Re: [Web-erp-developers] How Does Open Source Dovetail with the Commercial World

[skaill <sk...@ro...>]

It's awesome that you have created webERP, Phil.  Even more awesome that you
have made it available for others and for free.

Regardless of who creates what and for how much, in general and when doing
consulting work for a company (customer) it is important not to reinvent the
wheel.  If we go crazy working on a product for months and charge a customer
thousands when someone is selling what would have done the customer for $400
or it is Open Source then we aren't going to look too good in the long run.
At the same time there has to be enough work and profit to make it worth
doing for a customer in the case of the product not making us a profit by
selling it.  This is the challenge but I believe there are advantages as
well as disadvantages and there are ways to make it work for all.

People decide what software to use in the same way they vote for a
president/prime minister.  If it looks good and says the right things then
it must be good.  Unfortunate, but reality.  To get more people to consider
a good product then it kind of means that the fluff becomes necessary.
Sometimes fluff isn't just fluff as it would first seem as well.  For
example research over the years shows that filling more than about half of a
screen leads to slower interfacing.  1 in 20 Caucasian males are color
blind.

Steve

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daintrees" <p.d...@pa...>
To: <web...@li...>
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 7:34 PM
Subject: [Web-erp-developers] How Does Open Source Dovetail with the
Commercial World


> >
> > By the way, we may have our first webERP customer.  We'll know within a
> few
> > weeks.  It's being readied to show them.  We'll be doing some industry
> > specific modifications for their industry in order to impress them ;)
> >
> Brilliant! Good luck with this.
>
> Thanks for the background Steve .... maybe I take this stuff too lightly
> since it is a hobby for me - I don't need to make money from this - of
> course it would be nice but I do get pleasure from talking to you folks
and
> the developing of the project. My wife thinks I'm stupid giving it away!
> Probably am, but I take NO joy in marketing I am a product person/engineer
> at heart - accountant by trade..... definitely NOT a marketeer. As you
point
> out commercial software is about marketing and first impressions. I'm not
so
> interested in this as you know and my actions in releasing web-erp as open
> source does have the potential to make life difficult for commercial
> accounting software businesses. I'm not a deliberate spoiler. Its just
that
> I spent a long time making something I am proud of (ego must be the
driver)
> and think it is useful. I would much rather it be used than rot on my hard
> drive as just one massive waste of time.
>
> Open Source does seem like a spanner in the works of commercial software
> activity and probably tends to devalue the skills of professional
> programmers like yourself. For this I am sorry. However, I don't object to
> others making money off my efforts with a bit of marketing on their part -
I
> just think I deserve a right of refusal to include any improvements into
it.
>
>
> Phil
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.Net email is sponsored by OSTG. Have you noticed the changes on
> Linux.com, ITManagersJournal and NewsForge in the past few weeks? Now,
> one more big change to announce. We are now OSTG- Open Source Technology
> Group. Come see the changes on the new OSTG site. www.ostg.com
> _______________________________________________
> Web-erp-developers mailing list
> Web...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/web-erp-developers