The kind of bashing of open source that happens even on a forum like this, no wonder publishers want to start closing off stuff.
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I think it’s an idea worth pursuing. Core is open source and people that develop extensions to it can Close Source it if they want to. I’m sure it’s not the same comparison but isn’t Odoo trying to do something similar with their apps by the ecosystem.
As long as the Core is a Viable offering by itself and as long as people develop extensions to it that serve a vertical or a country or a region it should work.
Over years, the core keeps growing, so yesterdays extension becomes part of the core today (as dictated by what’s the minimum expectation to make the core a viable offering to it’s clients) and the ecosystem needs to constantly innovate to be relevant, else risks becoming irrelevant.
But what’s your drift? What is your intention of starting this thread. What outcomes do you want to explore?
Cheers
Jay
Excellent Article!!!
I think I am just beginning to understand the effort it takes to make ERPNext Open Source and continue to keep it in the open.
IMO the foundation model of funding and ensuring the longevity of ERPNext will work out well. As companies/Service Providers that start using the ERPNext realize that the health of ERPNext is of great value to them the funds will pour in. With more mindshare in the project, I think ERPNext will be better and more advanced than any ERP build by a single company.
But, for the above to happen I think there should be a change in mindset. Every stakeholder of ERPNext should (first) think how will this customization fit into the core model. How a particular feature be made into a general model. If you think your feature is a unique snowflake think again. Maybe if you zoom out a bit you can find other meta-feature that can be implemented to helps you achieve your goal. I think more discussions need to be opened for how your particular feature/workflow be designed in a way it can be part of the core.
I understand that there are lots of “maybe’s and if’s” and you may think I have not done any implementation of ERPNext. And that will be mostly true. We are an end consumer of ERPNext (implemented just 4 months ago) and we continue to use our in-house software for stuff that ERPNext does not support yet. But, after thinking hard and long, I realized that over time we can port all the stuff our in-house software does into ERPNext without the need to build custom apps. And don’t be mistaken, our in-house software is not bad (in fact people love using it; it was well on its way to becoming a full ERP)But it is because I believe ERPNext will ultimately become the best out there.
So, until the day I find a use case/feature/workflow that has no way at all to be included into the core, I will continue to believe all features can be part of the core if you tried hard enough. Hope, someone is kind enough to prove me wrong if it is indeed not the case.
Thank you @rmehta and others for having the vision of making ERPNext open source and for taking the time to build this wonderful community.
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