Ha ha this is probably better as a separate blog post altogether, but let me try to give a couple of answer points:

We started opentaps because we wanted something which could meet the needs of a larger range of organizations and business needs, especially in a web-driven economy. At the time, most of the other open source projects you mention didn’t exist. We chose Open For Business (the pre-Apache name of “OFBiz”) because of its data model and because I liked its technical direction at that time.

As for why opentaps is not a part of OFBiz, open source projects in general separate because of differences in vision for the project, and we’re no exception. OFBiz has become a project of different things built on the OFBiz framework, whereas we wanted to build the best core enterprise software we could using all the possible open source projects. Their technical direction has also drifted inwards to being more database-driven using an OFBiz-only scripting languages whereas ours has drifted outwards to being more J2EE standard and domain driven. We also have different standards on user interface, usability, and stability than OFBiz.

If you have more questions about OFBiz and opentaps, feel free to join us on the SourceForge forum.

Java community has no shortage of open source ERP software.

Let me name a few: Openbravo, Compiere, ADempiere, JFire.

What made you decide to create/invest in opentaps?

And also, what made you decide to use Apache OFBiz as your base framework instead of the other (maybe one of the names above)?

And regarding OFBiz, why is opentaps a separate project than OFBiz? I’m a bit confused about “what is opentaps” vs “what is OFBiz”… so both are ERP but they’re different because opentaps is “bigger than OFBiz”. So is there a reason for opentaps to “exist” independently of OFBiz.. if opentaps is superior than “vanilla” (?) OFBiz then shouldn’t these projects merge?

Sorry for the questions 😉

Not only in its business model but also its technical side.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. Yet again they are very deep, and I’ve thought about them for several days now before writing this…

I have seen that when businesses need customizations for their software, they often have to invest in developing those customizations themselves, and then they are often willing to share them. Part of it is to be nice, and part of it is hoping others will help or maintain extend those customizations. These are the “seeds” of an open source project…and yet a lot more is required: a strong technical framework and a development and Q/A process which can absorb them. (See http://opensourcestrategies.blogspot.com/2007/10/limits-of-open-source.html for example) This is why it’s kind of hard for these seeds to coalesce into a good project. Also unless we had a more “universal” architecture today’s business-oriented open source projects are like small islands and don’t attract nearly enough volume to get good contributions.

But does it have to be “free as in free beer”? Hmm….. What decisive competitive advantage does being free, as opposed to being open, convey? I will have to think about that more and write again when I have some ideas, hopefully good ones.

Yes I see your point. But there is another thing that I forgot to mention: There is a big difference between infrastructure (web servers, databases, firewalls) and business software. Geek software is made by geeks for geeks (no disrespect). So one geek knows exactly what the other geek wants and geek no. 3 happily contributes because he has exactly the same problem. But all 3 of them are users and creators at the same time and they LOVE technology.

Business software is different. It may be written by geeks but only if they are ordered (paid) to do so (there may be some rare cases, though – you? – where business knowledge meets programming skills). There are no contributors either because the user the software is written for doesn’t give a damn about the software itself but cares about his VAT declaration/invoice format only. And nobody cares about technology (don’t forget, in this segment there are no CIOs, just owners).

And free is no good. Business users do not trust free software because they themselves don’t give away anything for free. So if somebody else does it they get suspicious.

My conclusion: OSS is great, it gives you (as in user) the freedom to choose and the security that the SW will outlive the producer. But (business) OSS doesn’t have to be free. If it’s good people will pay but they will pay less than for closed source.
On the other hand: without visionaries like yourself we wouldn’t even have this discussion.

Thanks for your comment. It is right on the money and realize why a lot of open source projects are drifting in the commercial/shareware direction — because we have not created something technologically innovative enough to cut through the old ways.

The “open source sales model” was always supposed to be one where you could download and get started using something without paying for it, and then a small fraction of those users would come back to pay for additional services. For example, I downloaded MySQL, and only after I got successful using it did I go buy a book about MySQL, go to a MySQL conference, etc. etc.

If open source business applications still require a partner to set up and install, and open source applications companies need to recruit partners, then we need to find a way to pay the partners too, and then we’re back to selling commercial editions as well.

The only alternative is to break down the old approach with better technology: create a way for users to get up and running with business applications easily, like the way I was able to get up and running with MySQL.

What do you think?

I think your comment pretty well describes it.

There is one part you miss though: If you are playing in the b2b space (unlike music stores) you MUST have a sales channel. The small and medium enterprises out there do not buy after a thorough investigation and a tender (conducted and paid by whom?) but they are mostly led by somebody or something. And this \"somebody\" needs to be paid.

Unfortunately there is very little or no money left to give away. At least not enough to compete with \"old\" (proprietary) vendors who often pay +40% right from the first Euro spent by the customer.

And there is more: by looking at the commercial offering of some of the better known OSS companies there is not much of a price difference compared to commercial SW manufacturers. While this difference may add up to big bucks for enterprises it is negligible for smaller businesses. But enterprises (in Europe at least) always go for Volkswagen and Mercedes rather than for Hyundai or Lexus (or differently put: by buying big names there is no risk that the purchasing decision will ever be questioned…

Having dealt with OSS for quite some time now I do not have a recipe either. But what I usually say: There ain\’t no such thing as a free lunch. And businesses do not expect it. Make them pay a small amount, let your partners take the bigger share and go for the large numbers. But this of course requires a good hard look at the licensing model as well.

(Disclaimer: I am probably quite well known for my involvement with SugarCRM but I am not a partner. One reason you can read further up. Another one is that I believe that partners should (possibly) pay for training and support but not for the right to sell.)

Thank you! We’ll do our best for you.

This is really interesting. Thanks for telling me about jamendo. It seems they have the same thing as a dual licensing model which has been used by MySQL, JBoss, etc. and which we use for opentaps: free for users, pay for commercial resellers. The issue, though, is can Jamendo support big name artists? Or will it always be for the small artists, because big name artists will find the record labels’ deals too alluring?

By the way, don’t be too hard on the “enterprise edition” model. I agree that most people who’ve tried it have done it badly–a few add-on features plus support is just not that compelling. But there truly are people with different needs who are willing to pay, just like they really are people who pay for First Class on an airplane. For example, somebody may be from an “Oracle shop” and want their application only with Oracle DB, Oracle app server, etc. and are happy to pay for it, because their alternative is a multimillion dollar Oracle app too. In that case, it would be a good way to fund development for the rest of us.