openerp-dutch team mailing list archive

[Jan Verlaan - Veritos <jverlaan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Version send to OpenERP sa

*Dutch OpenERP and OpenObject community*

*Joint statement*

In march 2010 in Utrecht a kick-off meeting of the Dutch OpenERP and 
OpenObject community took place. At this well attended meeting (25 
people) was concluded that a Dutch OpenERP community could be useful to 
address the specific Dutch localization issues in concert. Furthermore, 
such Dutch community platform could play a roll in streamlining the 
communication of the Dutch Community with OpenERP sa.

During the meeting many topics were addressed that the participants 
would like to discuss with OpenERP or on which some clarification from 
OpenERP was requested. The meeting took place before the OpenERP 
community and partner days. OpenERP sa clarified various of the topics 
during those days. However, there are still various topics left that the 
Dutch community would like to discuss with OpenERP and that are listed 
below.

Besides those points participants of the Dutch community meeting 
indicated some specific points to improve certain code or to extend the 
OpenERP functionality. To be not to specific in this memo those elements 
are excluded from this list

*RELATION WITH COMMUNITY AND COMMUNICATION*
/Question/: The new license (AGPL) has raised the question whether 
OpenERP s.a. will continue to apply the same codebase as the "public" 
OpenERP distribution. Could this be guaranteed ?

/Question/: How to prevent a situation OpenERP (Saas offer) becomes a 
competitor of the community members / partners with their own SaaS offer ?

/Question/: All the licenses on the code in the trunk changed from GPL 
to AGPL. Is such change legally possible for an existing open source 
product like OpenERP ? Or is in the opinion of OpenErp the copyright on 
all the code in the trunk proprietary ?

/Question/: Allows AGPL still the creation of an OpenERP fork which 
needs to contain a copyrighted trademark?

/Recommendation/: If Openerp s.a. takes the community seriously the 
general strategic directions and change in license policy should be 
shared and discussed in an early stage.

/Recommendation/: At the community days OpenERP s.a. said that only 
clients with a maintenance contract get a direct security fix and that 
the community has to wait until the next stable release. For a healthy 
open source project, this is an unacceptable policy. The community 
should be able to retrieve such fix from the code repository as soon as 
available.

/Recommendation/: Participants that contribute (not only to code, but 
also translations, bugreport, bugfixes, community tasks) must get 
credits for their work. For example: In the case that a person 
contributes substantially to a code improvement it is important that 
this is also mentioned in the official release. Nearly all modules / 
addons bear uniformly the copyright of OpenERP s.a. (c.q. Tiny SPRL), 
irrespective of their actual contributors.

*TOOLS*
/Question/: Does OpenERP s.a. use internally a different Source 
Management System (Subversion) for version control than the official 
launchpad branches making it impossible for the community to follow 
exactly what is happening in the source code?

/Question/: How is it possible that Dutch (NL) translations got lost 
using the community tools while merging the translations into the stable 
release?

/Recommendation/: The OpenObject platform is a nice generic framework 
for business applications. However, in order to gain its full potential 
the documentation of the API should be improved.

*FUNCTIONALITY*
/Question/: Will OpenERP s.a. develop a procedure so that the community 
can influence the core functionality of OpenERP s.a.?

/Question/: At the community days OpenERP s.a. said that required 
localizations will be incorporated in the core. Does this mean, that the 
Dutch community can decide what are necessary adaptations for the Dutch 
market and can develop software solutions accordingly, upon which 
OpenERP s.a. incorporates this software in the core OpenERP distribution 
? What (and/or certify) if quality standards are fulfilled?

*QUALITY*
/Question/: Could OpenERP sa elaborate in more detail on the announces 
new quality and testing processes ? What kind of testing is done and on 
which platforms ? Will the applied test scripts & tools come available 
for the community / partners ?

/Question/: Is there a central list of bugs that is easily accessible by 
everyone? Above I.T. has found two bugs in the year end closing. These 
bugs will actually change the balance slightly in a way that is not 
easily found. We've come to the conclusion that either no company closes 
the year in OpenErp or there are a lot of broken administrations in 
OpenErp. We've submitted the bug and patch, but nobody has looked at 
them. Are there any procedures to check submitted bugs? The bug is 
here:  https://bugs.launchpad.net/openobject-addons/+bug/531507

/Question/: The website claims that the OpenERP code runs on python 2.4. 
This is no longer true for the openerp-client that contains code that is 
specific for newer Python versions. What kind of checks are executed to 
ensure that it runs on the supported platforms?

/Question/: OpenErp claims to support asset management. However, this 
module is broken. Claiming functionality while it doesn't work harms the 
reputation of OpenERP. For this reason it is very important that 
functionality communicated by OpenERP is working. Is OpenERP aware of 
any other communicated functionality that is not working.

/Question/: Could OpenERP elaborate in more detail on the plans to 
improve the quantity and quality of the documentation? When possible it 
would be nice when the English documentation could be reviewed by an 
English native speakers.

/Recommendation/: Ensure that reported bugs and repair patches are 
included in the new official releases.

/Recommendation/: The mismatch between the "promised" and "actual" 
content and timing of new releases has caused problems in the past. The 
Dutch community recommends OpenERP s.a. to be realistic in announcing 
forthcoming functionality. Announcements of things that will not be 
realized has a negative impact on the perception of OpenERP in the 
market / community.

*SCALABILITY*
/Question/: The core of OpenERP is single thread so you can not benefit 
from multi-core processors. Are there any plans to make OpenERP multi 
thread ? .

*CONTRIBUTION DUTCH COMMUNITY:*
/Question/: Has OpenERP sa any thoughts / ideas / suggestions how the 
Dutch community could contribute to the OpenERP developments in the most 
efficient and constructive way?


2os Hendrik Jan Onnes
Above IT Dimitri v/d Spek
AJM Technologies Johan Wouters
Dypalio Douwe Wullink
EduSense   Pieter J. Kersten
Erpologic BV Gert de Wit
FlxCore Hillebrand Dalstra
FlxCore Erwin v/d Linde
FlxCore Dennis Steenwijk
FlxCore Hannes Smit
HS -- Development Marcel v/d Boom
Modulair systems Boudi v. Vlijmen
Kastia karel van der Esch
Markant Office Furniture Okko Huisman
Mitopics Walter van Holst
Neobis Mark v. Deursen
NFG Paul Stevens
Therp Ronald Portier
Therp Stefan Rijnhart
Therp Anne Sedee
Veritos Jan Verlaan
VluchtelingenWerk Saheed Folami
VluchtelingenWerk Leo Hart
VluchtelingenWerk Midden Gelderland Eddy May
VluchtelingenWerk Midden Gelderland Jan van der Werff
Zest Software Jean-Paul Ladage