Some ideas about idempiere

[patben]

Hi,

Forgive me for my not perfect English, but I'm not a native speaker. I'm from Greece.

I think the most important thing is positioning. Before you develop a marketing plan, you have to consider, to whom idempiere is addressed. And what the idempiere is? Is the best open source erp? I' dont think best is something that you can say by yourself. Is the most user friendly "free" erp? No, odoo, is more user friendly but the open source version is striped down.

I 'think idempiere is the most completed and powerful open source erp.

Idempiere can't work out off the box, is not for very small companies. Is not for small retail stores. A small company or retail store, can use odoo out of the box. Toyota also use odoo.

We have to answer that questions

1. Why then someone to use Idempiere?
2. Do you want idempiere to can fit all sizes of companies? Or only medium and big?
3. We have to compete with sap or with odoo or with both?
   
4. Idempiere main "customer" is the end user, or a software house?

Then when you find the specific market you want. You have to consider. Can I compete in that market? Do i do something better or "cheaper" than competitors? If i have a reason in that market then i develop a marketing plan. If no i reconsider my market.

Best regards,

Patben

[Diego Ruiz]

Hi Patben, 

Thank you for your participation, you're right about what you say.

You can find the answers to most of those questions (if not all) in these slides. 

Short answer:

iDempiere is not a product and not for sale. Therefore, marketing here has no selling purposes but the main goal is rather increasing brand awareness to attract contributors to the project.

With that in mind, we do not compete directly through the marketing efforts against SAP, for example, as they are not open source and therefore they do not need to attract contributors (they can simply hire workforce). Our main competitors could be defined as the other business open source software solutions in the market, why would they contribute to iDempiere rather than any other project?

Consequently, the main target markets are developers and implementer companies (those who contribute back to the project and help the project grow and evolve).

Best Regards,

Diego Ruiz

[patben]

I see they presentation, very nice work.
I disagree that we must focus on developers. I think idempiere is a "product" if we not see it as product, someone will try to fork it and present it like a product. And then the community will distributed between forks. If idempiere marketed like a product and give focus to end user, then no one will have motive to fork a successful product-brand. If the product is successful developers will come to contribute. That is my opinion.

Best regards,
Patben

[Carlos Antonio Ruiz Gomez]

Thanks Patben, you can read also the minutes of the meeting yesterday,
we discussed that topic there.

What you are mentioning as a risk, is what we've been suggesting and
encouraging since the beginning.

We always have advised implementors to create a product, rebrand it with
your own name, if you want to play fair with the project then add
"powered by iDempiere" (but that's not mandatory).

We didn't arrive to this conclusion for nothing, this is based on what
made adempiere fail.

At this moment there are implementors that "fork" our core, rebrand it
and market their "product".  And we encourage that approach, just that
we advise these "forks" to keep very close to the core, if the fork
diverges too much then it will be a nightmare in future for you to
synchronize (just an advice, you're creating your problem if you diverge
too much and you must solve it).

In future we would like to see distros too - where iDempiere is a core,
and there will be distros that do all the work of merging/testing the
necessary plugins for verticals for example.

I think this is hard to understand for most of this community, as most
of us come from "commercial open source" (compiere, odoo, openbravo) and
the business model of those companies is totally different - they try to
create a product and have a network of paying "partners" that implement
their single-branded product, that's not our case, and not our goal.

So, we keep saying our focus is on implementors - of course end-user
needs must be taken into account, but that's not our market - what we
NEED to attract more is developers and implementors.

And now I put developers first because this is a software project - that
means code is the king - no developers, no code, no project, period.

But we think that for the business model of open source developers here,
implementors are 100% necessary.
Developers and implementors are necessary for each other (emphasizing ->
in our project)

So, two big targets identified: implementors and developers (there are
more that will be discussed in future) and we are going to review what
the project needs to attract new, and to keep the actual.

Regards,

Carlos Ruiz


El 14/11/19 a las 15:23, patben escribió:

[Eugene Barg]

Hi Carlos

Thank you for great conference in Lyon

regarding the topic of Patben - maybe the Community can have both pillars in place - target developers+implementers AND end user companies?

(1) Imagine that CTOs, CFOs , CEOs in the world just stop making decisions to implement an ERP projects powered by iDempiere. What I'm trying to say is that if iDempiere must have successful implementors that are generous towards iDempiere, then every successful and generous implementor must have a dozen end user companies behind it's back, with CTO, CEO, CFO or owners of these end user companies having decided to have THEIR erp, scm, crm being powered by iDempiere, with the HELP of a given implementor.

(2) Open source ERP projects must me more appealing to the end user companies than any other open source projects (DB f.i.) - because non-IT executives do not tend to get involved in choosing a DB for a company, they delegate this task to IT manager.

With ERP it is not the case and non-IT executives of an end user company (owner, CEO, CFO, COO) want to be involved in a process of choosing an ERP solution for their company and to have a decision power in it.

As non tech people they need a sense of reliability which they partly derive from

- how modern and live is the site of project

- how professional it looks in comparison to other ERP solutions for SMB

(3) In my experience, when non-IT executives of an end user company (owner, CEO, CFO, COO) browse for a possible ERP solution for their business - THEY FIRST COMPARE SYSTEMS (Projects), NOT VENDORS/IMPLEMENTOTRS - so the point for them to get interest in a given implementor of iDempiere COMES NEXT after their interest in a iDempiere as their possible ERP solution

(4) Please note (as an illustration to the point I'm trying to make) that there is a number of slogan suggestions in Community forum that have not imlementors and IT guys as a target segment but rather an END USER COMPANIES and their CEOs, CFOs, CTOs

- Your Perfect ERP,

- Enterprise software unchained,

- ERP built by the people for the people,

- Democratising and demystifying ERP,

- Take control of your business

- etc.

(5) So you can try to have both pillars in place

(A) making iDempiere attractive to implementors, developers

(B) making iDempiere attractive to end user companies

These (a) and (b) are not bound to contradict each other, I see them as mutually beneficial.

If you articulate benefits of (A) in clean, understandable, modern marketing language then in the eyes of end user company this will be seen as strong ties between iDempiere and it's implementors which is good for the end user company.

If you articulate (B) benefits of iDempiere to a prospect end user company then you (a) have just made end user company interested in iDempiere in the first place and (b) have backed your prospect implementor easing his persuasion efforts towards a prospect end user company. You just have killed two rabbits with one shot.

Thank you for the patience 

Best regards

Eugene

четверг, 14 ноября 2019 г., 17:47:39 UTC+3 пользователь Carlos Ruiz написал:

[Martin Schönbeck]

Hi Eugene,

(5) So you can try to have both pillars in place

(A) making iDempiere attractive to implementors, developers

(B) making iDempiere attractive to end user companies

These (a) and (b) are not bound to contradict each other, I see them as mutually beneficial.

If you articulate benefits of (A) in clean, understandable, modern marketing language then in the eyes of end user company this will be seen as strong ties between iDempiere and it's implementors which is good for the end user company.

If you articulate (B) benefits of iDempiere to a prospect end user company then you (a) have just made end user company interested in iDempiere in the first place and (b) have backed your prospect implementor easing his persuasion efforts towards a prospect end user company. You just have killed two rabbits with one shot.

I tend to (B). And I'll tell you what my reasons where to engage with iDempiere.

The first contact to ADempiere I had when looking for a replacement for our own accounting because I wasn't willing to add SEPA-functionality. But then there was software to change DTAUS-files to SEPA and other things were more important.

But I then had the idea not only to replace the accounting, but to use ourselves and implement for customers an ERP-system. We than did a research which open source system (that was my precondition) would fit our needs and hopefully the needs of our customers. I decided to take iDempiere for those reasons:

- no community version, always the full source available

- no scrammbled source (yes, there is 'open source' nobody will ever be able to understand)

- supported by a community and not connected to company

- reputation

For our customers (I think) most of this was secondary. The reasons for them (as far as I can see) were

- no lock in to us, so no problem if we go insolvent

- customizable, because complete source is present

- no license cost, especially no annual charges

- reputation

At the end of the day mainly the expectitions of our prospected customers led me to the decision for iDempiere. Because I want to convince customers to use iDempiere and _then_ will going to aid in implementing it. I'm not doing it, because I feel good, making good software (of course I do), but because I want to earn money for a living. And therefore first I have to convince end users.

Regards

Martin

[Eugene Barg]

Hi Martin

Thank you for sharing.

Yes, you are right in describing these benefits, both for implementors and end user companies

Personally, I also tend to B (I do not know if I'm biased in this since I'm an end user company myself)))
My chain of thought is that every dollar that comes to an implementor (that afterwards can be donated to the project  in a form of a dollar or a plugin) comes from some end user company

Best regards
Eugene

среда, 20 ноября 2019 г., 17:22:04 UTC+3 пользователь Martin Schönbeck написал:

[Eugene Barg]

in other words, Martin,

• our world is demand driven (not supply driven). It does not matter if you have a bunch of stuff that you consider great. It is crucial that there is a demand in place for this stuff. When there is a demand for the stuff that has not been created yet this stuff appears because of demand.
• once you have a demand for iDempiere ERP from end user companies then supply of developers will follow - either devlopers inside implementers' offices or in-house developers 

среда, 20 ноября 2019 г., 17:22:04 UTC+3 пользователь Martin Schönbeck написал:

Hi Eugene,

[Marco Marchiori]

Thanks Martin and Eugene for sharing your views
despite in the chat the views were diversified -and I respect them all- I tend to B too.
To say that marketing orientation is user-orientation does not imply that marketing is the only feasible approach: of course there will be other useful approaches and tools to run business and/or distribute and share software.

So I think that's good to be product-oriented, it's very good to be network oriented, and that all these approaches should live together with a sound marketing approach. 

Ciao

Marco

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[Diego Ruiz]

I would like to jump in again with some more clarifications.

Please read to this 5 parts article as a reference: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3451369/a-cure-for-unfair-competition-in-open-source.html

The conflict here lies first in seeing iDempiere as a product, I cannot stress this enough: iDempiere is NOT FOR SALE and it is NOT A PRODUCT.

iDempiere's predecessors, Compiere and ADempiere, tried that and we can see the results, we should learn from past mistakes. 

You cannot buy iDempiere, you can implement it, you can use it, you can adopt it, but you can't and will never be able to buy it. With that in mind, a "product-oriented" approach is counterintuitive and contradicting the whole nature of the project.

What is iDempiere really? iDempiere is an open-source software project driven by a community. Therefore, it exists, thrives and evolves mainly from contributions to the software made by developers and implementing companies (makers as defined in the article mentioned above).

To say that every contribution comes from an end-user company is not true. Many implementors solve end-user problems within their forks and the project never benefit from those (understandable because they need to satisfy their customers and sometimes those developments are not in line with the project). Sometimes, there are implementors that sponsor such developments, without the need of an end-user company (Thomas Bayen for example). Furthermore, I would argue that more than 50% of Carlos' contributions are coming from his willingness to contribute, nobody is paying him to be in charge of the releases, I do not believe that an end-user would take that burden alone.

Moreover, end-user companies, in my experience, contribute back little to the project, and this is normal and expected (Eugene's case is a special case, he is a self-implementor with a development team in his company, that's not the standard case and thinking that every company is like that is a mistake). An end-user company usually do not count with the expertise nor time necessary to contribute to such software projects, in the best-case scenario they contribute back by reporting bugs.

On the other hand, implementors can contribute back since the beginning, even when they have no customers yet (they need a stable product to go live and get customers). As red1 mentioned the other day on another thread, his three mantras are:

Information is free, people are not, contributors are priceless.

For what I've seen in this project, contributors live mostly from implementing companies, Carlos, Deepak, Heng Sin, Hiep, me, etc... We all have received support from one or more of the implementing companies such as: 

Trek Global, Cloudempiere, BX Service, Adaxa ... 

And those developers and contributors are the ones who keep the project moving forward.

Furthermore, not every contribution comes from an end-user need, not every contribution is sponsored. When I developed the Kanban, no company sponsored the development, no company "needed" it, I did it because the project was appealing to me as a developer, the project helped me to improve my development skills and I wanted to contribute back to it. And personally, I believe the contribution has been highly accepted, adopted and received. If that's the impact of one small developer, imagine the impact of attracting more and more ...

Finally, to think that every company that gets end-users, because the project made it easier for them to sell iDempiere, is going to contribute back is, at least, optimistic. 

How many companies do we know which implement iDempiere and have not contributed a single line of code, a dollar or a plugin to the project? (This are referred as Takers in the article) I've found quite a lot in my research. Therefore: 

• Is it fair to attract end-users for everyone, takers and makers, equally regardless of their contribution to the project? I think not
• Will the project grow if the customer base of those takers companies grows? I think not
• Should the project help the main makers to attract end-users for them? That can be discussed, I think yes but with specific conditions, which means iDempiere should not target end-users (it is not the target market), but it could create tools to help the selling task for the makers' companies (helping and attracting our target market).

Best Regards,

Diego Ruiz

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[Marco Marchiori]

Diego
I would avoid the term "conflict", I'd prefer "different views", I'm here to contribute with my skills and respect any other opinion.

The difference is not about idempiere, of course everyone knows the story, but about what marketing is about.

In my view developers and implementors are producers (who performs), while users are what in marketing are the users or the customers.

That does not imply value judgment or hierarchy.

Anyway I think an open source project should always ensure the 4 freedoms to anyone, with no condition, contributors or not

(e.g. I could contribute with content and not with code, or not contribute and so on).

In addition the fact that users add value is generally accepted in industry. 

Anyway couldn't  different views about marketing coexist in an open source project?

Marco

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[Diego Ruiz]

Thank you Marco, 

I don't want to be rude at any point, I am giving my opinion and respecting others'. I value your contribution and I agree that contributions come in many forms.

I chose the word conflict because in my opinion treating iDempiere as a product generates a conflict of interest.

I can tell you, my opinion, based on my research and most of it is backed up by literature:

In open-source projects, the producers and consumers coalesce into one group 'prosumers', those implementors that profit from the software (consumers) are the same ones contributing and making the software (producers). This is why commercial marketing approaches are not suitable, or can not be applied directly to projects with this nature, because the barriers between consumers and producers are blurred.

Here it is important to distinguish, iDempiere as an open-source software project and iDempiere as an ERP. As I said, iDempiere's consumers are not end-users (iDempiere as an OSS project).

---> Anyway I think an open-source project should always ensure the 4 freedoms to anyone, with no condition, contributors or not.

That's the value of iDempiere compared to its open-core competitors. It provides freedom to anyone and will always do, as long as it keeps its values.

End-users add value, no question about it, but the question is: what is more beneficial for the project? what makes the project grow? I strongly believe, the answer to those question is "contributors".

iDempiere has limited resources (expertise, fundings, time), then again: what is better for the project? To focus its limited resources on the target market that has a direct impact on the project's growth and evolution or to focus on several markets (very different) at the same time? Again, I strongly believe that the first step must be, to focus all resources in the target market that makes the project grow. 

An additional quote from the research: "Before implementing the branding strategy, its purpose must be explained to the community, to state clearly that the project will not become a product and will not be commercialized, conversely, more contributors will be attracted helping the project to reach its goals faster. If a marketing plan is done sloppily or too commercialised, it will be rejected by the target market it seeks."

What you find in failed marketing efforts in different OSS projects is that when the project start looking commercialised and/or as a product, the main developers, the community and contributors tend to leave that project, creating issues that might end up destroying the project.

Regards,

Diego Ruiz

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[Carlos Antonio Ruiz Gomez]

Hi, jumping in here just to mention some opinions trying to keep things on the rails:

* in today's meeting we spent long time with Eugene trying to figure out what he called end-user and I called self-implementor, it's very interesting and all meeting is already published.

I feel like some people is understanding like we pretend to not value end-users, far from that.

We checked similarities and differences and in the end I felt we're talking about the same, so, let's verify is not just a semantic thing.

* about mentioning the 4 freedoms, I think that's not applicable, the 4 freedoms of the GPL are about code.

The GPL license doesn't cope with the business models, or production models of software, or sustainability of projects.

Of course we honor GPL, that's guaranteed, but that doesn't mean that non-code things have the same four freedoms.

For example: our web page, or wiki is not subject to the four freedoms, not even these forums.

* I think the infoworld articles are enlightening also about the potential damage to the project from some non-contributors (takers)

* and last, to answer this question:

> Anyway couldn't  different views about marketing coexist in an open source project?

Yes, different views about marketing can coexist, but not all of them are acceptable.

example: adempiere point of view about marketing was not acceptable for me (because it implied deceiving the community)

Regards,

Carlos Ruiz

Am 20.11.19 um 23:28 schrieb Diego Ruiz:

[Eugene Barg]

Hi Diego and all

- I encourage everybody interested in the topic of Marketing to read articles that Diego suggests to read. I will do this myself. Everybody will benefit from better understanding of this topic

- yes, iDempiere is not for sale.

- yes, Diego you are right that you cannot expect every end user company be generous to the project. But is true about every flock in every area of life, the best and the most generous are not a majority. Some may argue that there is a historically stable fraction of more generous among any flock, regardless of an area of life

- but on the other hand if you have a big and growing number of end user companies willing to implement iDempiere with the help of iDempiere implementors (like Deepak, Norbert and others) or with the help of freelance developers then SOME FRACTION of those end user companies (probably, medium size with complicated business needs rather than small) can create a demand for specific functionalities and thus create a demand for developers' input to the project. The bigger the number of all end user companies --> the bigger the number of generous end user companies --> the smaller the donation per donor --> the easier it is for them to commit to donate --> the bigger number of donors for specific development

Take my sponsoring Deepaks' DMS plugin. When the topic came up and sponsors where looked for I stepped in as an end user company among others thinking: 'this plugin will be useful for me in the future, I better back it now; while this plugin matures in the hands of developers and end users it gets better; afterwards, at the point when I decide to use it myself this plugin will be in great condition'

If there were a sort of Kickstarter section on the web page of the iDempiere project where implementors or end user companies may post the functionalities they want (with Kickstarter-like proccess of linking developers and sponsors) maybe there were bigger number of sponsors to the DMS plugin, Deepak could invest more time in it and it could be in more completed form now.

Another example. I think I will in year 2020 need a new functionality - Recommendation personalization for customers. I expect this be done

(a) by means of AI

(b) or by means of Statistical methods

How can I as an end user company communicate this need to the community now if I have no in-house developers? In one place, visible for everybody and accessible and transparent for every developer? My point is that if end user companies will be excluded from their share of communication with the project this will not help developers...

Again, thank you all for your patience. I promise to read the articles thoroughly.

чт, 21 нояб. 2019 г. в 00:00, Diego Ruiz <ruizg...@gmail.com>:

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[Diego Ruiz]

Eugene, 

I understand your point, I think this discussion is becoming more a semantic problem.

I haven't mentioned at any point exclusion (if any of my wording gave that idea please forgive me and I want to clarify it). My opposition is strongly against marketing iDempiere as a product, that's it. I don't want iDempiere to be marketed as a product to end-user nor implementors.

If you read my messages thoughtfully, I express that end-users add value to the project, they are an important stakeholder for the project. Moreover, I never said that end-user companies will be excluded, in fact, that goes against everything the project and I believe, one of the project values is Inclusivity. 

--- How can I as an end user company communicate this need to the community now if I have no in-house developers? In one place, visible for everybody and accessible and transparent for every developer?

In the same way as up to now, everyone is free to use the forums and JIRA to communicate their needs, it is visible for the whole community including developers, none of that will change.

I am aware that contributions come in many forms, not only code, that's why I prefer to say "attract contributors" instead of "attract developers", donors are important, a documentation contributor would be extremely beneficial for the project, for example.

Maybe a problem is that we've been using only the word "implementor", that's just as a reference. If you read my slides, you will see that the target market is defined as: 

"Companies, that make a profit from services related to the software" -> this includes consultants, implementers, coaches ...

The top 3 sponsors from the project are Hideaki, Evgeny and Chuck. None of them are implementers, and they are extremely valuable for the project. 

However, what I try to emphasize is: we have to consider the scarcity of resources and focus. It is not optimal to target all segments at the same time, it would be a waste of limited resources. 

So my point is (I said it in my previous message): let's focus the existing resources (very limited) to target the most profitable target market for the project, which I strongly believe are "contributors" or "Makers". And if you see the project history, the largest share of contributions have come from those companies/entities mentioned in the target market.

That being said: I do not close the door to market end-users if the project feels like it is needed, later in the future, when a first marketing strategy to attract contributors is completed. But as a first step, we need to focus on the target market that has a direct impact on the project growth and evolution.

Best Regards,

Diego Ruiz

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[Marco Marchiori]

Dear Diego/Carlos

I really can't find where someone stated how iDempiere should be marketed, that iDempiere is a "product" (a comparison maybe) and so on.
I just shared some simple ideas about marketing after being invited to do so.
I am also puzzled to hear (from people I always admired and respected!) that some ideas are not "acceptable", are like adempiere's (?!) and would deceive the community(!!). So what?
Frankly I did non expect such an aggressive attitude for trivial marketing statements or simple -maybe stupid- points of view.
I have been  working for several open source projects (open core and community driven, good and bad, large and small) but never experienced something similar.
I enjoy debate, and think that an open discussion should respect different views, not assuming strange goals in others:
personally, my ends are to contribute to iDempiere -as an accountant/consultant- if I can, to use and let others use an OSERP, and, of course, to evaluate the actual level of freedom and the fairness and openness of the community involved in the project, in order not to waste my time and resources.
"Code" is not only technical, and freedom involves freedom of speech.

Ciao

Marco

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[Martin Schönbeck]

Hi Diego,

Am Donnerstag, 21. November 2019 12:37:59 UTC+1 schrieb Diego Ruiz:

However, what I try to emphasize is: we have to consider the scarcity of resources and focus. It is not optimal to target all segments at the same time, it would be a waste of limited resources. 

So my point is (I said it in my previous message): let's focus the existing resources (very limited) to target the most profitable target market for the project, which I strongly believe are "contributors" or "Makers". And if you see the project history, the largest share of contributions have come from those companies/entities mentioned in the target market.

Basically I agree to this point. The discrimating point then is to get implementors to be contributors. Not all implementors have realized that sharing their enhencements will pay back because of a better system, spread wider and therefore easier to get new customers. And I fear not all of them, even not most of them, will learn this. So we have get them in the tongs together with end users. And this is relativly simple at least for small implementor companies (as mine for example).

End users starting an ERP-project normally are going to be locked in to the vendor. This is annoying in the first place but can be critical if the vendor is a small company and leaves the market. At that point I (as a small company) can convince the end user that at any time he can take another iDempiere-vendor. So he is not locked to me. But therefore it's crucial that I share my enhancements (plugins for example) because only then another iDempiere-vendor really can take over. So the point to urge implementors to share is to convince end users that their implementors have to share. That's why I think we must address end users too in marketing.

[Diego Ruiz]

Marco, as I stated before, I never tried to be rude. You have freedom of speech, I have the freedom to not agree with you. But I enjoy the discussion and it is good to have a different point of view.

--I really can't find where someone stated how iDempiere should be marketed, that iDempiere is a "product" (a comparison maybe) and so on.

You can find that material here and here.

Martin, 

What you just say is extremely important and relevant. I think that's what these marketing efforts should focus at first.

1. Identify why are some companies not contributing to the project. What is stopping them?
2. To motivate takers to become makers and contribute to the project. 
3. To award those companies that contribute.
4. To take the necessary actions to ease the task of contributing. With tools such as: contribution guidelines (both core and plugins), documentation (technical and functional), publishing the project goals to align everyone to the same direction.
5. etc ...

That's also what I mean with my statement in a preiovus message:

• Should the project help the main makers to attract end-users for them? That can be discussed, I think yes but with specific conditions, which means iDempiere should not target end-users (it is not the target market), but it could create tools to help the selling task for the makers' companies (helping and attracting our target market).

If the project leads those end-users to Makers that contribute, this vendor lock-in that you mention will be less likely to happen.

Best regards,

Diego Ruiz

[Carlos Antonio Ruiz Gomez]

Marco, I see you took my answer as personal, I'm sorry about that, far from my intention to offend you or anybody in this community.

However, please understand me, I stand on my words, I want to draw clear limits about what is not acceptable for me in this project.

BUT please understand I'm not referring to you when I mention those borders.

So, let's see if I can rephrase or clarify this:

> * and last, to answer this question:

> > Anyway couldn't  different views about marketing coexist in an open source project?

> Yes, different views about marketing can coexist, but not all of them are acceptable.

> example: adempiere point of view about marketing was not acceptable for me (because it implied deceiving the community)

Yes, different views about marketing can coexist, but not all of them are acceptable.

I'm not saying that YOUR view about marketing expressed in this thread cannot coexist with other views.

But I want to establish clear limits about what is not acceptable (again, is not your case), some examples:

- I will not accept people asking to keep some bugs secret because publishing a bug damage their business (some people asked me that on adempiere when I was in charge there)

- I will not accept people asking to label something half-done as "complete" because otherwise they cannot sell (again, I was asked to do that in adempiere)

- I will not accept people complaining because somebody failed in an iDempiere implementation and then the brand became affected, and then it's affecting their businesses (that's why we encourage to brand your own distro or your own implementation services - powered by iDempiere)

See?  That is asking the technical department to deceive customers to improve the commercial side.

Maybe those practices can be seen good for the business in a commercial oriented project, but I consider they are not acceptable in our project.

I'm happy to say - I have never received any strange request on THIS PROJECT.

I'm sure Marco doesn't have such view or will make such proposals  - but I want to establish the limits for everybody to know what is not acceptable for me.

So, please Marco, my apologies if I worded so badly my message that led you to think it was a personal attack on you.

It was not.  Let's keep the discussion in a good level - all of us are learning here.

Regards,

Carlos Ruiz

Am 21.11.19 um 14:21 schrieb Marco Marchiori:

[Marco Marchiori]

Thanks Diego and Carlos for expliciting and clarifying the urgencies besides semantic and nominalistic disputes.
Diego I intended "different from what you stated" so really there's no point.
To avoid lock in sure is a priority, and of course if we have more active contributors we will face the problem in a better way, but anyway there could be lock-in, e.g. Odoo locks-in partners through versioning (although the project is open source and there's plenty of contributors around the world).
The examples Carlos made, then, show commercial distortions that appear to damage end users in addition to the project.
My respose (have mercy) could be that there's too little sound marketing, and the move towards marketing is correct.
One remedy to those problems was stated by Diego: avoid particular or local branding and a more strong community brand. That's perfect, everyone agrees with that.
Another is publish a lot of good quality content.
Another is to learn from the leaders and take the best (not the worst) from then.

Marco

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[Eugene Barg]

Hi everybody

If you are really interested in success of iDempiere project I ask you to read these short 5 Articles that Diego proposes https://www.infoworld.com/article/3451369/a-cure-for-unfair-competition-in-open-source.html

1. They are written by Drupal founder, a long term open source veteran
2. They are short and very articulate and clear in their messages
3. They are very helpful and insightful. (I'm in a middle of my reading and is very impressed)

BR

Eugene

четверг, 21 ноября 2019 г., 14:37:59 UTC+3 пользователь Diego Ruiz написал:

[Marco Marchiori]

Yes, I agree, completely.

At the same time what could be interesting to debate here is not the model (that's good) but the specific role of the marketing in that.
So if we state that, as Buytaert states, user is value

"Because the software is a public good (non-rivalrous), a software free-rider doesn’t exclude others from using the software. Hence, it’s better to have a person use your open source project than your competitor’s software."

then what should marketing do?

- increase users (like I said)

- "route customers to Makers (like he says)"

- increase makers

- route users to the project/community

(...)

Ciao

Marco 

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[patben]

Times change,

The CEO of our days is informed about existing technologies, and maybe is capable of programing himself. Every day a lot of start up companies grow up.

The model of Companies and Small Vendors that provide Idempiere is too traditional and old. My legacy paid erp, worked this way 8 years ago.

A Start up, for example is not going to pay a cent for software. Start up have coders that work free because they have a vision.

Start ups need an erp to be organized. They want an erp that can downloaded installed and customized quickly and "free".

They will go to ODOO. They will make some plugins they want and probably upload them to github.

Why lose them? Why make things to complicate? Why we give too much focus to just some words? Implementers end users makers etc. 

Its just meanings that in our days have lost their borders. If idempiere is a good piece of software developers will came to contribute, they are not need some special marketing.

What make a software good? The value that add to end user.

Why a developer to contribute to something that don't place the human, the user in first place? We don't talk about something technical that need extraordinary programming skills, like a new web server for example or a new database system.

Its a gui program the user see it use it, is not "invisible". The most important in my opinion is to inform everybody. That Idempiere works, it works good, and it easy to use without sacrifice its powerful background. We can't make anybody to contribute with slogans and words like freedom etc. Freedom is for politician marketing.

Actions speaks louder than words.

Best regrads,

Patben

[Diego Ruiz]

--Why a developer to contribute to something that don't place the human, the user in first place? We don't talk about something technical that need extraordinary programming skills, like a new web server for example or a new database system.

Throughout all my messages I have focused on the words "contributors" (contributors are humans), regardless of the nature of their contribution, also I have said this is a software project and it thrives and lives from developers (they are the key stakeholders), also humans, please do not twist my words into something I haven't said. People and contributors are the most important stakeholders in any open source software project.

---Its a gui program the user see it use it, is not "invisible". The most important in my opinion is to inform everybody. That Idempiere works, it works good, and it easy to use without sacrifice its powerful background. We can't make anybody to contribute with slogans and words like freedom etc. Freedom is for politician marketing.

Please read my messages, there's a difference between iDempiere as an ERP software and iDempiere as a community open source software, the goal of this marketing committee is to attract contributors to this community, which definitely will benefit the software. 

If you feel that words like freedom do not motivate people to contribute, I respect it but strongly disagree, it is my main motivation to contribute (and according to many statistics and literature is not only mine), to develop for a company that contributes to OSS and not go to work in a proprietary software house, it is also one of my main motivations to use Linux, telegram, LibreOffice, VLC ....

Best regards,

Diego Ruiz

[Carlos Antonio Ruiz Gomez]

Effectively the article says:

> "Because the software is a public good (non-rivalrous), a software free-rider doesn’t exclude others from using the software. Hence, it’s better to have a person use your open source project than your competitor’s software."

But that statement is incomplete if we don't add the next paragraph:

> However, when the success of an open source project depends largely on one or more corporate sponsors, the open source community should not forget or ignore that customers are a common good. Because a customer can’t be shared among companies, it matters a great deal for the open source project where that customer ends up. When the customer signs up with a Maker, we know that a certain percentage of the revenue associated with that customer will be invested back into the open source project. When a customer signs up with a customer free-rider or Taker, the project doesn’t stand to benefit. In other words, open source communities should find ways to route customers to Makers.

I think that's the most important part, as Takers are very bad for the project.

Regards,

Carlos Ruiz

Am 22.11.19 um 11:21 schrieb Marco Marchiori:

[Eugene Barg]

Hi all

 

1. I suggest here my vision for the iDempiere project marketing (and yes, governance), as a trained economist and sociologist (degree with honors) and experienced manager, with all respect and openly

 

2. ALL THAT IDEMPIERE PROJECT NEED TO DO at this point to be successful is clearly stated in these 5 short and condensed articles by Drupal founder that Diego proposed and for me this path is clear as a day

 

3. Here is the sequence of steps:
1. MONITOR AND
1. REWARD MAKERS
2. SANCTION TAKERS
2. DO EVERYTHIG YOU CAN TO GROW NUMBER OF IDEMPIERE IMPLEMENTATIONS WORLDWIDE (even encouraging software free-riders)
3. DEVELOP THE PROJECT TECHNICALLY AND FUNCTIONALLY

 

4. Does monitoring, rewarding and sanctioning are really inevitable in order to succeed? Yes. From article : 'There are three models for scaling and sustaining open source projects… All three models aim to reduce coordination failures, but require open source communities to embrace forms of monitoring, rewards, and sanctions. While this thinking is controversial, it is supported by decades of research in adjacent fields…Large open source projects should find ways to balance Makers and Takers or the open source project risks not innovating enough under the weight of Takers '

 

5. Does Takers are Takers because they inherently evil? Are those companies who implement iDempiere to their clients with no or too little contributing to the project ('shadow implementers') have specifically bad attitude to the project? No. Many of them are Takers because:

 

1. There is no monitoring, rewarding and sanctioning in place
2. They are rational creatures. Why is this so? From article: "unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interest…Members are disincentivized from contributing when other members can’t be excluded from the benefits. It is individually rational for a group’s members to free-ride on the contributions of others'

 

6. How to reward and sanction then?
1. Invent benefits and
2. Clearly state the Rules/criteria for providing benefits/excluding from benefits.  F.i. add reputation points (as Drupal does) for:
1. Obligatory using 'Powered by iDempiere' motto under the ERP Brand. (It comes as surprise but even some successful implementers of iDempiere who show up at the conferences have little to no mention of iDempiere on their sites)
2. Contributing plugins or bug fixes
3. Creating articles and other content for  idempiere.org
4. For organizing a conference
5. Much more
3. Communicate these Rules/criteria to Makers, Takers and software free-riders alike as widely and transparenly
4. Act according to these rules
5. Reassess rules and criteria as necessary

 

7. What this benefits could be? (Again I come to the topic of a proper website for the project - you just can not have success in marketing in modern world without a proper site and proper content, sorry)
1. Capitalize on your web site idempiere.org
1. Name your Makers (implementers, developers) and provide their profiles, with links to their sites, put their success stories and many more. Make them proud they are listed there. The more contributing the Maker, the more space he gets. This also will make idempiere.org more search engines friendly.
2. Invite Takers to become Makers according to predefined and transparent Rules/criteria. Make this invitation through your site and through direct mailing/calling to them (why not). Provide them their share of presence in  idempiere.org once they meet the criteria
2. Make idempiere.org modern looking and full of relevant content about ERP, open source enterprise software in general. Make Takers want to have their presence in  idempiere.org
1. It is still #1 in search for 'iDempiere'
2. but it lags way behind oddo, erpnext, erp5, metafresh, dolibarr and others in search results for 'open source ERP'  - probably because it has little content and little activity. Content is king nowadays in improving search results
3. Free-ride on efforts done by others in regard to modern looking site with relevant content - Odoo, Acumatica, Drupal and others
3. Capitalize on your conferences
4. Much more, as Community find fit

 

8. DO EVERYTHIG YOU CAN TO GROW NUMBER OF IDEMPIERE IMPLEMENTATIONS WORLDWIDE. PROMOTE FREE-RIDING. Why to invest efforts in this?
1. Read article: 'All open source communities should encourage software free-riders. Because the software is a public good (non-rivalrous), a software free-rider doesn’t exclude others from using the software. Hence, it’s better to have a person use your open source project than your competitor’s software. Furthermore, a software free-rider makes it more likely that other people will use your open source project (by word of mouth or otherwise). When some portion of those other users contribute back, the open source project benefits. Software free-riders can have positive network effects on a project.'
2. With help of visually appealing and relevant site idempiere.org
1. make CEOs, CTOs, CFOs of end user companies want their ERP+CRM+SCM package be powered by iDempiere
2. Make enterprise software implementers want to have more customers for whom they implement and maintain iDempiere
9. DEVELOP THE PROJECT TECHNICALLY AND FUNCTIONALLY. And show this as an activity and content in idempiere.org 

Best regards,

Eugene

пятница, 22 ноября 2019 г., 16:45:27 UTC+3 пользователь Carlos Ruiz написал:

[Eugene Barg]

1. Read article: All open source communities should encourage software free-riders. Because the software is a public good (non-rivalrous), a software free-rider doesn’t exclude others from using the software. Hence, it’s better to have a person use your open source project than your competitor’s software. Furthermore, a software free-rider makes it more likely that other people will use your open source project (by word of mouth or otherwise). When some portion of those other users contribute back, the open source project benefits. Software free-riders can have positive network effects on a project.

1. With help of visually appealing and relevant site idempiere.org
1. make CEOs, CTOs, CFOs of end user companies want their ERP+CRM+SCM package be powered by iDempiere
2. Make enterprise software implementers want to have more customers for whom they implement and maintain iDempiere

[Martin Schönbeck]

Hi Eugene,

Am Samstag, 23. November 2019 08:40:31 UTC+1 schrieb Eugene Barg:

 

5. Does Takers are Takers because they inherently evil? Are those companies who implement iDempiere to their clients with no or too little contributing to the project ('shadow implementers') have specifically bad attitude to the project? No. Many of them are Takers because:

 

1. There is no monitoring, rewarding and sanctioning in place
2. They are rational creatures. Why is this so? From article: "unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interest…Members are disincentivized from contributing when other members can’t be excluded from the benefits. It is individually rational for a group’s members to free-ride on the contributions of others'

c. Even if they are willing to contribute they have to get the experience to be able to contribute. 

I'm with you for the rest, but it's easier said than done.

Regards

Martin

 

[Eugene Barg]

Hi Martin

You say that it easier to propose plans instead of performing actions and getting results, though you tend to agree with the plans.

But isn't this true in regard to any domain of life, any human endeavour?

And what is the result of not making efforts? See, the result will come anyway, with or without efforts done. Just in absence of efforts the result in any domain is stagnation at best.

In the case of iDempiere project there are good news - the community of the project doesn't have to invent things out of a thin air.

 Because a lot of people have been in these shoes and are willing to share their insights - like those smart articles brought to our attention by Diego, which I see in many regards as a blueprint for  our proper actions in the near future

BR

Eugene

суббота, 23 ноября 2019 г. пользователь Martin Schönbeck <ms...@schoenbeck.de> написал:

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[Martin Schönbeck]

Hi Eugene,

Am Samstag, 23. November 2019 16:50:49 UTC+1 schrieb Eugene Barg:

Hi Martin

You say that it easier to propose plans instead of performing actions and getting results, though you tend to agree with the plans.

But isn't this true in regard to any domain of life, any human endeavour?

And what is the result of not making efforts?

I no way I wanted to encourage doing nothing.

In the case of iDempiere project there are good news - the community of the project doesn't have to invent things out of a thin air.

 Because a lot of people have been in these shoes and are willing to share their insights - like those smart articles brought to our attention by Diego, which I see in many regards as a blueprint for  our proper actions in the near future

I think his evaluation can not be taken 1:1 for iDempiere. The market of CMS is nearly saturated, only a few websites are running without. And the majority of CMS is open source. This is completely different for ERP-Systems. The market is by far not saturated and open source systems are a minority. So for us the problem to get end user to the makers is by far more a problem to get end user at all than that of a limited resource.

Regards

Martin

[Eugene Barg]

" I think his evaluation can not be taken 1:1 for iDempiere.' 

-->> the author made it clear that he was was generalizing about any open source project, partly based on his own experience of founding and sustaining a globally successful OS project and partly based on research. So I would not take his vision as CMS oriented

'This is completely different for ERP-Systems. The market is by far not saturated and open source systems are a minority. So for us the problem to get end user to the makers is by far more a problem to get end user at all than that of a limited resource.' 

-->> 

. Once I observed a list of 200 ERP solutions available in the USA. This list must have been bigger than the list of CMSs in the USA. So I would call ERP market fragmented but in the same time quite competitive and thus a limited resource in the end of the day. 

. iDempiere as a enterprise software platform face competition not only from open source rivals but from all other ERPs as well. End user companies and implementors of ERP projects often consider commercial ERPs because they are unaware of OS ERP benefits or have doubts. Both reasons must be addressed in the end of the day.

. Always better to assume that rivelry exists than otherwise)))

Best regards

Eugene

суббота, 23 ноября 2019 г. пользователь Martin Schönbeck <ms...@schoenbeck.de> написал:

Hi Eugene,

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