Now a first of its kind Masters Programme in Asia e-University

Open Source ERP

How a web based community made Free ERP viable worldwide

REDHUAN D. OON
Leader of The ADempiere ERP Community

Module 1
Building An Online
Community

Introduction
The Web is still recent been popularly heard in Malaysia only around 1996 and during that time hardly many
users could get onto it as the access method was dialup to a land line phone number. Also the applications to use
on the web were still crude such as Eudora for email, Netscape Navigator browser for viewing web-pages and
Yahoo! for searching information.
Needless to say, the information returned from the searches was still little. The pictures presented in most webpages were quite simple and small or else they took a long time to download. Sound or movie files were
unheard of those days. You can say that the mid 90s are truly the cave-age of the Web! The 80s will be
considered prehistoric times!
Today about 10 years or so on, we have seemed to get past difficult dial-up as we mostly get onto the web via
DSL broadband that is always online (something that is a miracle when I first hear of it comparing with the faxsounding dial-up), The web-pages always appear almost instantly, and movies now play like I am at a cinema.
In the late 90s and early 00s, the dotcom bubble happened where too many dotcoms sprung up to copycat the
Nasdaq successes of Yahoo!, Netscape, eBay, Amazon and Hotmail (which wasnt listed in Nasdaq but got
bought over by Microsoft for USD400 million!)
The Web brought about not only such storms in the business world but irreversible behaviour and trends for the
people that could get online and particularly for new generations who are born in the 90s onwards. For they
wont know a time before the Web. Unlike many of us reading this!
So what is the Web actually? Is it just an inter-connected mass of computers with cheap harddisks and lots of
people exchanging information that ranges from uselss junk to long running movies?
Is it the new medium that all business will one day run on? Is it going to replace many of todays jobs and also
know-hows? Or know-whos?
There is a saying that internet time has replaced world time where 1 month in the Internet is the same as 1 year
in earth time! If there is progress on the Web which is too much and too fast and too furious, how will the
human beings with unevolved learning and social capacity get to cope or keep up?
We cannot finish our cup of tea in 1 quarter the time we used to. Even if we can, we mostly likely wont want
to. We prefer to hug a real person and spend more time with him or her, and in real life, rather than Second Life.
Even before we can finish thinking about this, the Web has moved further ahead of us. We may never catch up.
This module touches on such explosive aspects of the web, its culture and influence on the ADempiere project
that grows largely out of a global community that exist mostly on the web. As an ERP software project, it has
issues and challenges and it is interesting how it will face the future perpetually open and free.

Chapter1
Power of the Web
The Internet Is The Computer. Such a phrase was circulated by a global IT entity some time ago during the
beginning of the web era.
Been interconnected into a large mass, peer-to-peer prosuming has created a sum total larger than its individual
members and became the new economy.
The large significance is that when you are on a PC today in any of the major cities or suburbs, you most likely
are able to get connected online to the World Wide Web, and thus it will seem that you have the whole web at
your disposal.
With the advent of more powerful and wider coverage broadband facilities, you can almost be online most of
the time at any place.
You would also have most of your virtual assets and resources such as email, contacts, database and most used
information stored entirely on the web.
This fact has momentous impact to your life and the way you work. At least it carries great potential.

Who Benefits?
Of course, you may say everyone benefits. Now you can just work from home or just get online anywhere at
anytime to get your email or correspondence from friends or colleagues.
However in the Web Economy, it is not just about consuming the information or been mere users.
Those who produce information or other forms of info-products that the rest consume stands to earn much
more.
In fact many billionaires are made by just been the first to put out certain utilities or info-products before
anyone else does. Good examples are Hotmail, Yahoo! and e-Bay.
For the world of Open Source particularly it is of great importance and potential. Today you can go and
download the source-codes and project files or information related to an Open Source project easily.
This is because most Open Source or in fact all Open Source projects been free and readily available are also by
definition downloadable via any internet connection.
When we began to understand this Web Economy, we shall see that the cost of distributing such software and
products has become utterly negligible or non-existent.
The cost of replicating a copy of electronic product of which we can call any software today is thus zero.

Impact To Others
For those who do not use this new model of distributing their software for example, they may stand to lose out.
At least they have to change their ways of doing business with their software.
Proprietary Software such as Microsoft do use the web extensively but they still impose certain conditions that
may negate the advantage the Web provides by been totally connected.
Proprietary concerns will impose restrictions such as non-disclosure or non-distributability of paid software.
Thus for Open Source Software that is free and available and wants to be downloaded and distributed to a mass
market quickly, the interconnected web is a quantum leap to their project or business model.
But for conventional businesses, having everything in the same room may not be ideal or desirable. You can say
that before the Internet, humans pay alot to go faster. With the Internet, humans pay to slow others down or stop
others from hacking into their system, or gaining unauthorised access.
Conventional businesses also wants people to pay for getting anything faster than before. But with the web,
things are at light speeds. Therefore those businesses may not be able to make money in the same way or have
to find a new way to make money.
For our ADempiere project (see Do You Know That below), its to our greatest advantage to have all the
software, its tools and assets accessible by the whole community without restriction. As an open source project,
we generate value when more developers can see our codes and share its bug fixes and know-how.
Having the web, removes any costs that will outherwise have made it too expensive to share in such a free and
open fashion. For example we dont have to waste time travelling and meeting at set times when the web allows
remote and asynchronous meetings.

Chat-Rooms & Forums

The screenshot above is from a chatroom where members of the ADempiere project can
converse with each other and keep track of the project progress in real-time.

The chat-room gives the appearance for those involved as if they are in a single room at
the same time.

The chat-room conversation is stored in a log file in each participants own computer so
that they can refer to it if they were away during the conversation.

However such conversations are not threaded and will be published as a single long
thread. Whereas forums can allow multiple threads according to topics. But forums does
not push back feedback in real-time as seen above.

However forums are important in organising discussions and managing time because
you do not need to be in the room all the time and you can check back forum posts via
email trackers. (more about this in later topics)

Still some participants prefer to be in a chat-room as they feel more comfortable face-toface with other people rather than reading a maillist where the other people seem
absent.

Did You Know That?

Before I wrote this course, I managed to become famous by contributing tutorials online
free of charge? You can see the forums in my website http://red1.org/ . From the
guestbook there you see many users from all over the world gave me kudos for what I
did mostly from my farm home in Kuang, 25 km from Kuala Lumpur that is surrounded
by rubber plantations and monkeys! The difference is that I have a broadband line. That
started in June, 2003.

In September, 2006, the worldwide community that uses Compiere, the pioneering firstclass ERP Software that went open source had a discussion in red1.org forum and
together we forked into a new project called ADempiere. It is now top-ranked and is
growing by leaps and bounds, all thanks to individuals strewn all over the globe, and
mostly worked like me right from a home or office base connected to the web.

I have done projects negotiated online as far as New York and Bonn, having been paid
in US Dollars and Euros without even leaving my farm home.

Essay Test

If Open Source Software is distributed free over the web, why does it has economic
significance?

Since Malaysia has also easy and cheap web access, why arent there many others
here who became rich and famous as those who created Hotmail, Google or YouTube?

1.1 Concepts And Tools

Today almost everyone you know visited websites. You may be like countless typical humans today having a
blogspot or facebook or a plain website of your own, with your own content and interests.
You most likely must have made new friends via the web through chat rooms and even those from places you
most likely will not visit or even see them in physical form.
Even so, your experience with this new phenomena may be as rich if not made richer and more vast than you
could have hope for before the coming of the web.
You most likely have shared photos, video clips and even speak to each other across thousands of miles. On top
of that, it may not have cost you beyond the cost of internet broadband access, which is only about USD20 per
month for a common home in Malaysia.
All this is was not possible before the web.

Economic Impact
The 'Internet Changes Everything' is another phrase circulated by another global IT entity some time ago during
the beginning of the web era.
It so happens that most of our modern work today is digitisable in nature and thus managed in an electronic
form and through such medium.
Thus files of documents, codes, formulas, certification, financial info, passwords, scans, pictures, voice, movies,
and replicas can exist totally as digital info that is stored, transmitted and processed in the web environment.
This means that one can move complete economies into the web medium. We have seen that happening with the
news media, entertainment industry, and other forms of seeming brick and mortar ones such as books, property,
trading and food.
Even though many goods are physical in nature or at source, their information is not.

Displaced by Information
In fact the informational value of a physical item is much more higher than its physical counterpart in certain
instances completely displaced the item itself.
For instance say you have a car you want to buy. Correct info about it can save you money as well as the factory
producing it. It need not have a warehouse to store the car if it knows who is buying and when it is expected.
This concept is now known as Just In Time or JIT. If there are no orders for a certain car, then that car need not
even exist!
The nature of the web can and has caused great chaos and disruption to businesses and even the economy.
For example Amazon.com became a serious threat to the physical version of established businesses such as
Barnes and Nobles.
Google when it went public did so via the web and not through the usual Wall Street brokers, and when it did so
with a big bang, completely rewrite the way business can be done from then on.
Wikipedia is another example of a virtual encyclopedia that uses the web to grow exponentially until it is now
more readily accessed to than the Britannica.

Information Wants To Be Free

A new saying began to emerge in which since information is something that can be captured, stored, converted,
distributed and consumed quite freely via the web, it can be made free. Since almost everyone has almost equal
access to the web which in many places are freely available and at a low cost, chances are such information will
become free. If you do not make a certain information public, someone else will do that before you.
Open source by definition means opening up the sourcecode of a software to be seen and downloadeable by
anyone without restriction. Sourcecode itself is still raw and crude information because not everyone understand
how to code. For example not everyone, in fact most people do not know how to read the Java code that
ADempiere is written in.
For Wikipedia, many people would know how to read and write in English and thus participate in the thousands
in the Wikipedia project. But for ADempiere we see much less eager participation. This constraint is dependant
on the know-how and expertise that you have. It is part of the cost of ownership covered in a later chapter. But
again, lots of information on how to understand ADempiere can and has been made free. It is a matter of time
for more and more to get onboard.

Think About It

The new generation born in the 90s grow up with the Web and may think life without it
is backward and strange.

The social freedom brought by the web may make us a global generation with a global
consciousness that blurs the lines of national and cultural differences.

Now Everyone is Online

You name it. CNN, politicians, filmstars, your local government, your neighbourhood committee. Even your
cat.
Been online creates on its own a virtual huge community but a real community nevertheless.
It is now up to the businesses that operates outside it to adapt and transfer their business process onto the web so
that the virtual community can make use of it and pays for it where needed.
This has made many new businesses very rich and put out many old businesses out of business.
But to be successful online encounters new knowledge about how and what determines its outcome.
Whenever something this new and this big emerges, it also draw up new rules or re-examines the old rules.
It also raised controversy and debate as to what really change or did not change.
Many are easily taken up by the fad and wave and believed that it can change everything that the web touches.
Many have made bets and lost when they realised that not everything changes as they think it should. Or at least
not in the exact fashion or timing.
Some of their assumptions of change only occurs much later or in an entirely interesting new way.

Digital Divide
In the real world there is a gap between the Haves and Have-Nots. In the digital world there is a new gap
between the Knows and Know-Nots.
This digital divide still reflects a bias in favour of the west and developed nations versus the emerging
economies. So what really changed?
Poorer nations are still consumers, whereas richer nations are the chief producers of information, content and
applications.
The issue is not just having web access. It is still a passive 3rd world condition if you can get on the net but not
producing anything that can create wealth for yourself.
Open Source can give you a chance to change that.

Quote

Alvin Toffler regards new wealth as been created from nowhere (cyberspace) and noted
that its done through prosuming.

Discussion

Who is the IT entity that coined such a slogan and why?

What has changed and what has not?

How does it change the software industry?

How are emerging economies using the web to become info-producers and thriving on
it?

This course is an example of prosuming where the students help create this course as
it goes along. Discuss what advantages this novelty has over conventional courses. Do
you agree with such a concept for yourself as a student?

Did You Know That?

Malaysia was the first to implement the concept of Multi-media Super Corridor (MSC)
with 7 Flagship Applications that were unprecedented in 1996. Some of those daring
experiments faced daunting challenges.

Dr. Lester Thurow described the Web as no quantum leap but merely a telegraph line
with pictures. He only consider the jump from the pony express to the telegraph as a
true quantum leap for human progress.

Essay Test

When everyone in the world has equal access to the web, who shall benefit the most
and how?

In what ways can a country take advantage of the web for improving its economy?

Since everything on the web came from somewhere else, does the web create anything
new on its own?

Wiki

Wiki is a technology that allows users to publish content freely and independently
without going through an editor.

They become their own editors and help edit other publishers content. We can call this
peer control or self-organising.

As you can see in the ADempiere wiki page below (http://adempiere.com/wiki) there are
lots of content done by members from all over the world.

This content is constantly growing and edited. At times the content is crude but other
members will log in to prune them.

You have to register first and provide a nickname and your email ID before you can edit
anything.

You can learn about editing a wiki from the Help link on the left panel of the screen.

Wiki Recent Changes

When you go to ADempiere wiki RecentChanges link you will find constant changes
made by any member to its content. The more community there is, the more quality
content is expected.

SourceForge

SourceForge.net provides free online facilities for open source projects to register
themselves and use its tools for online collaboration among its project members.

The ADempiere community register its project name on 9th September, 2006 and
started work right away storing up its sourcecode and making forum discussions.

The team uses the trackers to organise the reporting of changes and bugs.

A highly powerful tool is the SVN (SubVersion) for synchronising every code
committers work, tagging and showing each code change for easy reference and
reverting if it is a mistake.

Such tools allow the community at large to interact in highly technical fashion and at
high speeds of development.

The ADempiere Hall of Fame

Among the ADempiere projects long hierarchy of notable contributors are
(a) Carlos Ruiz (growing company in Colombia)
(b) Low Heng Sin (growing company in Malaysia)
(c) Teo Sarca (strong and growing Archipac team, Romania)
(d) Victor Perez (big e-Evoluton team, based in Mexico with presence in 4 other latin
american countries)
(e) Idalica (mid-size company in few USA locations headquartered in California)
(f) ADempiere Deutschland e.V (not-for-profit grouping of growing number of strong
german-based companies)
(g) Trifon Trifonov (Bulgaria but traveled all over for freelance contracts)
(h) Adaxa (Australian company with strong accounting expertise)
(i) Colin Rooney (Ireland, who has widely served in Europe)
(j) Armen Rizal (strongly based in Jakarta, Indonesia with presence in Singapore)
(k) Michael Judd, (London based accountant who has technical know-how)
(l) Paul Bowden (freelance developer based in Australia)
(m) Karsten Thiemann (Berlin, who contributed the first ever version migrating solution)
(n) Kai Schaeffer (user company who hosted the first ever ADempiere conference)
(o) Stefan Kuthan (Austria, contributed the KPI dashboard enhancement)
(p) OpenXpertya (Spanish company contributed the Java POS enhancement)
(q) Mario Calderon (El Salvador, ex-SAP expert who speaks our 3 main languages)
(r) Norbert Wessel (Bonn, who promotes ADempiere at conferences)
(s) Peter de Zutter (Belgium, who setup our irc chatroom and wiki site)
(t) ... the list goes on, and I would missed out their names, including mine! :-)
(u) ... your name can be next. Just keep close by.

Important Trackers

Forums/TRACKERS

Definition

Open Discussion

Where most people go to for general stuff. Not a good place to post
messages as it will get drowned and difficult to search in future.

Functional - ERP

More specific to ERP topics

Functional - Financials

Specific to Financial Questions

Functional - Manufacturing

Specific to Manufacturing Questions

Bazaar Projects

Specific to Project Proposals or Project Work

Business & Marketing

Specific to related Business and Marketing effort or activity

Help

For requesting help particularly by newbies

BUGS

For registering bugs and keeping track of progress or dicsussion on

them

CONTRIBUTIONS

For submitting contributed code or materials

FEATURE REQUESTS

For making requests on new or extending features

SUPPORT REQUESTS

For submitting issues that needs support

PATCHES

For submitting modified codes indirectly to trunk

Did You Know That?

Communicating via email or forums can be ineffective if the content is emotional or

personal. To be sure how best to use email effectively refer to advice from the web on
email etiquette. Here is a general guide from Eric Raymond: http://catb.org/%7Eesr/
faqs/smart-questions.html

It is best to communicate via open forums for FOSS Projects? Communicating via
email is considered private and may be chargeable for taking up someones time.
Please read also http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/Etiquette

Email Box View of Trackers

Tracking from the email box can be an easy and convenient way of organising open
source project work.
Below you can see all the trackers or logs are monitored and sent into my email account
so that i can view through each of them.
If there is any that are interesting ones, I can click on its link provided to go and view the
forum or thread and reply back there.
To receive such emails, you have to go and click on the maillist facility at http://www.sf.net/
projects/adempiere.

Sample Email from Tracker

(Try clicking on the http link below)
Bugs item #2526697, was opened at 2009-01-21 13:34
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by globalqss
You can respond by visiting:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=879332&aid=2526697&group_id=176962
Please note that this message will contain a full copy of the comment thread,
including the initial issue submission, for this request, not just the latest update.
Category: Product
Group: Core
> >Status: Pending
> >Resolution: Fixed
Priority: 9
Private: No
Submitted By: Carlos Ruiz (globalqss)
Assigned to: Carlos Ruiz (globalqss)
Summary: Product Substitute and Related tabs broken
Initial Comment:
In Product window the Substitute and Related tabs are wrongly defined - the tables don't have properly defined in
dictionary the multi-column parent key.
This was discovered thanks to the report of Lajos Joo (joolui)
https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=2851999&forum_id=610546
https://sourceforge.net/tracker2/?func=detail&atid=879333&aid=2524002&group_id=176962
Regards,
Carlos Ruiz - globalqss
http://globalqss.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------> >Comment By: Carlos Ruiz (globalqss)
Date: 2009-01-21 13:38
Message:
Committed revision 8143
http://adempiere.svn.sourceforge.net/adempiere/?rev=8143&view=rev
Regards,
Carlos Ruiz

---------------------------------------------------------------------You can respond by visiting:

https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=879332&aid=2526697&group_id=176962

SourceForge Forums

In SourceForge project, we can organise ourselves any number or type of forums.

Below are a listing of the forums we have defined for any possible subject for members
to raise topics and interact on.

Bazaar Open Discussion (7694 msgs)

Open Issues, General Matters
Bazaar Projects (793 msgs)
Proposed Projects & Contributions
Business & Marketing (457 msgs)
A forum to discuss marketing ideas and projects
Community Process (837 msgs)
ACP (Adempiere Community Process)
Content & Documentation (388 msgs)
About content or documentation or website
Developers (8019 msgs)
Development Work, Issues & Bugs
Functional-ERP (1465 msgs)
ERP, Inventory, Manufacturing
Functional-Financials (1019 msgs)
Finance & Accounting
Functional-Human Resource (59 msgs)
HR / Payroll / Personnel Modules
Functional-Manufacturing (579 msgs)
Shopfloor / Manufacturing Modules
Functional-Web-based Modules (105 msgs)
CRM & Requests Modules, Web UI, Webstore

Language-Filipino (37 msgs)

Philippines Localization Project
Language-Finnish (29 msgs)
Finnish speaking forum
Language-French (137 msgs)
French Speaking Forum
Language-German (363 msgs)
German Speaking Forum
Language-Greek (3 msgs)
Greek Speaking Forum
Language-Hebrew (1 msgs)
Hebrew Speaking Forum
Language-Hungarian (24 msgs)
Hungarian Speaking Forum
Language-Italian (103 msgs)
Italian speaking forum
Language-Japanese (38 msgs)
Japanese Speaking Users
Language-Nusantara (107 msgs)
Malay-Indonesian Speaking Forum
Language-Portuguese (230 msgs)
Portuguese Speaking Forum
Language-Romanian (1 msgs)

Help (2270 msgs)

For newbies, help is often faster here!

Language-Russian (61 msgs)

Russian Speaking Forum

Language-Arabic (22 msgs)

Arabic Speaking Forum

Language-Serbian (1 msgs)
Forum for Serbian Localization and
Translation

Language-Bosanski (11 msgs)

Language-Bulgarian (43 msgs)
Bulgarian Speaking Forum
Language-Chinese (116 msgs)
Chinese Speaking Forum
Language-Farsi (7 msgs)
Persian/Farsi Speaking Forum

Language-Spanish (1519 msgs)

Spanish Speaking Forum
Language-Thai-Siamese (9 msgs)
Siamese / Thai Speaking Forum
Language-Turkish (3 msgs)

History Of ADempiere

We can read in further detail here http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/

History_of_ADempiere

The email that started it all:

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 22:00:54 -0500
Email sent to: trifonnt at yahoo dot com, mar9000 at gmail dot com, lombardo at mayking
dot com, red1 at red1 dot org, robeklein at gmail dot com, zpshen at gmail dot com, carlos dot
ruiz at globalqss dot com, alejandro dot falcone at gmail dot com, fernando dot jimenez at eevolution dot com dot mx, miguel dot jimenez at e-evolution dot com dot mx, oscar dot
gomez at e-evolution dot com dot mx, lancona at 4layer dot it, mquezada at bodevidrio dot
com, ramiro dot vergara at o"consulting dot com

Hi Guys!
My name is Victor Perez, I am CEO of e-Evolution,S.C., The reason of this e-mail and
attachment file is to share dream with you and invite you to be part of it. My dream is to
create a System ERP CRM SCM for and owned by the comunnitty, a System that improves
day by day.
In my experience, I have been working with Compiere for 5 years. I have gotten many
satisfactions, and I have taken advantage of the great job made by Jorg Janke with Compiere
With the acquired experience I have a personal dream: to create a project that evolves from
Compiere, a project with edge technology where everyone can share their ideas , with license
GPL, where the problems of the end users are listened, where I can integrate my job with the
job of others, where the requirements of my clients are taken into account, where my clients
feel a real support, in summary something to be improved.
Is for that reason that I dare to invite everyone interested in this proposal , with a big desire of
working and to support this dream together.
What do you think? Any question or suggestion please send it to me.PD: I will appreciate
that you keep this document for yourself, until have everybody feedback
Victor Perez Juarez

Activity List

Location

Steps

www.adempiere.com/wiki

Register and build own user page. Follow other users as guide

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/
Open_Source_ERP/
Executive_Masters

Create our own user account in this Wikiversity project. Take a

tour here [3] if you are a newbie.

irc.freenode.net

Download from xchat.org and get into the #adempiere chatroom

www.sf.net

Register and introduce yourself in Project Forum. Refer to Tutor.

www.sf.net/projects/adempiere

Browse through the trackers[4] and forums

1.2 Levels Of Participation

Just like in a movie, there are different type of involvement of the characters in a project. It will be good to
know who is who and who does what.
Many of those serious participants are often very busy people and they have to manage their time at the expense
of been sociable enough. For those who has free time, perhaps they have no responsibility and that can be good
or bad, depending on what they prefer.

Be A Good Guy
You probably are a good person, and so am I. :-) But when it comes to be online, sometimes flames flare up and
that can happen quite easily. Poison can be injected into a project and everything can break down and when that
happens to a global but remote online project, that can be bad. It can be further aggravated by the fact that none
of us are face to face to grasp each others true body language expressions.
Even when online, the people we deal with are still humans and behave humanly. They have feelings and
motivations why they do certain things. Been nice is highly important. More often than not, we have to think
twice before saying something that may be seen as nasty. Always using the smiling emoticon when you are
really trying to be nice helps alot. Speaking in a humble and giving tone influences peoples perceptions.
According to surveys, a high proportion of online community are lurkers or those who mostly read and do not
say anything. They may do so very seldomly and sometimes that raise concern to the admins whether they
should be allowed to vote if they have not contributed anything.
But to me, they already have contributed from just reading! By doing so they give a high hit rate to our project
and also they most likely can say something qualified due to having shown a deep interest. Otherwise why
would they want to lurk here? They may be busy executives who are highly professional and feel they need not
add to the noise. My policy will be to treat lurkers with respect and listen to them when they finally ever open
their keyboards.

The Fearsome Geeks

The people I would fear the most would be the experts and seniors who seems to know everything that you
dont but are very helpful. They are often very busy but would answer a direct technical issue and answer them
quite precisely and brief. It is important not to engage them in arguments or bickerings if they do not wish to.
Sending them or anyone private emails is not good unless they ask you to.
Been human, everyone likes to socialise when they can and of course you and your friends do joke offline, and
why not also do it online? Our project has a live chatroom where you can try to socialise. Avoid using it for too
much one-way technical questioning which you can use the forums and wait for reply via email so as to save
everyone time.

If You Are New

Those are called newbies or noob comes in all size and wordings. Some are very vocal and some are very shy.
Some need small talk such as about their weather and whatever they feel comfortable to talk about but do not
demand for quick responses as usually today people online may be multi-tasking alot. If unsure just keep
praticing getting online and chat until you get the right feel of things.
If you have many free-riders but no contributors yet, it wont be long before that happens. When I started my
red1.org forums I would advertise in Compiere forums subtly by pointing those asking me for more assistance
to refer to my tutorials which are done in PDF format. In those tutorials I usually drop hints for the readers to
visit my forum or sign my guestbook. In due time visitors do that. At times the website seems to be in the
middle of a desert where travellers are few. It is a slow pattern but now and then some cheer do happen when
someone signs the guestbook or even help to reply to other newbies. With constant pruning and presence, a
community began to take shape at the site.

Example

Debian has been a highly successful project with 1,000 developers and faces issues
giving rise to forks such as Ubuntu.

The Information Model

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

Web Economy for FOSS is a new medium and paradigm that many do not know how to
fit in. For example in the old economy, people hide or sell information. However here
we cannot do that and regard information as free. We can only sell people's time as a
service and it is charged in dollars for man-hours or man-days.

However there are those who still manipulate information such as delaying it unless the
users pay and apply time-delaying tactics where those who pay shall get the
information earlier.

The Web perpetually threatens information hiding as another party can or will expose
earlier or easier infomation to forge ahead. Therefore any profiteering model has to rely
on top of the rule that information must be free.

Still we have to be aware that there are different reasons for taking part in a FOSS
project.

Did You Know That?

You are a contributor without knowing it? By been friendly and welcoming to other
people is already helping an online community to be more comfortable and at home with
each other.

Poison is anyone or activity that makes a project loses focus and end up losing energy
unnecessarily? We must be aware that the important contributors of the project just
want it to continue without incident. So do most of the dependent users.

Forking is regarded as a good act by many? That is the hallmark of been Open Source.
However before forking, one must consider if it can attract enough participants.
Otherwise time will tell that it may be for ulterior motives and die needlessly.

1.3 Social Engineering

Social engineering is the art of getting information in a sociably likable manner. Famous hackers have used it
for bad reasons. But we need it for good ones.
It requires basic netiquette in asking questions and some time invested in socialising around, helping in small
ways until others acknowledge you.

Getting Someone To Help

Even though there may be tons of information published on the web resources such as the wiki and maillists or
forums, you may prefer to listen to real people. As people are not free, you have to invest time in cultivating
warm relationship with people before you can get anything out of it. Even though you get past the etiquette of
doing some research and then asking politely, you cannot expect others to assist you the way you want to.
One good way is to let people know as much about your right side, and that is by publishing about your good
deeds. If you do not have that, then try building some and put into your user page or website or blog.
There are some of community members who put what they have done so that others can know about them and
this earns them credit to be used back when they need help from the seniors.
Avoid copying and pasting others work. If you cannot start something great, start something simple and small.
Read up others user pages
Heard of pair programming? You sometimes learn better if you find someone about your level and learn
together sharing tasks of exploring the software of project.
You can then update each other about own progress but do it in a specific forum thread so that others can see
and may even join in.

Form Your Little Club

If you get a 3rd partner, then you got a crowd. And you shouldnt stop there. Keep on expanding your scope and
friendly circle. Constantly publish an info trail that expands your virtual credit. In my red1.org forum i began to
give moderator status and stars to reward the active ones. This makes them proud to stick around and have such
recognition.
One secret of getting a senior to help you is to help him back! Be a good apprentice such as do what is needed
by the senior. It can be by reviewing his codes or testing it or even helping him to document his work. Whatever
you do to lighten his burden. Pick the tasks that you are able to do so you can get to learn what you are not able
to do yet. Sometimes you can help out at the fringe such as helping to edit the wiki for typo or grammatical
errors. Anything that you are capable of doing is appreciated by the seniors and experts who definitely will
notice your activity in due time.

Be A Citizen
Sometimes what is needed from you is to just vote well in the polls. Whenever an opinion is requested from the
community on a certain decision you can do so by first researching till you can arrive at a sound voting
decision.Making yourself heard more often on the right notes earn you some visibility and hopefully correct
branding.
Sometimes you can be more effective by posting or commenting in foreign but related blogs of forums with apt
comments that highlight your project. Shout about the good points of your project to others so as to make it
more popular. But be careful not to sound like spam or a troll. You can also paste good links you found
elsewhere that you think might be useful for the project members to know.

Phrase Acronyms You Should Know

Terms

Interpretations

IMHO

Short for In My Humble Opinion - good to start off your comment.

WDYT?

What Do You Think? - good at end of your comment. WDYT?

My 2 cents

Saying here is my humble opinion on the matter discussed.

AFAIK

As Far As I Know which isnt very far. :)

:)

Smiley emoticon to show that you are smiling. You are, arent you?

$&^$@#!

To show vulgarity without saying it. WTF is one of them, cool but not so nice.

AFAIR

As Far As I Remember which isnt very much. :)

AYT?

Are You There? - hello?

BRB

Be Right Back

BBL

Be Back Later

GTG

Got To Go

Did You Know That?

ERP is considered highly complex subject matter. It is 90% business rules and 10%
coding.

Hands-on work or a real problem can speed up your learning process? So the next time
you hit a problem or a bug, smile. Youre on your way.

According to Protagoras, each persons experience of a same thing is not the same. So
be aware when people disagree with you, it could be both see the exact same thing
differently.

Chapter 2
Issues With Open Source

Introduction
Even before anyone can say anything about free software, the word free can create suspicion and even raise
concerns to those who has a lot at stake. Business people are often suspicious of the free word. Either they
take it as worthless or its trying to hide something somewhere by been free.
In a way they are right. Logical thinking would ask why would something be entirely free. In Compiere s case,
in the end the truth was found out. It was free to gain the power of word of mouth via the Web until they
become a household name and then sell off its controlling equity for a large sum of money. To many this is
called business. But it gives a bad name to Open Source Software.
Now with ADempiere as a community fork of Compiere, the free spirit continues but a different kind of fear
comes in. Corporate users are afraid that it been free and community-based bears no commercial substance.
There is no neck to choke in case of failure. There is no supreme command centre or head office that you can
ring to make a legal decision as to what is to be done about problems along the way during implementation of
the software. For a business, if the software fails, their business is on the line. But for the software developers, it
is just a bug, or a typical client they can afford to lose because they may have other clients.
For years, clients have been paying good money to software vendors and do not care if the software is open
source or not. The users just want to pay someone to get it fixed and fixed fast.
The traditional culture of software supply and maintenance is not about to be uprooted by seemingly free and
open software without business concerns been addressed first hand and fairly.
When I was in Berlin during the first ADempiere conference in 2006, we were visited by a large prospective
company who expressed such a worry. Its project manager explained to us that he sees a need for the
community to give assurance that the community has a proper management structure and culture that users have
been used to all this while with proprietary software. This means the project should also have a proper office,
company setup and warrany of service for them to count on. Until this is done, they can be considered gaps.

2.1 Why Arent Everyone Using Linux?

There was initial excitement when a free alternative to DOS came about in the form of Linux. But it soon fade
off when realisation sets in that it takes alot of time and technical prowess to be able to handle linux. That
translates to real costs in terms of expert time or training needed before one can use Linux as well as Microsoft.
Techie users are always a minority.

Who Moved My Windows?

When I frst tried to setup Linux in 2001 it was fun. I got to be like a techie. I even hack a bit to get the monitor
right. But that is a bore for those who wants to use it as a hassle free utility and not as a backyard project. Thus
Linux is not for everyone expecially your grannies. Even among techies, not all of them are that technical or are
of the same equal interest and skillset.
Lets say you saved 300 dollars for not buying a licensed MS Windows OS with Office Apps. But you spent 2
days to setup all the drivers and files conversion and that can cost you 30 dollars a day of lost income from
working at the office. If you are a boss, that will be more. Multiply by two and its 60 dollars starting cost.
Then you have to keep on adding for any extra time you spent making things work on your own. Not just the
lost time. But also lost business which is called opportunity cost. You might even lost your gym workout times
and also dating your girlfriend time. In the end after a year or so, it all adds up to more than you expected.

Are You A Techie?

That onlymakes sense if your are a techie by hobby or by career. Otherwise it will be a pain and a chore to be
techie enough to do something simple with free and open source software.
Now extrapolate all this at a corporate or business level. the costs are even more compunded because the office
will need a separate maintenance contract to engage a techie or a techie company to see to all the users
complaints or issues with using FOSS. Top management will be too occupied with its own core issues rather
than managing a new desktop client for the whole organisation.
There are 3rd party projects building X Windows that work on Linux but they are not matured and also owned
by competing commercial or project interests. Gnome and KDE are popular ones but as a FOSS project, the
energy is more driven by maverick and self-interest rather than corporate and paid interest. Novel has invested
in Gnome but it wont be that clear that Novel been private would want to keep Gnome that public or free.
When Ubuntu came about in recent years, it was thought to be the gap fixer between freedom and userfriendliness. Indeed it certainly has but the target is a moving one. Microsoft in turn pays close attention to what
is happening in its territory and often counter with copycat moves such as a better look and feel to keep its own
loyal users fixated.

Its A Clients Market

It is true that Linux server software is more popular than MS Server but it faces two forces. One is commercial
parties buy up interest in FOSS for server side and charges a license such as with Redhat. The other is again
Microsoft itself locking its client users to use its server tools and purposely makes life hard for them to convert
to the new religion.
Techies may like risk but not companies or your parents. A buggy OS will cost more loss to a business. It will
take a longer time than usual to have top management feeling secure and confident about using open source
when its stigma is still techie and even kiddie. It has to shed its hobbyist image and put on some serious 3 piece
suit and necktie and begin to speak in a comforting salesman tone.

Did You Know That?

IBM is heavily investing in FOSS such as Linux, Apache and Eclipse? It even has its
own office focusing on patent buying and making it available to the world. Do you think if
it is more of a cunning reason is to stop its competition?

Microsoft offers a good business deal to PC makers to pre-install their desktops with MS
OS where the price is lower as a bargain to their customers? End-users also find this
convenient. Not necessarily with the techie ones!

2.2 Cost of Gaps

Today cost is becoming subjective. It is not like going to a store and buy a torchlight if your house is dark. You
have to calculate which kind of specialised torch!
Today a programmer cannot just come into ADempiere and work right away. S/he would not only need to learn
alot but most likely unlearn what s/he learnt incorrectly! Gaps such as these can kill a project and other high
hopes for freedom.
And that is just the learning gap. For software there are feature and performance gaps between FOSS and
proprietary ones that users like to look into.
But for sure FOSS has advantages which are quite intangible such as community support and no information
hiding. Sometimes the noisy part of the bazaar is helpful as you would really get to hear what you normally
would not get to hear!

Finer Gap Analysis

You probably seen a Gap Analysis illustration like the one below. However in real life it is much more complex
than you think.
Take for instance the question of training. Some companies think otherwise. If they send a staff for training,
they are afraid he will get smarter and more expensive and they will lose him to better pay elsewhere! Now that
is a risk which carries a cost too.
Once we know of the gaps we are well on the way there in solving a mystery. Putting all of them down on paper
and then we set off to seek out what each of the gap is about and how best to remedy them.
In looking for a good Java Developer, I am faced with a dilema. It is because if I get a senior person, will cost a
lot. If i pay someone cheaper and train that person from scratch, I will be paying for the expensive training. And
s/he will definitely get a better offer elsewhere. I cannot raise the pay yet as i have not recovered from the cost i
invested in training.
Of course I can tie the trainee to a bond, but how much? And there are laws against unfair contracts.

Buy or Build Cost

There are those who rather hire cheap IT staff and build from scratch or now with FOSS, build from
ADempiere! But the cost of training or slow learning is still there and really cost alot if the trainees take a long
time to master it. One way is to outsource to a capable and experienced company but how many are out there?
And how sure are you that they are really capable and experienced?
Thus important carefully referenced information is vital. That is why if a university recognised and issue
certification on it will build that confidence and hub of reference.
It is important to approach a new technology based on maturity of that technology. From the graph below, we
can see that things get matured in an emotional way for FOSS. Even for Microsoft products, you wouldnt go
for its newest version until some time has passed or its next version is out. Then you go for the previous version
knowing better and all the bugs resolved.

Unknown Gaps
The quest of modern science is to know the unknown. For software it is highly abstract and its not like building
a bridge where you can calculate it before it is been build. Software is a living dynamic creature where a slight
change of condition can throw the whole piece down the drain. Consider it more like a ship. Remember Titanic.
A small gap will sink a mighty ship. For a car, if you find a hole, you can patch it up or change a tyre with a
different one. It will run slower but not explode. For software it might just crash. As said elsewhere doing
software is like going back to the old cottage age. It is like a big ship where a single hole can sink it. Artifical
Intelligence software where it can repair or heal itself has not really arrived. It still need a skillful human
developer to look at the code. Even with smart tools such as IBM Eclipse that highlight which code part is
improper, it is only like a fuel gauge saying that your fuel tank is at E. You need a knowing fellow to tell you
what E really means and what you have to do next.

Software Differs
Software has different project management behaviour. Yesterdays SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)
has given way to Extreme Programming which needs fast turnaround time. It has its own anti-pattern that
needs strict scoping control.
You have to spend 50% time in planning and you cannot change horses midstream. You cannot even add horses,
as it will make the project worse.
Software is still an archaic tradition of manual stitchers who are overpaid!
The most important gaps only exist in the end-users mind and it has nothing to do with technology. They do not
care about what your software is or what the bazaar is about. What they care is whether there is any gap
between your solution and their needs and wishes.
Certainly there will be gaps. No ERP software solves 100% of what a customer wants.
ERP needs only make use of 60% at most of its functionalities and features of a particular software. About 30%
has to be developed or customised on top of the software. The remaining 10% will be unattainable.
With this rule-of-thumb, you can set expectations more fairly.

ERP As Horizontal
An ERP solution is considered a one-size-fits-all where it tries to be everything to everybody. Of course that is
awfully bulky. For any company, in order to use it, some verticalisation or addon or at least some custimisation
is necessary. That has to be done by skillful and experienced ERP practitioners.
Each typical industry will be called a vertical on an ERP. For example for the Steel Manfacturer versus a
Shipping company, they have different processes and requirements. They are their own verticals.
The gaps between the vertical and the horizontal has to be a minmum in order to make a close or near fit.
Some are misled to think that if some of the components are well-fitted, the gaps are an easy breeze.
Firstly is the wrongful assumption to accept at face value anything anyone says about anything. You have to
double-check and be sure if the accounting engine really work, or the print format is easy to use. Some assume
that migrating data is easy. It depends on how different are the terms and labels to start off with.

Gaps To Watch Out

There are few things between ERP and a particular business to focus on. Do they have their processes worked
out and documented well? The task of doing that is a whole project on its own.
Once you have all the needs or wishlist on paper that is where you get down to figure out the gaps.
Most gaps are paper formats differences, as well as workflow procedures that need to be incorporated. Those
gaps are man-days of work, and you calculate that based on the expertise at hand.
There is one good rule to follow: Avoid gaps. How? By trying to refit into the ERP by reusing its components. I
was surprised that many times after careful study, many new functions can be done on standards components of
the ERP.
So that is one cost to charge the client - Study Time.

Discussion

What are the type of costs needed to use Open Source software.

Outline the remedy measures in real costing terms.

What questionaire would you devise for an organisation to answer before switching
from proprietary software to Open Source software?

Did You Know That?

If you have completed 90% of a software, it will take another 90% effort? This is called
the 90:90 rule.

That 85% of Software projects failed to meet its objectives? And for ERP projects it is
above 90%! So the next time you plan for one, put in alot of caveats and contigencies
besides setting the right expectation.

Gaps Analysis

Above is an example of process to handle a gap analysis

Gap Analysis try to calculate what it takes to get there and what is stopping you from
getting there.

Cost of Gaps You Might Want To Look At

Gaps

Reasons

Changes

A change can be small or can be big in terms of costs and time.

Politics

Obvious. If someone doesnt like it, it does not matter if it is free.

Language

You wouldnt know what you lost if you are lost in translation

Comfort

People cost a lot. Particularly those who are too comfortable.

Experience

Learnt in School of Hard Knocks. It is the cost of failures.

2.3 The TCO Pyramid

The TCO is balanced by the ROI you can get from using a FOSS solution. So when previously we doubt
whether Linux is acceptable alternative to Microsoft Windows, we are more surer on cost-benefit analysis with
ADempiere ERP. This is if it will save you from using SAP which naturally cost up to beyond a hundred
thousand USD.
But then, there are many factors of costs against benefits that you have to weigh carefully.

Linux Earns Once

When you use Linux and replace your MS Windows, you probably save one-time and not again. But the cost of
maintenance may keep on running whenever you need to invest further in training and adapting users who are
comfortable to MS DOS and not Linux version.
So is it the same with other layers such as for Database (MYSQL) and Utilities (such as Application Servers Apache). These are fine to use but they save little comparatively and so to over focus on them does not justify
enough the payback.
Above the stack the tools you use will give you productivity. ERP or Business Applications return high cost
savings and cut down wastages in productivity as it runs and operates the business flows and reporting for daily
business decision-making.
Comparing SAP B1 or MS Navision will cost in the region of USD100k. To use ADempiere will cost you the
man-days of consultancy, but as you can see there is a sizable margin to beat.

Customising Cost
All ERP no matter how mature will require customising costs. Even for SAP, the client would still need to pay
on top of that USD100k licensing further expenses in getting consultants to study their requirements and
propose the right solutioning. For a FOSS ERP it is same and can be riskier depending on the FOSS ERP
consultant company whether is it established and dependable. In this aspect SAP wins as it is very established
and known to almost anyone.
Using SAP will means the client is locked into that solution and definitely an SAP vendor will milk the client
via lock-ins such as disallowing to integrate using 3rd party tools. The vendor usually extract as much pipeline
profit from the closed customer.
Here FOSS wins as it been open source cannot lock-in the client that easily. There is still the option to open up
and get another vendor to take over an ERP project. In this case ADempiere has an advantage but the client still
has to be careful at the Project Management aspect. If the ADempiere vendor or consultant does not transfer
know-how or findings faithfully and document them completely this may spell a wasted effort as another
vendor will have to start all over again.
But still it is a plus for using FOSS ERP.

In The Long Term

If ADempiere has a lifelong guarantee of a perpetual community it can test its longetivity against closed
vendors that can suffer more serious mortal dangers such as a take-over as happened with JD Edwards and
PeopleSoft or oblivion such as what happened with so many commercial IT giants of the past.
Microsoft and Yahoo! is now under threat from Google. Linux is not under foreseeable threat as it is not owned
by anyone but a global living and transparent community.
So is with with ADempiere. Its structure may be loose but it has no salaried staff and liability to pay for. There
are also no banks that have loan it money that is chasing after it. In this aspect users can count on FOSS
solutions that has a great community to be free from commercial pressures so as to last for a much longer time
than those who arent.

A strategy is needed when looking at implementing ERP no matter if the client is thinking of SAP or
ADempiere. TCO plays heavily in the long term. Is there resources to sustain? Either paying an ongoing
expensive SAP or maintaining ADempiere.
Are you prepared with a good team of resources to learn up the application and is there a good PM?

Did You Know That?

OpenBravo, based in Spain also forked off Compieres application model? However
they regard themselves as original by rewriting the codes again in a newer technology
framework. Nevertheless they got some USD18 million funding and began to introduce
a dual license model just like Compiere where users are charged for better upgrades. As
such they lose out to ADempiere in a fee vs free comparison. There are still no distinct
advantages in terms of software quality from commercial open source.

It may cost more if a client tries to implement a huge ERP on their own? Company time
is expensive, and asking staff to learn and experiment ERP is foolhardy.

If a project fails, the vendor only loses a client, but the client loses business? The
vendor must be aware that it has much less risk than its client.

ERP Goes Open Source

Open Source has gone up the food chain. It is no longer about Linux and Apache. It has entered the realm of
business software.
When Compiere ERP/CRM made its debut in 2001, it brings to the territory its first serious player challenging
even the likes of SAP and Navision.
Since then many play the path and in many integrative units such as SugarCRM, Pentaho and Eclipse BIRT.
There is a need to comprehend this new disruptive playing field in business applications and its impact to
vendors and users
A new landscape brings new definitions and names to the market. Much confusion is caused by names-dropping
and repackaging of old theories and models. An example is the previously failed ASP (Application Service
Provider) been repackaged as SaaS (Software as a Service).
Many early attempts to implement Open Source in the business area have met with their golden share of
failures. What are its true causes and remedies?
Is the chaos clearing itself and the dust settling? What do we watch out for? What to believe or not to believe?
Who are the pioneers and what can they teach us through their mistakes and past assumptions?

Approach With Care

As ERP is complex, great effort must be invested first before accepting a FOSS solution.
Study should be made in detail on what the roadmap will involve in terms of cost of study, disruption to
workforce, changes, the whole works as with any ERP project but with added emphasis on the dependence on
self-learning and transfer of know-how to internal or 3rd party vendor in view that there are no established
FOSS ERP vendors yet.
There are prospects who can afford to pay high for an ERP but SAP does not fit the bill. These are usually those
who has very niche and unique processes that have to be heavily customised. Such prospects are more ideal for
FOSS ERP solutions. Particularly if they need to constantly change their needs or enhance it as the market
progress.
Sometimes FOSS ERP can be used as a quick prototype maker to prove a concept and then discard it. Using
ADempiere can be a quick and dirty test case. After the test, a review can be made and better decision with
more calculated risk analysis at hand.
Whatever it is, the last thing a client must do is to go for things all at once with all eggs in the air. You should
turn down such an option even if the terms are good. Chances of failure are high with all or nothing deals. It is
better to build slow and steady experience with easy clients and work your way up the value chain of service.
Good and happy clients will recommend others to you.

2.4 Community OS vs Commercial OS

Anything that is famous will bring to the next word - rich. Many have come into open source projects hoping to
make a decent living or beyond. When you can easily become a household name within months you will tend to
think about cashing in. Giving away your ware is not a good idea to many. The owners began to think of ways
to relicense their freeware. Whatever it is, commercialising open source has run foul with the community. Are
there politically correct ways to commercialise out of open source without stepping on the toes of the fanatics?
Certainly there is, and it involve not just diplomacy and regular visits to the temple.

Is It A Dirty Word?
Commercial OS is often a company runing a FOSS project as an owned product with a business plan which will
include milking that project for an expected profit. At times the company will make corporate decisions that
cannibalise its FOSS nature such as introducing an EULA that charges a fee for extras that community view as
counter to the FOSS spirit.
Spring was an immensely popular project that in 2008 has been bought over (its owner companys equity) and
the result is a communique to the users to pay for prompt bug remedy. Thus those who do not pay will get the
bug fixes at a later date.
This is contradictory to what the project wants to achieve as without bug fixes then everything slows down with
the community. There will be less report of bugs and less voluntary fixing of bugs.
But the Spring Co board rebuted that before it went commercial there has been hardly any bug fixes from the
open community, and mostly were done by the inhouse paid team.
I disagreed easily because our ADempiere project is completely non-commercial based as there is no
commercial owner paying any single staff. Yet it has been going on with lots of contributions which challenged
Compiere and OpenBravo head-on.
Perhaps what Spring Co should do is to have expanded its training division like what I am doing with the
university and issue its own recognised certification and move up the value chain by reselling its high worth
project base to rope in more expensive projects.
Whatever it is, by going commercial the OS project will not be called such anymore and fall from the charts and
lost out to another community FOSS or fork that will enjoy the bulk of the communitys attention. I doubt
whether they get much payments from those who want bug fixes. Most likely they will wait for another FOSS
framework to emerge!
This is certainly true in Compiere and OpenBravo case where ADempiere is now the defacto champion of
FOSS ERP and received the best reputation in SourceForge.

Perpetual Fork
Everytime something goes commercial the community can easily fork the sourcecode and continue from there.
There is apparent concern that a community-run open source will not be structured well enough to be taken
seriously by giants. I feel there is misunderstanding of the role and strength of community based FOSS. It
cannot be measured in the same light. Its strength lies in its bazaar spirit that is unstructured and constantly
drawing on the wilderness like a Mecca in the desert. By been a top project will draw alot of open continous
attention that goes a long way to brand and market it, saving the advocates tons of uneeded funding from
venture capitalists.
The paradox is that when you take funding or investment, it has to be paid back, with high interest. But from
what extra earnings can you pay that back with?
If you charge others, the forks will take over your users who refused to pay more. Thus your pool of captive
market shrink overnight.
FOSS is not a pool that can be converted back easily. What is free cannot be stolen nor be unfree back.
Thus this is why I say that there is gross misunderstanding of the FOSS business model.

An Ordained Paradigm
Perhaps a good analogy to draw from is in the proverbial holy city of Mecca itself. There is an underground
stream called the Well of Zam-zam which together with the Kaaba draws millions of pilgrims each year to taste
its water and bottle it freely.
The government there would not and need not put a stop to this practice with a fee as it may stop the poor
pilgrims from coming again. Mecca since biblical times has been thriving from the caravans that comes along
and trades flourished all around it till this day. The City Mayor cannot exact any further tax other than see to it
that the Well continues to be free and open. How would Mecca sustain itself? The answer is it need not, but
leave itself be.
It is Mecca because of the community that revolves around it. Before all this, there was nothing. So it cannot
question or displace the form and function of its existence.
FOSS was nothing until a community came to it. All it gained is due to that fact and that fact alone. Its
subsequent success will continue ad infinitum. Commercial tendencies are only nothing short of short term
greed and often proven to be its undoing. As in the Meccan analogy, it just have to let its water run.

2.5 Institutionalising Open Source

The community was initially regarded as a bunch of nerds who do not comb their hair or own a necktie, and
should not be taken seriously. Even if they are 40 something with years of expertise and having served in high
level corporations, there still must be something wrong with the project if it did not come from Pentagon, the
United Nations or Oxford. Some soft recognition are already coming in for ADempiere such as IBM, some
world universities and certain government agencies. It is a match to be made in heaven for the community if this
is captured well.

What Cisco Has

Famous vendors like Microsoft, Cisco, Novel, SAP, IBM or Oracle has institutionalised collateral. They have
certification courses in their respective products and specialties. They have training centres that carry the same
corporate name. They have VARs - Value Added Resellers. They have lots of books. They have tons of papers.
An open source project may have tons of materials but that have to be organised in coherent structure that
carries inherent value as in the above example.
University of Technology, Sydney has the first batch of graduates that conduct work together with IBMs
Innovation Centre there to port ADempiere to IBMs database DB2 and its application server, WebSphere.
Papers are been published and this lends to getting ADempiere recognised as a serious enough application for
adoption by corporate users.
Birgham Young University English Lecturers who specialised in Technical Documentation are conducting
projects to document a complete user manual for ADempiere.

Are You Certified?

The first thing people ask for are academic certification. Then professional certification. Then industry
reference. The list goes on. Do you have an Inc in USA? Do you have a tol free number?
Do you have a salesgirl we can call? Do you have a neck we can choke? Open source projects hardly care to
come out with such collateral or icing on the cake. Technically the community may be far superior than
anything else on earth. But the end-users do not give two hoots about that.
FOSS projects and products are now hot cakes for commercial institutions to profit on. But I feel that it been
community based, it will have a longer meaningful life if social and academic institutions exploit the
opportunity to build some IP and goodwill on it. That is why we have approached such institutions and this
course is a ground breaking step towards it.
The university can gain to build a curriculum that has market potential and job prospects for its graduates. It can
also build IP and innovation as well as apply its R&D work to boost its world rankings.

Win-Win
Todays financial turmoils is said to hit home around mid 2009. There will be many thousands of unemployed,
many of which are fresh graduates. Government agencies are preparing huge funds to retrain them and fund
SMIs and SMEs to use ERP tools to reduce cost and increase efficiencies. By having more experts in ERP
implementations, will be the missing link to make all of the above happen.
The ideal way to get into the game is via academic institutions that are looked upon to fuel this change to
withstand the coming storm.
All sectors are facing the pressures. Universities must produce not only graduates but employable ones with the
right skills and values. Government agencies must
stop businesses from closing down and control
unemployment. Software is recession proof as it helps organisations cope with less people and more
automation. But proprietary software is hyper-inflationary due to its high license costs and foreign exchange.
Thus FOSS ERP can be one of the best kept open secret to happen in the present time.

Above - Breakfast with members from Germany and Poland

Below - Speaking at Linux Tag, Berlin, 2007.
Previous page - Global Alliance. Lower - After the first ADempiere Conference.

Did You Know That?

Silicon Valley was attributed to Stanford University? MIT is said to have brought about
Boston Route 128.

Billionaires are created by enthusiastic entrepreneurial spirit in California due to its

tolerance for failures? In fact they expect you to fail 5 times before you can succeed.
Their laws and culture is set to make success happen.

ADempiere Deutschland e.V is registered in Berlin, Germany? The German community

organise themselves in a not-for-profit body to help also promote Europe-Asian
collaboration as alot of Asian nations are booming and require expertise from the west
and vice versa the West require partners here in Asia and also for outsourcing projects.

2.6 The Complex ERP

In most businesses or plants, goods or what is called the product is at the centre of it all. It is produced, stored,
moved, sold, shipped and tracked. Firstly it has to be either made in the plant or just imported from another
supplier. Usually the goods are stored in a warehouse. When orders come, they are selected for shipment to the
customer. A lot of activity happens around this chain of events. Much of which are managed via documents,
ranging from Sales Orders to Payment Vouchers. In the end, the management wants to see the big picture - how
much is stocked, or produced, how much is sold or returned. Other departments want to see who are the clients.

Heart Of An ERP
ERP was first known as MRP and meant generally for the manufacturing shopfloor. An ERP today allows
supply chain management (SCM) to happen. Essentially SCM helps the user to anticipate materials or resource
requirements of the product, in quantities and at a certain price and Unit of Measure (UOM).
Right from the moment it is stored in the Warehouse, the accounting process comes in. Every item is valuated of
its cost governed by a pricelist, mostly dictated by the supplier. Freight costs may be added on to it to get its
landed cost. When the product is ordered, its quantity at hand is checked for availability, and the locator in the
warehouse updated when it is taken out.
Within the chain of events, information is intra-related so that redundancy is ruled out. A product description,
UOM, locator, and price is known without retyping again from one department to another. The client computer
connected to the application server where the ERP is running can always pull out the related information easily
via the Product number or the Order number of a customer to view what is been placed with the organisation.

Digital Efficiency
Or should we say electronic efficiency. With computers, information can be retrieved at speed of light, and
within a LAN or even a WAN or the web to and from anywhere in the world. Documents once made in the
system is made once only and no repeat of the same information is neccessary. That information also has
persistence. It will always be tracked or audited and added on but never lost. Unless of course some idiot comes
and mess with the database. But todays database and especially ADempiere system has strict controls where
data is never lost once created.

From Farm to Fork

Theoretically you can now track information from where it is produced i.e. in an example of a farm of livestock,
to a food processing farm, right up to the customers palete, where s/he can enter the web and provide feedback
on how the food tasted! This idea has been talked about in the Muslim Halal Food conferences. Last year in
October, 2008 I was invited to Brunei to present a paper on FOSS which i termed as Halal Software.

The Same Document

One secret of the ERP is the document content which is essentially the same stamdard i.e. what product it is;
what is the quantity; what is it made of (BOM); where it is located; who ordered it; who is the sales-rep; how
much is it sold; how much discount; how much tax and so forth. When that order is passed from the sales to the
warehouse, the same content is passed from document to document.
At the accounts department for example, based on the same content, new information where relevant is
calculated. For example lets say tax is needed. The sales price is used to look up the tax table and the
appropriate one is inserted under the invoice line in the sales invoice. If posting to accounts, then looking up the
default account elements is made. If you want to find out when the next installment is due, you look at the
payment terms of the customer, and the aging analysis.

Extrapolate out
Imagine when the whole world uses the same basis, they can now talked to each other in a global chain from
suplier to supplier. The homogenity of a single paradigm of standards and templates derived from the same
software will mena lesser learning curves as more and more will know the same thing and help each other.
There will also be less worry of obselecense happening with the chosen software. Costs of ownerships will then
indeed go down much faster as more and more adopt them progressively and systematically. All this means
great opportunities for experts of the ERP software and its implementation.

ERP in Essence
ERP is a big inter-related process flow from the start of a transaction cycle till it reaches its target such as
fulfillment of payment or delivery of goods. In this illustration above, it shows the inward movement of
products into the system from a supplier. The ERP handles the passing of information from one document to
another to avoid repeating the same information already input into the system. More departmental records are
created based on such information as it pass from one department or function to another. In the end its
accounting consequence is captured by a posting to the general ledger.
Now, at the selling or exporting side of the product, the same concept is there. As a customer buys from the
system, a Sales Order is issued followed by a confirmation and a shipment of the product out. This goes on until
the receipt of payment from the customer. Again the non-redundancy rule apply. However the purchasing and
sales cycles may have differences in activity and variances of treatment may occur within the ERP system.
Those that are the same are often carried out by the same major components of the system. This reusability
function is important as the system can be better maintained and the learning curve shortened.

Above - All ERP processes are integrated as a single unit. ERP shall act in the backoffice
where other front end verticals can talk to.
Below - Most developing nations can use the same open standards and achieve global chain
of supply management and resource control thus making unprecedented savings.

Supply Chain Economics

SCM is now even more highly sophisticated and
complex. It is related to so many industries or
different variances in usage of the ERP. At the end of
it is information for the top management in the form
of Corporate Dashboard containing KPIs, Balance
Scorecard and Business Intelligence.

Warehousing Management
WMS is fast becoming a hot domain as the world economy becomes more inter-connected and goods has to be
moved quickly from one location to another around the globe. Even within the warehouse, the way goods are
stocked, whether by LIFO or FIFO, and how they are fetched can make or break a business delivery schedules.
For the timber industry, wood is ordered when the ships carrying them are already out at sea! Of course there
must be a JIT (Just In Time) system where the ships course is smooth and anticipated.

Did You Know That?

It can take between 6 months to 18 months to get a typical ERP system installed?

ERP been complex can run into millions?

SAP made its database open source? Its called SAPDB.

ERP is not about a software? It is a set of manageable process to govern the data
within the business or industry. Its software would be called ES - Enterprise Software.
But habit has it to call the software ERP.