Slashdot Mirror

OFBiz, at http://www.ofbiz.org/ has a POS component, although the whole application might be a bit heavyweight/require some customization/slimming down for your needs. It's worth a look, though.

Oh, and the project that seems to be taking the common-data-model approach is open for business.

Now I think that many of you are overlooking the bigger picture that indeed there are much larger Open Source financial packages such as Compiere (paid support available), ERP5 and ofbiz.org (which has a paid support beta program for their financial module which will be open sourced)
http://compiere.org/
http://www.erp5.org/
http://www.ofbiz.org/
http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/ofbiz/index.ph p

Don't say there aren't any such programs until you've checked out:
http://www.freshmeat.net/

Sure, but the slashdot user population is big enough that for any given wierd niche, there are likely to be overlaps - in this case, geeks that know about hotels.

If you're willing to do some hacking, instead of paying money, this is worth looking into:

http://www.opentravelsystem.org/

It's based on OFBiz: http://www.ofbiz.org/

I'd like to suggest looking into OFBiz http://www.ofbiz.org/ - it's not meant precisely for what the OP wants, but it's sufficiently flexible to be programmed/configured to do that sort of work without problems. The database models it's based on are very well thought out, something that 'rolling your own' is likely to not get quite right the first few times.

We have been using Open for business (http://www.ofbiz.org/ for some time which is gettting there. Some modules are much more complete than others and we've had to supplement it with SQL-Ledger (http://www.sql-ledger.org/ for financials to get most of the functionality we need but the accounting module is under development and the order management sections are stable. It also has a manufacturing module (we don't use), a content management module and some contact management and CRM functionality. There are a few other projects which have been spun off the main branch which concentrate on different aspects.

HTH

Ian

It has a worfklow engine that may be too abstract as a starting place for you, but the OfBiz app itself may already be doing pretty much everything you want anyway. It's java, open source, and been around for years, though not easy to tweak or get stably up and running.

Open source tools are great, but businesses need application software. I don't have figures, but I would think that ERP software dwarfs infrastructure software in importance, if not dollar value. Especially with businesses moving to more web-based software, it doesn't matter whether you run it on Windows or Linux, but that software is a cornerstone of most businesses. That is why open source efforts to address this sector are so important. In my opinion, even though Compiere (http://compiere.org/) may have more downloads than Open for Business (http://www.ofbiz.org/), OFBiz should be considered the leader because its architecture is structured for SOA and the web, it is database agnostic and is easier to get up and running.

The open source community needs to find a way to move into the business application sector in an effective manner. I don't believe that it will be by using low-level tools like .Net or Struts. It needs to come through leveraged frameworks like Compiere, Spring or Open for Business.

The Open For Business Project(OfBiz) is an open source enterprise automation software project licensed under the MIT Open Source License. By open source enterprise automation we mean: Open Source ERP, Open Source CRM, Open Source E-Business / E-Commerce, Open Source SCM, Open Source MRP, Open Source CMMS/EAM, and so on.

OFBiz has an entity engine so that you can write once for at least 10 different databases. It eschews the EJB and bean design for a more proficient service oriented architecture. It has integerated JPublish and FreeMarker for UI dev - a big improvement over JSPs (which are still available). It has built-in engines for processflow, SOAP and more. Services and actions can be written Java, Beanshell or a highly leveraged XML-based scripting language. The whole system uses industry-standard best practices and patterns where applicable.

And if OFBiz were not simply phenomenal as a dev platform, it comes out of the box with industrial strength ecommerce, many ERP modules, content management and third parties are starting to add many more.

OFBiz is "genius in a bottle".

You might want to try The Open for business project. According to their website, they are The goal of the project is to create an open source application framework, application components, and suite of enterprise applications and to build a community of end users and developers that work together to create easy to customize business software based on best practices.

Open Source Java super-integrated shop-in-a-can.
The Open for Business Project sports many features and integrated technologies. Just really impressive stuff, cannot list all the goodies here.

If it doesn't include Open for Business it is already out of date and missing the best piece of code going. The problem with the open source community today is that we don't mind using a few tools like Linux, Apache, etc. but when it comes to doing something that really would make business applications less expensive and of higher quality - like agree to standardize of a select few frameworks - we don't!

I know of at least two more-or-less-big projects:

• ERP5
• Open for Business

Anyone care to comment on how all these projects compare to each other?