openerp-community team mailing list archive

[Olivier Dony <odo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 01/20/2014 10:13 PM, Kurt Haselwimmer wrote:
> Say I create a new feature for the webstore, say even - the shipment tracking
> feature I described - whereby I can store parameter trackno, together with a
> courier choice, such that the URL www.courier.com/tracking.asp?id=%s
> <http://www.courier.com/tracking.asp?id=%s> where %s is trackno, so that I can
> simply link through to a courier's website to see how far my parcel has got
> yet, and even if the customer has received it - this is not a USD5000
> development

Assuming you have made the necessary investment upfront and thus have the 
skilled resources available to create it, it will indeed be a very small 
development using the OpenERP framework.
In fact there's a good chance someone has already done [part of] the work for 
you, as Eric's reply indicates ;-)


> - but I bet others would be prepared to pay $50 for this simple and
> useful functionality. Why then can I not publish the code on the launchpad,
> thereby keeping the AGPL purists happy, but ALSO offer a service to install it
> on customer's servers for $50 ?

Just to be clear: you can perfectly do that! Raphaël meant that it may not be 
profitable for you to do it, but you can do it!
You can publish your module online, register it on OpenERP Apps so other people 
can find it easily, and still sell whatever services you want around this 
module (installation, customization, maintenance, etc.). Being the author of 
the module you can even advertise all your services directly on the description 
of the module itself, so everyone will see that.

What you can't do is prevent other people from using then it for free, 
distributing it, or competitors from selling the same kind of service on it. 
But that's not the point, right? If your module is good and your services are 
attractive for customers, you could still attract paying customers. And as far 
as competitors are concerned, you have a headstart.

The question of whether this part of your activity will be profitable is harder 
to answer. How profitable is it for the maintainers of popular OpenERP Apps 
(such as the magento connector) to create and maintain their modules? How much 
direct and indirect revenue it brings them is probably harder to measure. Your 
module might not directly compare to those modules in terms of scopre, but your 
investment is also minimal in comparison. So if you don't directly plan to make 
to this your main business model, why not try it?


> Just because the code is published freely and
> for nothing, it does not seem to logically exclude the possibility of also
> charging a fee to help those people who don't want to have to spend days trying
> to find the exact piece of code on the launchpad that they should be using.

Again, you can perfectly sell whatever services you want on top of your 
modules. You can even try to make customers pay to download your module, this 
is perfectly allowed by the AGPL License! But you cannot prevent anyone from 
re-distributing your module for free, from publishing it online or from putting 
it on OpenERP Apps themselves if you didn't do it.

Maybe the GPL FAQ[1] can also help you understand what you can and what you 
can't do, as this is far from trivial.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html