Webnotes Customization Shop

[lxnow]

I wanted to throw this idea out here to get thoughts from other users: what if Webnotes considers taking on "express" jobs for customization to ERPNext that may not necessarily be at the top of your main list, for a fee? 

As I understand it, Webnotes prioritizes its list of to dos based on the overall needs of your customer base, which makes sense.  But for specific needs that may have relatively low scope (impacts few) but has very high productivity impact to a certain set of customers while not negatively impacting existing features to ERPNext, they may consider assigning resource to this. And incorporate the new feature(s) to the main branch.

The additional resource could be one day off for programming ("Fee-based Fridays") or an additional headcount dedicated to just customizations. The resource may not even have to be Webnotes staff -- can be a third party. But key here is to have access to backend for those users who subscribe to WebNotes hosted service. 

It could be as simple as an open forum-type discussion or something more sophisticated but cleaner like a online shop, where each customization is tagged at a certain price. Example:

• Tiny customization - $10
• small - $50
• medium - $100
• large - $200
• extra-large $300

Webnotes can either take the money or get a cut.  The key conditions with this idea are:

• Customizations will be incorporated into the main branch, not just an add-on (so other ERPnext users will gain the feature for no additional cost)
  
• Customizations will not negatively impact or alter existing features
• The shop will allow developers, third party or not, to access the back-end for official hosted solutions
• It's not free

[Rushabh Mehta]

Laurence,

Thanks for the mail. Aditya Duggal has been proposing this for a long time. But thanks for putting numbers that takes things forward.

This suggestion is good. I know that many users have higher budgets and are willing to pay to get the work done.

Typically this is called a bounty - so a user can offer a bounty for a feature that is required. The bounty can be taken by any developer (we don't want a cut if some 3rd party develops it).

The problem with 3rd party is that of quality. If the feature is not executed correctly or is buggy then what happens?

What I propose is this, if any user wants to offer a bounty, they can open an issue on GitHub starting with Bounty: xxxxx and then propose an amount that you are willing to pay in the details of the issue. Having as much details as possible will help us / developer in taking a shot at it.

If the issue is closed (accepted in the main repository), the bounty offering user must pay directly to the developer (company) in say 7 days. Let us keep this process manual for now.

Whether the change will be accepted in the master or not is up-to us. If we reject, we will explicitly mention what we wanted changed. 

Lets look at Gupteshwar's change which was sponsored by Aditya which we did not accept (https://github.com/webnotes/erpnext/pull/566/files)

The reason is that the design replicated an entire file upload feature which is already there in the product. This is very hard to maintain. We recommend that if a 3rd party developer wants to build a feature to be accepted, then they must first share a simple design doc (via wiki) that we can comment and then build.

Looking forward to this!

(I have already created a new tag: https://github.com/webnotes/erpnext/issues?labels=bounty%21&page=1&state=open)

What this will also potentially do is attract more developers to ERPNext and it will help the entire community!

best,

Rushabh

W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

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[Aditya Duggal]

H

i Rushabh,

I think I agree with Laurence.

The thing is that the users of erpnext just don't want the customisation for a day or two but for long time hence your suggestion for rejection is something not interesting at least for a sponsor like me, since a rejection for the code to be incorporated into the main product means that someday that customisation would go bust and that generally happens when a person starts using that customisation very frequently.

What I would suggest instead is that we could do it this ways:

1. Post a Bounty on Github as suggested by you.
2. If any developer wants to develop it they could put a price to it, since honestly speaking it would be difficult for a user to set a price as we generally don't have an idea as to how much time it would take.
3. Once a price is submitted by a developer, then erpnext team could just punch in with its authenticity and value.
4. Once the bounty is accepted and authenticated the work can be done by the developer.
5. Now if the code is accepted into the repository as it is (this means the developer did a good job), then he/she can take the full amount. But in case the code is rejected then there are 2 options:
• Either the developer does the changes by themselves and send the new code or
• ERPNext team makes the changes into the code and keep a fee for making the changes which could be anything as agreed.

The benefits of having a development in the main product from users' point of view are:

1. The code would be of good quality
2. the customisation is having the assurance of being supported later as well.

Now if you take our case, it would be always at the back of my mind that what if you people decide to make changes into the SMS thing someday and what if my customisations go bust. Honestly most of the times it is not about the investment into the customisation but about the dependency on that particular aspect of erpnext which would be the deciding factors for going for the customisation.

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[lxnow]

I haven't thought hard about the long-term stability of the customizations yet, but I agree with Aditya. That's another point for inclusion into the main code (besides opening up customizations to hosted accounts). 

An iteration of the bounty idea may work this way:

1. Requirement and bounty posted (or no $ attached yet at this point if developer bids)

2. Webnotes decides if requirement will go into main code or not

  a. YES - deal is made and work starts, with possible review by Webnotes at the end

  b. NO - deal can still be made but with the clear point that it will not go into main branch

Step 2 is key and is asking a little more from Webnotes team.  Which is why I stress that in order to pass step 2, the requirement is an additional feature that does not negatively impact other existing features or those planned by Webnotes.

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[Rushabh Mehta]

Here is what we can do.

Case I: As soon as an issue is opened, if the suggestion is not acceptable in the main project. We will close it right away.

Case II: If it is acceptable, and a developer does a bad job, then we will post why we cannot accept it. Every project has certain standards and have to be enforced. Thats why for a large feature, its best to discuss implementation strategy before implementation.

I think the developer is entitled payment only if it is finally accepted in the main repository.

Also, the user who is willing to pay *must* put an amount - if you are serious about your feature getting developed. What developers hate more than bad internet connection is doing sales. Putting an mount shows the seriousness of the requirement and value to the user. If this has to work, the amount must be decided by the user.

If you add a comment to any of the issues open with an amount, we will immediately tag it at "bounty!"

If there are 4-5 bounties open, I can post on some of the developer groups out there like the Python User Group etc. So that more users will also get more options for their features to be built.

best,

Rushabh

W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

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[Dimeji]

Great Rushabh, the only objection I have is the user having to put a price tag on it. Some of us don't have a clue on how to estimate development work and can really not be anywhere accurate if we were constrained to put a price tag

Rgds

---

From: Rushabh Mehta <rme...@gmail.com>

Sender: erpnext-u...@googlegroups.com

Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 15:05:44 +0530

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Subject: Re: [erpnext-dev] Re: [erpnext-user-forum] Webnotes Customization Shop

[Mitul Limbani]

I agree with Rushabh on pricing.

User puts price, depending upon how badly he wants the feature. If its too low, he will get no response, and i think thats perfectly democratic.

Mitul

[Rushabh Mehta]

Dimeji,

At the moment there are 180+ tickets open. The only way to prioritize for a developer is that if there is a bounty attached to it.

best,

Rushabh

W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

[lxnow]

I think the developer is entitled payment only if it is finally accepted in the main repository.

This needs to be made very, very clear to devs. Neither customer/user nor devs want it to end badly after a lot of work and time have been put into a customization.  

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2. Paste your code at http://pastebin.com or http://gist.github.com and send only the URL via email
3. For sending images, use http://imgur.com or other similar services. Do not send images as attachments. Links are good. Same goes for any file you are going to send.
 
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[Aditya Duggal]

Well guys I have tried my first shot at this suggestion and created this Issue here.

@Rushabh: Please let me know if it really defines the requirement properly or not.

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[Rushabh Mehta]

Yeah - will put it in the contributing guidelines page and will personally tell every developer at the time they accept.

Any developer who wants to accept, must publicly claim in the issue. We will add a label, bounty accepted.

W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

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[Rushabh Mehta]

Aditya - you need to put a number. Like I said there are 180+ issues open.

W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

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[Rushabh Mehta]

Sorry just saw you added the amount

Way to go leader!

W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

[lxnow]

Should there be a condition in this bounty program that it only covers feature requests and not bug fixes?

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[Rushabh Mehta]

Hopefully it won't come to that :) Bug fixes are usually our 1st priority!

W: https://erpnext.com
T: @rushabh_mehta

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[lxnow]

Noticed that this is now in bountysource. Only heard about this bountysource now, but I have made my first pledge. Hopefully the bounty idea will have teeth

[Rushabh Mehta]

Thanks Laurence,

Bounty source seems to be a good site. Lets hope we can attract some good developers!

best,

Rushabh