Re: Recent developments in open source manufacturing
Bryan Bishop
> Hi Bryan,
Hey Ned, I'm glad to see your reply in my inbox. I'm cc'ing this reply
+ your original to the group.
> Thanks for your note. I took a spin through the Google group, and your
> personal pages as well. Wow! You guys are living in the future.
From what I could tell of your own sites, you have a bit of a
"frontline" with consultations with manufacturing companies, is this
right? I was wondering what sort of struggles we're seeing in
introducing (in this case, the F/OSS ERP) to manufacturing facilities
-- besides conventional corporate culture, are you consistently facing
disbelief, misunderstanding, etc.?
> Our focus with xTuple ERP (the new name for the company and the product -
> we're deprecating the OpenMFG name, see www.xtuple.com/faq) is to grow an
> open source user community around our core ERP software. What we're now
> calling the PostBooks Edition of xTuple ERP is the core - built on the
> PostgreSQL database and the Qt GUI framework - and there are thousands of
> people using it every day. We offer training, support services, etc., and
> also commercial Editions of the product that add additional functionality -
> see www.xtuple.com/comparison.
>
> Funny you should mention EDI and XML, we're doing some interesting "what
> if"-ing along those lines these days - in cooperation with the OpenOffice
> and XML gurus at Sun and elsewhere. The general thought is to extend the
> ODF format to support UBL-compliant business documents, so you could
> create/load/edit/send a PO, for example, either from your OpenOffice suite
> or your xTuple ERP. No EDI middleman, and it's all XML-based, open
> standards-compliant.
>
> That's just a twinkle in our eye right now, but it doesn't look like it
> would be an awful amount of work on either side.
That's an interesting tactic to use. Instead of just hoping that you
can convince some businessmen to let you deploy a system that would
truly make things easier, you could make the modifications in the
document suites and packages that they use. Then, invoices, order
forms, RFQ's, RFC's, and the other standard communications could be
more formally integrated into their business environment so that they
can see, first-hand, the results of all this new-age "B2B" sharing
goodness is about. ;-) As I recall, OpenOffice allows python and java
scripting, analogous to VBA for Microsoft's document editing software
products, so if you are able to slip in the software with OpenOffice
as additional business people switch over to Open Office, then you
grow the userbase where these computational formats can be accepted. I
hadn't really considered this, but with the recent release of
Microsoft's latest formats for documents, I realized how much this
must hurt those in business, beyond me just being annoyed about having
to ask people to save documents in a more readable format.
Do we have any numbers on the rate of adoption of OpenOffice?
> More broadly, I'd invite you and anyone at the openmanufacturing group to
> poke around our community website at www.xtuple.org. It's a bit of a mess
> right now, but in a few weeks we'll be launching a much better
> organized/integrated site. If you register at the current site, you can
> stay up to date on the various goings-on with the product and the community.
>
> Feel free to share this note with the openmanufacturing group. And again,
> thanks for reaching out.
>
> Best,
> Ned
>
> --
> Ned Lilly
> President and CEO
> xTuple
> 119 West York Street
> Norfolk, VA 23510
> tel. 757.461.3022 x101
> email: n...@xtuple.com
> www.xtuple.com
Ned Lilly
> From what I could tell of your own sites, you have a bit of a
> "frontline" with consultations with manufacturing companies, is this
> right? I was wondering what sort of struggles we're seeing in
> introducing (in this case, the F/OSS ERP) to manufacturing facilities
> -- besides conventional corporate culture, are you consistently facing
> disbelief, misunderstanding, etc.?
No, actually, we get very little pushback on the concept of open source, believe it or not. Most people have at least heard the term by now, maybe have heard of Linux - but more to the point, they get the cost savings and freedom/control arguments pretty quickly. I like to use the Bob Young analogy - you wouldn't buy a car with the hood welded shut, which is what proprietary software makers ask you to do. Now, you might not be a mechanic yourself - not many of our customers hack source code - but you'd sure like to be able to take your car to the garage of your choice, and not just back to the one factory where it was made.
Exactly. You'd get a real network effect - the more people used it, the more useful it would be. But in the meantime, we're not asking them to change their behavior if they're comfortable sending documents as email attachments, say. And there's no toll collector in the middle of the transaction either. And then when they see the demo of that UBL doc loading up automatically in their ERP system, it'll look like magic. So a customer sends a PO, which your xTuple ERP receives and translates to a Sales Order, and automatically creates an Order Acknowledgement, etc.
> As I recall, OpenOffice allows python and java
> scripting, analogous to VBA for Microsoft's document editing software
> products, so if you are able to slip in the software with OpenOffice
> as additional business people switch over to Open Office, then you
> grow the userbase where these computational formats can be accepted. I
> hadn't really considered this, but with the recent release of
> Microsoft's latest formats for documents, I realized how much this
> must hurt those in business, beyond me just being annoyed about having
> to ask people to save documents in a more readable format.
>
> Do we have any numbers on the rate of adoption of OpenOffice?
No, but I thought it was interesting that Microsoft totally caved on the standards battle over ODF versus their format. And that was after they'd won a major round in the European standards body, if I'm remembering correctly. So, in other words, if xTuple supports the standard UML purchase order, for example - it shouldn't matter whether it was created in OpenOffice or MS Office. Of course, as you say, OpenOffice is getting more and more attractive to people - and the new version 3 is a real step up, especially for Mac users.
Cheers,
Ned
Bryan Bishop
<stuff about UML, UBL, and OpenOffice>
Some notes I've taken on this.
UBL (Universal Business Language):
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ubl
the spec: http://www.oasis-open.org/specs/index.php#ublv1.0
or: http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/cd-UBL-1.0/
zip file: http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/cd-UBL-1.0.zip
(since 2004)
UBL: Another opportunity for FOSS in the enterprise
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8254
^ nice interview with Jon Bosak and Lars Oppermann.
"UBL comes from OASIS, the same folks who standardized the
OpenDocument format for office files, and UBL is equally as open.
Participation in the OASIS UBL Technical Committee is open to all
organizations and individuals. OASIS hosts an open mailing list for
public comment, as well as the ubl-dev mailing list for exchanging
information on implementing the standard."
Here's the UBL-dev mailing list archives:
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ubl-dev/
See also:
http://xml.openoffice.org/
W3C XForms spec:
http://www.w3.org/TR/xforms/
OO.o XForms spec:
http://specs.openoffice.org/appwide/xforms/GUI_spec_part1.sxw
XML2004 demonstration:
http://www.idealliance.org/proceedings/xml04/papers/110/xml2004_ideadb.html
(a rather substantial doc)
"The Universal Business Language (UBL), a royalty-free library of
standard XML electronic business documents, is successfully being
adapted by governments and companies (PDF - 3 MB) all over the world.
A great chance for OpenOffice.org to become even more popular in this
sector, when being used in the XML electronic business flow to view,
edit and sent such UBL documents."
That 3 MB PDF: http://2007.xmlconference.org/public/asset/attachment/321
"Early adopter: Denmark
* UBL Invoice mandated by law for all public-
sector business (February 2005)
1.25 million UBL invoices are exchanged in the
* Danish public sector every month
Savings to the government conservatively
* estimated at 100 million euros annually
Early adopter: Sweden
* Swed-invoice (a subset of UBL Invoice)
recommended for all government use by the
Swedish National Financial Management
Authority (October 2005)
Standardization on UBL Invoice will save the
* Swedish government SEK 4 billion (more than
500 million dollars) in the first five years of
deployment"
"USDOT Electronic Freight Management (EFM) pilot uses UBL 2
Transportation Status, Despatch Advice, and Receipt Advice"
For more information
UBL: http://oasis-open.org/committees/ubl
UBL Chair: jon....@sun.com
UBL 1.0 International Data Dictionary:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/15631/cd-UBL-1.0-IDD-1.ods
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/12242/cd-UBL-1.0-IDD-1.xls
UBL 1.0 UN Layout Key stylesheets: http://www.cranesoftwrights.com/u/
UBL 1.0 Layout Key Transformer: http://www.ambrosoft.com/
UBL 1.0 Small Business Subset:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/cs-UBL-1.0-SBS-1.0/
UBL 2.0 Standard: http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.0.zip
UBL 2.0 Naming and Design Rules (public review):
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/prd-UBL-NDR-2.0.pdf
Public ubl-dev discussion list: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
UBL Support Page:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ubl-ssc
So I'm liking this so far. :-) Thanks Ned for bringing this to my
attention. I've spent a lot of time on OASIS, just looking at the
wrong standards initiatives I guess. :-)
I wonder if there are any bugs that need to be fixed in the OO.o
XForms implementation at the moment? Google isn't turning anything up,
but I'm sure there are tasks on the todo list.
Emlyn
Michael Meeks Says OO.o Project is "Profoundly Sick"
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/28/0124230
--
Emlyn
http://emlynoregan.com - my home
http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related
http://point7.wordpress.com - downshifting and ranting
2008/12/19 Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com>:
>
> On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 2:03 PM, Ned Lilly <n...@xtuple.com> wrote:
> <stuff about UML, UBL, and OpenOffice>
>
> Some notes I've taken on this.
>[snipped]