compiere may be small, but it needs a powerfull database. It needs the features of an enterprise database oh which there isn't an open source solution to. I wouldn't dare want to recover a mysql or postgress 1.2 terrabyte erp system.

      Oracle RDBMS is an amazing product. Overly capable and getting easier to use as the releases pile on. You pay for the mindset that you have a multi billion dollar company supporting you.

      That brings me to the question of why use Compiere at all on anything but oracle and is there a demand for an ERP system that doesn't use a commercially supported system as NO vendor in there right mind would want to support a product they didn't develop or that didn't have its own superb support channels to begin with.

      oh well. You have to remember that big business is alot different than hosting a small website or cddb database on your average linux pc :)

      • I don't know if you have EVER use an enterprise applicaiton before. Even if it IS just select/inserts/deletes for basic GL/AP/AR applications you are talking about people, systems and components requiring gigs to terrabytes of data and hundreds if not THOUSANDS of concurrent users.

        ERP software doesn't need to be complex or "large". It depends on the number of departments you are cutting across and the data you are manipulating. Look at something like exchange. Exchange suffices as ERP software as l

      • Re:ERP Applications aren't that simple (Score:4, Informative)

        by joshv ( 13017 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @11:58AM (#7377749)
        I don't know if you have EVER use an enterprise applicaiton before.

        No, you don't know. I have. I've worked quite extensively on an ERP application called PeopleSoft. It locates all of it's business logic in the middle tier. The SQL it produces is very database agnostic and will run with minor modification on most database platforms.

        Even if it IS just select/inserts/deletes for basic GL/AP/AR applications you are talking about people, systems and components requiring gigs to terrabytes of data and hundreds if not THOUSANDS of concurrent users.

        Yes, and basic SQL is more than sufficient to support this.

        MySQL can't handle flash back transactions, doesn't support load balancing, hot site, and paralell or clustered transactions. I need all of these to support an enterprise environment!

        Who said anything about MySQL, I believe the article was about Postgres. Regardless, or production AP/GL application supports hundreds of concurrent users without any of these features (at least not in the database layer) - so you clearly don't need them to support an enterprise environment.

        oh well. You have to remember that big business is alot different than hosting a small website or cddb database on your average linux pc :)

        Thanks for the lesson. I'll have to leave now because I have a production PeopleSoft issue to troubleshoot on our 10 CPU database server.

        • >I've worked quite extensively on an ERP application called PeopleSoft. It locates all of it's business logic in the middle tier. The SQL it produces is very database agnostic and will run with minor modification on most database platforms.

          The folks I know who have implemented PeopleSoft at Fortune 500 companies complain bitterly about how it's terribly slow even on monster hardware, specifically because it is written to be so database-agnostic. This is not anything to brag about, and is certainly not a

      • MySQL can't handle flash back transactions

        MySQL BEGIN, COMMIT, ROLLBACK transaction syntax [mysql.com] requires use of InnoDB, BerkleyDB (think .dbm files that have been round for years), or GeminiDB (If you want to pay money).

        doesn't support load balancing, hot site, and paralell or clustered transactions

        MySQL Replication [mysql.com] can be configured for all of that. When it comes time to load balance MySQL, putting a hardware solutions such as a Cisco CSS 11000 series load balancer in front works without problems. S

    • But it requires Oracle. Huh. An Open source product that requires the purchase of a proprietary software product. Kinda defeats the purpose. No?

      Rather than changing Compiere to support alternate databases, perhaps a good project would be "duplicate the Oracle API."

      This way, any application which requires Oracle could be shoe-horned into another database. Granted, not all databases have the same features so perhaps there'd be some APIs you would not be able to implement (so have them return errors?)

    • An Open source product that requires the purchase of a proprietary software product. Kinda defeats the purpose.

      if you think that the main point of Open Source is "free as in beer," then you don't understand Open Source. With this system a user has full visibility into the inner workings of the product AND can modify/maintain/extend it at the source level.

      If the providers "go out of business" users can shop support out to somebody else. THESE are the big reasons to do it, even though it requires non-free
    • Stored procs, triggers, etc, are evil as they spread your application logic all over the place and there are no standards for how they are implemented by different vendors. It's hard enough to find a relatively standard subset of SQL semantics.

      Sounds to me like you bit on the MySQL propoganda hook line and sinker. MySQL doesn't even support views, and no doubt there's legions of fanboys decrying how evil those are as a result, probably something about "indirection being slow" or "hiding the details" or s
    • > Personally though I don't understand why application developers use a database for anything other than storage.

      Clearly. But what does storage entail? Transactions? Backup? Concurrent access that works properly in all situations? Availability? Scalability?

      > If all you are doing is simple inserts, selects, updates and deletes it should be very easy, if not trivial to make the application database independent.

      Great! OK, so what if you AREN'T doing simple inserts, selects, updates, and deletes? If al
  • This isn't news at all (it's "olds"). They've been taking donations for database independence for over a year now. Did it really take you this long to pick up on it? They'll eventually have all of the business logic rolled into Jboss instead of residing in PL/SQL form in the database.

    Head over to their database independence forum [sourceforge.net] for more information.
  • I spent some time looking for an opensource CRM and had a look to compiere. Being on Oracle was an issue, but being on java was another issue for my customer.

    We are now looking to some more light weight alternatives like http://www.anteil.com/ [anteil.com] . It's already based on free/open source databases and written in PHP.

    Does anyone know other open sourced "light" CRM. Or a real experience on Anteil ?
    • unfortunately no...I just went through that recently (including Anteil, which almost looked promising, IIRC). Everything that's out there is mostly a fancy phone book. Not much automation, forecasting, logging or any of that stuff. The client ended up going with SalesLogix *shudder* because it integrates with Outlook, which apparently the sales monkeys can't live without. Also has some integration with the accounting software and does some stuff with MSWord for form letters and stuff. Unfortunately, the

  • Kinda scary (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bwaynef ( 692229 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:01AM (#7377104) Journal
    I thought that the push behind open source was that the features that were technically best, and would be of the most benefit to the users were the ones that were added. That may not always be the case if the model of "fund-raising" is adopted, so that the wealthiest are able to control the feature-list of OSS. If you'll adopt a reasonably paranoid outlook then the implications should be obvious. Personally, this is a bit unsettling

    • Re:Kinda scary (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Just Some Guy ( 3352 ) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Monday November 03, 2003 @11:28AM (#7377556) Homepage Journal
      I thought that the push behind open source was that the features that were technically best, and would be of the most benefit to the users were the ones that were added.

      You thought wrong. New features are the ones that meet a need - either of the programmer who implements them, or of those paying the implementer. It is often the case that development is driven by technical merit, but that's certainly not the only motivation.

  • The Open Code Market (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jordiweb ( 709830 )
    As I see it, the only valid solution is to align the interests of the developers with those of the end users by creating a market where one or more users can commission (and pay for) from enhancements to existing software to a full software package, and the software is later released as GPL. I call it The Open Code Market.

    I have developed the idea further in a paper which you can find here [jordiweb.net]. It should be published in the next FirstMonday (November '03) ... or not ;-).

  • Also used in the boardgame world (Score:3, Informative)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:12AM (#7377171)
    GMT games has "Project 500 [gmtgames.com]" (P500) where they take preorders for games in development/planning and begin preparations for printing after 500 orders have been made (no money is charged at preorder time). This page [gmtgames.com] explains how the system works in detail. It's been very beneficial to the company, providing stability and allowing for planned growth.
  • Wow, I've never heard of this app...looks very intriguing! The only problem would be that most ERP systems are discreet, rather than process based...but depending on how extensible this is, or if we could pay people to get some formulation modules running or something...damn! This is interesting to me to say the least...

  • A couple problems (Score:2, Insightful)

    by danharan ( 714822 )
    Rather than just port to PostgreSQL, they want to do

    Real time parsing Oracle DDL and DML statements and converting them to the target database.

    So, you'll have a performance hit for using anything else but Oracle?

    They also note that they got stuck porting to PostgreSQL because it lacked embedded transactions. How about offering them $20,000 for adding that feature? They already have most of the work done!

    Some will whine that this approach does not support MySQL (as evidenced by the comments by donors). H

  • Pledge same as shareware? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tjstork ( 137384 ) <todd.bandrowsky@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:39AM (#7377301) Homepage Journal


    I think the "pledge" system, from an end user perspective, is nearly the same as the pay for the license approach of shareware. In both:

    a) the user downloads the program
    b) if the user uses the program, and likes it, they are encouraged to "register" it to support its continued development.

    Perhaps the most reasonable mechanism is to change the licensing model somewhat to differentiate from end users and developers. We could say that open source systems -can- charge money for end users. That way, the dough filters back to the developers and good projects don't die for lack of funding. Developers using open source would pay a tax of some sort to keep the open source system moving.

    To differentiate developers from end users, we might require a C/S degree plus some form of certification to actually participate in the open source pool. This would serve as the basis for professionally licensing computer programmers - a long overdue move anyway. The minimum requirement would be a C/S degree + a certification. Not sure if it's right to say any engineering degree will do because C/S is a discipline in its own right and there's theoretical stuff a C/S grad will have that an EE switching over will miss.

    Thoughts?

  • great, just like npr and pbs (Score:4, Funny)

    by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @11:22AM (#7377527)
    "Perhaps in the future we may even see these pledge requests linked within the GUI itself"

    Great... just like public radio or television...

    'We will bring you to your gui in just a moment, but first... please contribute to our effort... it is you the user that contributes the most to our efforts and if you think that this program is of value to you and you want to see it continuously improved... The next one hundred callers ...err emailers will receive a log beach towel with their pledge of one hundred dollars... Okay now we bring you to your user interface.'

    repeat every 3 months.

  • I've been using SQL-ledger for my small business for about a year. We have grown from 2 to now 8 employees. We started out offering VR modelling to real estate agencies, develoeprs, event planners, wedding/floral design, interior designers, etc. and that side grow quickly to about a $25,000 a month business.

    We also provide affordable online and print advertising campaigns for SMB's and technology consulting service (my area) to small businesses and manage five relatively large sites for churches and oth

  • Great Idea for Now, But... (Score:3, Funny)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug@@@geekazon...com> on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:03PM (#7380850) Homepage
    Opensource programmers in India will add those same features for less than half as much in pledges.
  • I looked at Compiere a little over a year ago. At that time there was already a lot of talk about raising money for a port/recode to java middleware+postgresql. It made sense, and I assumed they'd reach their funding goal in short order. They already had several users, most of whom were paying Oracle thousands anually for support contracts - why wouldn't they pledge to get the port done, and then pay someone (presumably a lot less) for comparable postgresql support? I guess it doesn't work as easily as

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