Compiere on Postgres/MySQL

Makes sense by heironymouscoward · 2003-11-03 01:01 · Score: 4, Interesting

I was discussing a similar problem with some musicians the other day: how to pay for creative work?

Our solution was sponsoring, in one way or another: support from wealthier individuals or firms, getting advertising and honorable mentions in return.

The basis was the way traditional musicians are paid in Africa, which is by singing the praises of whoever gives them money. Since such musicians (like griots) are also respected on who is who in the community, their voices are sometimes worth a lot.

In software, why not something along the lines of "such and such paid for this feature", an eternal mention of one's contribution to the project. It worked for Bach and Mozart, why not for OSS today?

--
Ceci n'est pas une signature

Re:Makes sense by iantri · 2003-11-03 01:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

How long until advertisements right in the software?
Voila. Adware.
Re:Makes sense by Ececheira · 2003-11-03 01:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

Our solution was sponsoring, in one way or another: support from wealthier individuals or firms, getting advertising and honorable mentions in return.
The way that you describe is exactly how the fine arts world works. For orchestra concerts, ballets, operas, museum exhibitions and the like, ticket sales *never* cover all of the costs. It's up to wealthy donors to subsidize the work and in return their name goes into a program and sometimes they get buildings named for them.
Re:Makes sense by fuzzybunny · 2003-11-03 01:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

This has existed for centuries in the arts and sciences--it's called having a patron.

Emperors, kings and generally rich old farts loved having court musicians, artists, and poets. It's an intriguing idea, especially if you could couple it with tax breaks for the donor.

Frankly, if I had a few million to spare, I'd love to support unemployed hackers to write FuzzyBunnyWare, with a great big ugly grinning picture of yours truly on the startup splash screen.

--
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Re:Makes sense by azzy · 2003-11-03 01:15 · Score: 1

In my experience, programmers HATE to be patronised! ;)
Re:Makes sense by BabyDave · 2003-11-03 01:20 · Score: 5, Funny

In software, why not something along the lines of "such and such paid for this feature", an eternal mention of one's contribution to the project.

Me: File->Save
Clippy: Interested in savings? [Bank name]'s savings accounts have the highest interest rates around.
Me: Go away! Tools->Options
Clippy: For all your tools and hardware needs, why not visit [Hardware store]
Me: Bugger off! How do I turn this off? Help->Contents
Clippy: Do you need help using your computer? Have you considered taking a computer training course? Why not try ...
Me: Aargh! (puts foot through screen)
Clippy: Do you have comprehensive medical insurance?
Re:Makes sense by Ianoo · 2003-11-03 01:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

You've just got to look at the backlash when it was reported Mandrake had an adware installer and screensaver to see that this is unlikely to work in open source software communities. Personally I won't even install software with adverts or software that shows adverts if you don't buy it (Opera). I think it's the most annoying business model possible.
Re:Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

The way that you describe is exactly how the fine arts world works.

The problem here is that while the Rolling Stones make a guaranteed MEEELION DOOOLARS per gig and a Money exhibition attracts literally millions of visitors most of the 'fine arts' would be hard pushed to cover the cost of the Starbucks bill from ticket sales.

As a filthy rich art lover I get a building named after me for sponsoring the ballet - what do I get for sponsoring something smaller? If I sponsor my local school hockey team I get some local kudos, and my pick of the teams moms. But sponsoring some open source development, young band, or other similar project just doesn't seem to give me anything other than a warm fluffy feel.

I certainly dont get a dozen tickets to every build with which to entertain my other rich friends like I do with the ballet!!
Re:Makes sense by kevinvee · 2003-11-03 02:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

A single patron can start to cause a lot of problems, as we've already seen with all the musicians, artists, and poets that you mentioned. Their (the donors) ideas are the only ones that get seen through, since they control the purse strings. (FuzzyBunnyWare anyone?)

This was one of the contributing factors to all of the revolutions seen in the 1770s, the death of classicism (with patronage) and the birth of romanticism (with paid-for instead of pledged-for services such as concerts).

This 'pledged-by-the-masses' idea, however, is a brilliant model for oss, assuming it works as well as necessary.
Re:Makes sense by Stachel · 2003-11-03 02:11 · Score: 1

Our solution was sponsoring

I think inviting in sponsors is the beginning of the end of creativity and independence, especially when the sponsors are firms (as opposed to individuals).

By definition most companies want to make money, so when the invest in sponsoring they are likely to want something in return (why do you think the 'royalties' that TV companies must pay for sports evenets are so rediculously high - sponsors pay clubs $$$ for exposure to their name, so the clubs need to make bucks selling their game).

Maybe it starts with a small logo that can be clicked away, maybe it ends with the sponsor determining what can be installed next to 'their' software and what cannot...

--Stachel

--
Stachel
Re:Makes sense by AndroidCat · 2003-11-03 02:41 · Score: 1

I for one welcome our new patron overlords... (But only if they hire me.)

--
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Re:Makes sense by joestar · 2003-11-03 03:06 · Score: 1

I guess you never watch TV nor listen to the radio. You a winner.
Re:Makes sense by johnnyb · 2003-11-03 04:09 · Score: 1

" A single patron can start to cause a lot of problems, as we've already seen with all the musicians, artists, and poets that you mentioned. Their (the donors) ideas are the only ones that get seen through, since they control the purse strings."

And that's why they are paid. I'm sorry, this culture of complete independence has gotten out of hand. Since when is performing work for someone else viewed as a problem? They couldn't do exactly what they wanted to - they should cry on someone else's shoulders, because that's real life for all of us.

It's early and I'm being a little over-harsh. But I hope you can see what I'm saying.

--
Engineering and the Ultimate
Re:Makes sense by gearry · 2003-11-03 04:24 · Score: 1

You have to remember that it makes a difference what licence is being used, because if it is GPL the problem is easily solved. If someone sticks ads into the software and you don't like it, take it out and redistribute without the ads. Problem solved. I imagine that a package without the ads would appear as fast as humanly possible. For this reason I doubt any GPLed project would use that model, as there is very little that they can guarantee. I see web references as being a more convincing model for that sort of thing.

I would have framed the whole setup in a different way, perhaps allowing people to set up "feature bounties" kind of like Google Answers or the prior art bounties that I saw offered a while back.

--
like g-a-r-y, only different
Re:Makes sense by pclminion · 2003-11-03 04:55 · Score: 1

Even more pertinent... How long until giant fucking banner ads appear all over the Slashdot main page?
Oh wait...
Re:Makes sense by ditto999999999999999 · 2003-11-03 05:57 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yes. but i change the channel when commercials start.
Re:Makes sense by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2003-11-03 07:09 · Score: 1

You've just got to look at the backlash when it was reported Mandrake had an adware installer and screensaver to see that this is unlikely to work in open source software communities.

But many of those are the same open source communities that used to believe you could get something for nothing. Today, even the biggest OSS projects, things like Linux and OpenOffice, have found that ultimately, you do need some source of income if you're going to keep good people working on good output for an extended period. A lot of these projects now have "donation funds" by whatever name, or sell packaged versions of products. Either way, the end user is back to paying for his software again.

Sure, most people don't like adware today. They probably don't like ads on TV or radio either, but as another reply noted, those still exist. I think if it comes down to a choice between adware or paying hard-earned $$$ for free (-as-in-Joe-Public-doesn't-care-as-long-as-it-does n't-cost-anything) software, a significant number of people would probably opt for the adware.

--
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Re:Makes sense by frostman · 2003-11-03 07:47 · Score: 1

As a painter, I'd like to add to your point that much of the best art ever created was directly supported by the patronage of powerful individuals (sometimes in the name of the State, often in the name of the Church).

Of course you'd be in pretty deep trouble if you painted an unflattering Lorenzo the Magnificent, but hey, you could always move to a rival town and sell it to the rival boss...

--
This Like That - fun with words!
Re:Makes sense by jchaos · 2003-11-03 09:08 · Score: 1

what about something scrolling in the splash screen, short and when the program loads the sponsership message is gone...

and for programs with no splash screen, just do it in the status bar, until the user does something/anything and then stop...

Show who has sponsered the program, w/o getting in the way, and let the end user chose for themselves over a sponsered or unsponsered program.

--
-- "There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them" -- Heisenberg
Re:Makes sense by Ogerman · 2003-11-03 20:09 · Score: 1

But sponsoring some open source development, young band, or other similar project just doesn't seem to give me anything other than a warm fluffy feel.

That is, unless you indirectly profit from the sponsoring you do. If you pay $100,000 to sponsor OpenOffice as a business and 3 months later can drop your $200,000 in MS Office licensing, that's a quite good return.
Re:Makes sense by HeX86 · 2003-11-04 04:27 · Score: 1

So don't look at the ads in the software, same thing

Me too... by swordboy · 2003-11-03 01:02 · Score: 4, Funny

I'm taking a similar approach to employment independence. For only a few dollars a month, you could help me sit on the couch every day.

--

Life is the leading cause of death in America.

Pledge Requests in the GUI by iantri · 2003-11-03 01:02 · Score: 1, Interesting

Once you put a little button asking for money in your program, what difference does it make? You've just effectively turned it into shareware. I hope FLOSS projects don't go this way.

Re:Pledge Requests in the GUI by base3 · 2003-11-03 01:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

In an open source product, the diffs would be out in minutes to remove this crap, thankfully. With closed source, it takes a few days for the crack to appear :).

--
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Re:Pledge Requests in the GUI by 16K+Ram+Pack · 2003-11-03 02:53 · Score: 1

It's totally different. It's about voluntary sponsorship. With shareware you are legally meant to pay for it, with OSS, it's just a request without compunction. I use lots of OSS, and I've mostly used it for free apart from giving a bit of encouragement.
That's my FTP Client, web browser, email client as well as a whole bunch of source code for projects.
Saved me a ton of money over commercial software.
As it's saved me some money, I'm going to personally give something back.
When my tax refund cheque comes through, I'm going to give some money to 1 or more OSS projects. It's only going to be something like $50 (poor, wife and kids to support!) but it's because I believe in it.
I believe in doing this because if lots of people gave $50 (or even $10) to help projects like Open Office or organisations like the EFF, we'd all be much better off.
Imagine living in a country when every family give over the equivalent of the price of a CD to help development of OpenOffice. Like $15 a year. That would be $1billion in development value. Think how good it could be for that. How much it could advertise itself, and how you'd have a free office suite for $15 a year instead of over a hundred bucks a year for MS Office. How WE could get control of file formats back.
Imagine how many corporations the EFF could stop from abusing copyright laws through barratry with a couple of billion dollars, or how many politicians they could lobby?
And the world isn't a bad place because of Bill Gates, George Bush and Rupert Murdoch. It's a bad place because I don't do enough.
Re:Pledge Requests in the GUI by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 03:29 · Score: 0

Well, many forms of shareware don't require you to buy it (or donate to it) if you like it, they just suggest it. The whole ASP thing was supposed to be in favor of uncrippled shareware that you only paid for if you felt like it. So really, that's not the distinguishing point.

What is different about (FL)OSS is that you get the source code, plain and simple, and usually some pretty broad redistribution/modification rights. That's the key difference, irrespective of business model. The FSF certainly solicits donations, although they don't put big flying banners into Emacs to try and "force" you to.
Re:Pledge Requests in the GUI by 16K+Ram+Pack · 2003-11-03 03:50 · Score: 1

I wouldn't suggest "forcing" at all.
But I don't see any harm in a few ads on the website you download it from, or something in the help about, or even in the startup screen or installer. Something gentle like "our project is supported by contributions. Thanks for listening". Enough to help people think about what they are giving back.
If something had a nag that prevented me getting somewhere until I'd pressed the reminder button, I'd get annoyed, though.
As it's open source, you could always remove anything like that that you don't like ;-)
Re:Pledge Requests in the GUI by fucksl4shd0t · 2003-11-03 10:57 · Score: 1

Imagine living in a country
Think how good it could be
Imagine how many
Who the fuck let John Lennon in here?

--
Like what I said? You might like my music
Re:Pledge Requests in the GUI by 16K+Ram+Pack · 2003-11-03 20:12 · Score: 1

hehe.
that wasn't in my mind when I wrote it. Honest!
I was talking to someone at the weekend about a local charity who needed a certain amount of money to do something (150,000 GBP) and put it in terms of "If everyone gave 1GBP in the town, we'll do it". That's half a pint of beer to most people. They raised the money in a week.
I think it's a more effective way of fundraising than having open ended needs.
Re:Pledge Requests in the GUI by fucksl4shd0t · 2003-11-03 21:51 · Score: 1

I think it's a more effective way of fundraising than having open ended needs.
I happen to agree with you, but possibly for different reasons. Yes, if you show everybody how they can contribute a smattering of cash to achieve the goal, more people will do it. The question is, is it because of the smattering of cash spread amongst many people, or the statement of a goal? Personally, I think that if you state your goal and your need, that's enough to raise donations.
Not that it's not useful to show how the load can be distributed and be most effective, just that I think stating the goal, which involves showing what the money will be used for, is more important.
I would like to point out that your reasoning is also the reasoning behind taxes, and you brits are notorious for taxing people without providing representation. *duck*

--
Like what I said? You might like my music
Re:Pledge Requests in the GUI by 16K+Ram+Pack · 2003-11-04 00:03 · Score: 1

At least we get who we vote for *duck*
Re:Pledge Requests in the GUI by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-05 22:03 · Score: 0

I would like to point out that your reasoning is also the reasoning behind taxes, and you brits are notorious for taxing people without providing representation.
We only do that to colonials and other woggish types.

One-Click (TM) OSS Pledges by ebeneazer · 2003-11-03 01:06 · Score: 2, Funny

Perhaps in the future we may even see these pledge requests linked within the GUI itself?

No, that's already patented? I can hear the lawyers howling already!

License by Quill_28 · 2003-11-03 01:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

I am curious.

Why did they choose Postgresql and not MySQL?

Was it because of the license(BSD vs GPL)? postgresql is considered more advanced than MySQL? both? something else?

Re:License by Quill_28 · 2003-11-03 01:13 · Score: 1

It would seem my question about the license is silly. Ignore this post, must be too early in the morning.
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:17 · Score: 0

PostgreSQL can do transactions and has it part of its codebase longer.

PostgreSQL supporting people have paid larger sums than the MySQL people also.
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:23 · Score: 0

The question isn't "silly" per se.

At one time Compiere was 'you can look at the code' kind of licence, only after no one cared did they change the licence and moved into the top 10 downloaded stuff on sourceforge.

So, worries about the GPL and 'viral infection' could be assumed, except Mr. Janke is on record as saying the decision was based on PostgreSQL's ability to do transaction based processing.
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:25 · Score: 0

The main reason is maturity of the db. pgsql has had transactions for much longer.

The main feature they required in pgsql was nested transactions. mysql is a long way from anything close to this. (as is pgsql, but it is easier to work with pgsql's faster and more reliable (vaguely close to sql spec) mvcc system)
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:29 · Score: 0

Because they require views and triggers, as well as transactions that don't block other clients (MVCC - not just locking).

Mysql may be fast for simple things, but it's missing a lot of things that complex schema need to be efficient, and consistent.
Re:License by antis0c · 2003-11-03 01:31 · Score: 4, Informative

PostgreSQL is more feature rich than MySQL. Whether or not it's more "advanced" depends on what you are using it for.

And no, I know MySQL has transactions through InnoDB, however MySQL doesn't have stored procedures, which also means no triggers. PostgreSQL not only has procedures but it has inheritance, overloading, and support for pl/PHP, pl/Perl, pl/Python and a host of other languages you can write stored procedures in.

Theres a bunch of differences between MySQL and PostgreSQL, neither of which make either one better overall. It's a matter of the application of each which determines if one is better.

--

..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Re:License by stienman · 2003-11-03 01:39 · Score: 1

At the time they made the decision to start building the bridge MySQL didn't support triggers, transactions, and stored procedures.

Triggers are not currently supported, and I believe that the transactions and stored procedures are not as functionals as Oracle's. While PostgreSQL doesn't support these as fully either, it does support triggers which are not trivial to emulate in java (not to mention resource intensive)

At least, that's what I remember from a year ago when they were discussing it...

-Adam
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:49 · Score: 0

Theres a bunch of differences between MySQL and PostgreSQL, neither of which make either one better overall. It's a matter of the application of each which determines if one is better.
The biggest advantage of MySQL is it's much easier to get running than PostgreSQL. phpmyadmin makes it a snap to administer MySQL servers and databases. PostgreSQL on the other hand is a complete pain in the ass and overkill for most projects.
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:51 · Score: 0

"My"

Have you ever had to tell someone "Go to your My Documents folder"? That's terrible sentence structure. Not to mention incredibly annoying. My Network Places. My this. My that. Bleah.

Your my our we their yet?
Re:License by bzzzt · 2003-11-03 02:27 · Score: 4, Informative

Really? Have you tried setting up postgresql? The version in RH9 was just as easy to set up as mysql, so if that's a PITA, you're not going to believe what you need to do to get oracle to work ;)
Re:License by Tim+C · 2003-11-03 02:33 · Score: 4, Funny

you're not going to believe what you need to do to get oracle to work ;)

Bah, that's easy - I just email our DBA and ask her to do it :-)

--
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Re:License by LDoggg_ · 2003-11-03 02:47 · Score: 1

I agree MySQL is easy to set up and administer.
Works out the box with red-hat 9 and webmin.

But MySQL is lacking two key features that many ERP systems use: Sequences and Views.

Sequences should be very easy to add, not sure why this hasn't been done already.
Views might be more difficult, but are extremely usefull.

--

"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 04:31 · Score: 0

phpmyhadmin? You're kidding, right? Try using a tool like tora. Since it's a desktop app instead of a web app, it's 10X more efficient to use to get things done. Since it is tora, it is 100X more powerful.
Re:License by krow · 2003-11-03 04:33 · Score: 1

5.0 has stored procedures in it now (and its close to alpha). Its the ANSI stored procedure language so its documented and decently easy to use. It should only be a short time before you can use other languages to (and you can already write functions in C, Perl, and PHP).

--
You can't grep a dead tree.
Re:License by Usquebaugh · 2003-11-03 04:40 · Score: 1

Take a look at SapDB. Now if people could explain why this is not given the same level of exposure as MySQL & Postgre
Re:License by stephanruby · 2003-11-03 05:16 · Score: 1

you're not going to believe what you need to do to get oracle to work ;)
Oracle? In my experience, it's very easy to set up on a Windows machine. What has been your experience of installing it on other OSes?
Re:License by Insurgent2 · 2003-11-03 05:59 · Score: 2, Informative

SapDB is a very powerful system, but if people think Postgres is difficult to setup/maintain...SapDB is 100 times more weenie oriented.
Why SapDB never got the exposure of others is hard to say. Some think it's because of the source code which is apparently very complex, hard to follow with few comments preventing outside people from writing additions/improvements for it. Others say it was simply Sap announcing that it was going OSS and then never doing any other promotion on it. Me, I think it wasn't successful because of the simple fact that the *only* support plan they had available cost $50,000/year. Since their OSS model didn't work they have now joined up with MySQL. They are going to release the next version of SapDB as something like "MaxDB" and it will be MySQL's "high-end" database.
It also means that it will be licensed like MySQL (including client libraries) which will be an issues for a number of people.
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 06:52 · Score: 0

you're not going to believe what you need to do to get oracle to work ;)

Oracle database is the easy one - but try setting up its Application Server..
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 07:52 · Score: 0

Stupid question here, but how do you pronounce postgreSQL?
I can't push a database to clients until I can pronounce it! mySQL is so much easier..... and SQL Server ('Sequel Server' from Microsoft) is something that Business people NEVER balk at, when I recommend it.
ok, so how do I pronounce it?
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 08:38 · Score: 0

What's the problem with the licenses?
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 10:05 · Score: 0

Um. Just so you know, its "S Q L Server" not "Sequel Server". SQL stopped being "sequel" around 20 years ago or something. Go read up on it. When people say "my sequel" it is wrong, rather use "my s q l".

kthxbye
Re:License by Trejkaz · 2003-11-03 11:57 · Score: 1

MySQL must be paid for, to be used in a commercial product. I believe this is the same license as BerkeleyDB (expected reaction: "you mean db4 isn't free either?")

--
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Re:License by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 19:15 · Score: 0

It's pronounced "postgres-Q-L". There's even an audio file on the web site to clarify...

Note that a lot of people still just call it "postgres" because that's what it used to be called (before it did SQL and was more of an experimental database project).
Re:License by Hognoxious · 2003-11-05 22:25 · Score: 1

My this. My that. Bleah.
Microsoft invented local variables in Perl, then?

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."

"free" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:12 · Score: 0

It's not free software anymore once you put something in the gui that begs me for money.

Re:"free" by Hognoxious · 2003-11-05 23:02 · Score: 1

It's not free software anymore once you put something in the gui that begs me for money.
It is if you ignore it.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."

Why do you need donations by mdupont · 2003-11-03 01:13 · Score: 2, Informative

I have already ported this to postgres on the weekend.

Compiere.pgsql

mike

--
Introspection is the key to understanding

Re:Why do you need donations by mdupont · 2003-11-03 01:21 · Score: 1

I dont know if the GUI works, but the DB builds.

If you want to support my effort, donate $5 to mdupont777@yahoo.com on paypal.

mike

--
Introspection is the key to understanding
Re:Why do you need donations by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:26 · Score: 0

*smile* If I get time to work on this on the weekend and it works, you'll get enuf for a good pizza.

*must call cronies and express my joy!*
Re:Why do you need donations by pacman+on+prozac · 2003-11-03 01:30 · Score: 1

The database structure is there ported to postgres.

Does compiere use any Oracle-specific SQL queries? If so it'll need some more work to update the application too.

I'm thinking that if they're asking for donations then the work is going to be more than just porting the database schema which would maybe only take an hour or two.
Re:Why do you need donations by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:34 · Score: 3, Informative

Mr. Janke wrote this code originally as a Java based Oracle project back in the 1990's in Germany, and somehow he got to keep the code license. So it is very 'tied to Oracle'. And it wasn't built to be 'portable'.

The 'issue' is some form of 'stored procedures', but I've not the background in Oracle to do the work to de-Oracle it, or to know enuf to know what I'm looking at. :-(
Re:Why do you need donations by stienman · 2003-11-03 01:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

Porting the table structure is not the same as, oh, porting the actual program so that it reads and writes to PostgreSQL.

What exactly do you mean by giving us a database configuration file, and then saying you've ported compiere to postgresql? Where are the modified java files?

-Adam
Re:Why do you need donations by mdupont · 2003-11-03 01:58 · Score: 1

Your right, the java files are not ported. Sorry that I did not say that.

Java files? Well that is another story. I am working on the database first, I personally dont think that java code is really that worth it.

My plan is to make a new GNUE app server module that handles the requirements of Compiere and ther other open source ERP systems.

mike

--
Introspection is the key to understanding
Re:Why do you need donations by GooberToo · 2003-11-03 02:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

If I recall, for the port to actually function, it needed additional transaction support.

Also, IIRC, the data model had long since been ported by the developers to PostgreSQL, however, the effort came to a halt when they decided they needed additional feature support from PostgreSQL or significant code changes in their Java client.

So, unless you have more than just DDL, I don't think you have much to offer here.
Re:Why do you need donations by mdupont · 2003-11-03 02:03 · Score: 1

Yes the database schema was only an hour or two of work.

--
Introspection is the key to understanding
Re:Why do you need donations by chriskl · 2003-11-03 03:13 · Score: 1

Make those NUMERIC(10,0) fields INTEGER and it will run a whole lot faster.
Re:Why do you need donations by mdupont · 2003-11-03 03:56 · Score: 1

Yes, Well Your right. Give me a year, then I will have something to offer.
mike

--
Introspection is the key to understanding
Re:Why do you need donations by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 06:16 · Score: 0

Guess you never worked with enterprise level software. The structure is easy to port, what is difficult is the interface. Take Peoplesoft for instance. It may have sql pointing to a specific database package (db2,oracle,sysbase,sqlserver...) and it has the ability to target any of those easily.
Re:Why do you need donations by mdupont · 2003-11-03 07:42 · Score: 1

I have worked on enterprise software. I am going to rewrite the backend using gnue
mike

--
Introspection is the key to understanding
Re:Why do you need donations by openmtl · 2003-11-03 11:18 · Score: 1

I shoved that into a database and (just quickly to get it to do it) I had to... A) Changed constraint ad_replicationstrategy to ad_replicationstrategy_key B) Changed BLOB to BYTEA C) Changed CLOB to BYTEA I know Postgresql supports blobby data but how you access this is different from simply storing a blob so this would imply underlying changes to code. Still its a fun exercise and shows that Compiere is quite a moderate size.

--
Re:Why do you need donations by mdupont · 2003-11-03 20:56 · Score: 1

So where are the previous results of the porting? What about a cvs access to what has been done?
Why is it not being published and open to view?

mike

--
Introspection is the key to understanding
Re:Why do you need donations by mdupont · 2003-11-04 02:06 · Score: 1

Dear Anonymous Coward,

Are you Janke himself? How would you know all of this? Please tell me who you are and what you have done so far.

mike

--
Introspection is the key to understanding
Re:Why do you need donations by mdupont · 2003-11-04 02:08 · Score: 1

Dear Anonymous Coward,

Who are you? Come out and Fight.

mike

--
Introspection is the key to understanding

The claim is QT 4 of 2003 (and other claims) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

The claim was made this 'port' would have aviablity in Qt 4 of 2003.

No sign of that happening.

Some other data for the slashdot readers.

Other 'claims' from the http://www.compiere.org/technology/independence.ht ml page:

"but you can get an invoice"

and

"As a proof of concept, ComPiere plans to provide a porting kit for one database to be selected yet."

Now I "donated" over $100 on this last year for a PostgreSQL port.

1) I have not gotten a invoice.
2) Phone calls to Mr. Janke have not been returned to answer the question 'what is the status of the port'
3) Now what I "donated money" for - a PostgreSQL port - may not be done, and instead a MySQL port may be done instead?

As you can guess, I'm "Happy" about the progress thus far.

On the mailing list some people have talked about a PostgreSQL fork of his code and Mr. Janke had made mention of some PostgreSQL work done 2 years ago, but to my knowledge, none of that code is 'out there' for the public to see.

At present, the development environment is Jbuilder...perhaps a seperate slashdotting can happen and convice them to move to Eclipse?

Re:The claim is QT 4 of 2003 (and other claims) by danharan · 2003-11-03 02:28 · Score: 1

That's a problem. If we can't even trust the bigger projects, how can we trust the smaller ones to carry out the projects they promised?

A lot of the stuff I use is done by small open-source projects, and I shouldn't have to research their track record every time I want a specific feature.

It would be great if one of the Open Source foundations could co-ordinate these donations. If a foundation gave a project money when the feature is added - maybe to the satisfaction of most of the bidders - they get the payment. Or the foundation can research the trust-worthiness of the project.

A project like this would also benefit from people being able to suggest features or improvements. Like "I want a point release with overall improvements in speed and I don't need any more releases", "I want better usability", "This has to be able to generate an X report".

--
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Re:The claim is QT 4 of 2003 (and other claims) by zeeboy · 2003-11-03 02:29 · Score: 1

When did Trolltech get involved in this?!? and when is QT4 coming out again :>
Re:The claim is QT 4 of 2003 (and other claims) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 03:01 · Score: 0

If you buy software from small proprietary software vendors without researching their track record, you are faar more likely to get screwed.

Either way, you risk investing a lot of time and money in a dead-end software, but if you invest it in proprietary software, you are a lot more likely to end be locked in. At least you can always pay some guy in India to migrate your data if your software is open-source--if it's proprietary you could end up having to start from scratch.

Moral is, if you're in a position to make important decisions about software adoption, DO YOUR ----ING RESEARCH. Why on earth would this not apply to open-source software?
Re:The claim is QT 4 of 2003 (and other claims) by natmsincome.com · 2003-11-03 15:33 · Score: 1

I've been follow this for a while. I don't know anything about the invoices but I do remember what happened with the PostgreSQL port.

Basically they go it 90% complete then found out that it was impossible to do the last 10% and that it couldn't be worked around. Because they're using emebed code it's not easy to port from one DB to another.

Because they couldn't do the simple port they're now looking at doing it through a layer that will take care of all the middle stuff (like EBJs). rather than bring it into the code.

This is a nontrivial port but it will make it database independant.

It sounds like he could have handled the PR better but if I was the owner of a company looking at this an it changed from a trivial port to a non trivial port I wouldn't be interested in porting it either.

BitTorrent by Phantasmo · 2003-11-03 01:17 · Score: 2, Funny

BitTorrent regularly asks me for donations when I start it up.

Unfortunately, if I answer, "No, I haven't donated," it segfaults. I can't tell whether or not that's by design.

--

The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience

give us some money.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:19 · Score: 0

They are taking pledged donations to help get the ball rolling on the project Certainly there are many feature requests in OSS I'd gladly pledge towards

Now all the pledged donations would go to pay for the bandwidth usage because of /. crows.

sap db? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:22 · Score: 0

Why is the OS community so silent when anyone mentions sap db?

It's FREE. It's ENTERPRISE CLASS. It's GPLed.
http://www.sapdb.org/

Re:sap db? by chill · 2003-11-03 02:42 · Score: 3, Informative

1. Because it hasn't gotten anywhere near the airtime of MySQL/Postgres.

2. Because it is going away -- being merged into MySQL AB's product line as MaxDB.

http://www.sapdb.org/7.4/sapdb_mysql.htm

--
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.

Why should we contribute to this? by @madeus · 2003-11-03 01:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

Nuts to this! Seriously! Why should we contribute to this?

It makes sense for them to do this port. They should have made it work on at least either Postgres/MySQL in the first place. It's their own fault, they have clearly dug their own hole and now they want us to give them money to buy a ladder to help them out of it.

If the program was coded well, it wouldn't be more than a few days work (they should just need to change a very small number of functions, the ones that act as an abstraction layer to the DB). If they haven't, that's their problem and they have a lot more than just backend portability to worry about.

In even reasonably complex projects I always use an abstraction layer so I have the option to change the DB at will. In fact, you might say I use two layers - one layer for the DB, and another layer in the form of the functions I call to get data (which call the DB layer), and I usually have a set of 'core' functions which are not called directly from any user facing elements but only from libraries which do the actual data retrieval.

I'd also add it acts as an excellent way of reducing the number of bugs - by forcing the use of abstracted interfaces I find the enforced simplicity of the interfaces cuts down on the bug rate (by breaking down the code in to easily maintainable and re-useable chunks with easy to test input and output).

So in this case I say:

Lack of abstraction == no cookie for you! Bad developer!

Re:Why should we contribute to this? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:30 · Score: 1, Insightful

The lack of abstraction part is not the issue.

The code has been designed around nested transactions. These are supported by bd2 and oracle but not by postgresql.
Re:Why should we contribute to this? by @madeus · 2003-11-03 02:19 · Score: 1

Actually, abstraction from the database is exactly the issue.

Having done commercial code using the same practices and having used it to convert my own GPL project (from storing nested and dependant data as XML to SQL of all things) at Savannah to I can testify to this. It's easy if you actually design your software (not just sit down and bash the keys randomly like a code monkey), it just requires planning and a commitment to professional practice, specifically a commitment to good design, which should be considered professional integrity.

It's trivial to change one function to behave in a completely alternate matter and give the same output. Sometimes you do need to change a handful of places to accomodate a change in design, no matter how forward thinking you've tried to be, but if significant parts of the program need to be re-written to cope then it hasn't used abstraction at all.

If you don't get that - then I'd say you don't really get the point of abstracting at all. The idea is not to mimic the functions of the DB you are calling in some redundant fashion, it's to allow them to obtain the data from any DB, even a CSV file if you wish, without the rest of the program even being aware you've switched formats.
Re:Why should we contribute to this? by Paradise+Pete · 2003-11-03 02:29 · Score: 2, Informative

They should have made it work on at least either Postgres/MySQL in the first place. It's their own fault, they have clearly dug their own hole
Not all projects start from a clean slate. This post explains a bit.
Re:Why should we contribute to this? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 05:05 · Score: 0

But some of the things a DB does takes years to get right. It makes no sense at all to abstract out the ability to do nested transactions with rollback capability outside of a DB. What would be the point of moving all those potential bugs into the applications which would then have to be kept strictly in sync to have any chance of working.
Re:Why should we contribute to this? by Ogerman · 2003-11-03 20:25 · Score: 1

If the program was coded well, it wouldn't be more than a few days work (they should just need to change a very small number of functions, the ones that act as an abstraction layer to the DB).

This is a bit of an over-simplification. The abstraction layer must fill in all the gaps of missing functionality in the less-powerful database backend(s). Most likely they are taking advantage of some of Oracle's advanced features, which would essentially need to be re-implemented. Not an easy task. If it's a cheesy web site, then sure, use ADOdb or something. That works because you're using minimal SQL that everybody supports.
Re:Why should we contribute to this? by @madeus · 2003-11-04 00:21 · Score: 1

This is a bit of an over-simplification. The abstraction layer must fill in all the gaps of missing functionality in the less-powerful database backend(s). Most likely they are taking advantage of some of Oracle's advanced features, which would essentially need to be re-implemented. Not an easy task. If it's a cheesy web site, then sure, use ADOdb or something. That works because you're using minimal SQL that everybody supports.

I think there is some fair comment in that - but I do think that even if you do have to fill the gaps in to kludge for a lack of, say, nested transactions, it doesn't have to be an immense amount of work. You only need to cover for the specific functionality your application actually needs.

For example, if you wanted to take advantage of nested transactions, it's not particularly hard to write the functionality required into an existing function which wraps the request (and insert/roll back data (i.e. re-insert previous values, temporarily held in memory) as required). Writing a wrapper like that for specific types of actions really isn't that difficult or time consuming to do (unless the program is a nasty hash to begin with).

I worked on a project with transactions that had complicated inter-dependencies, multiple conditions for failure, and the ability to handle partial failure by committing and reporting failures - as well as refund all the costs involved in a transaction in the event of a single frailer condition [the action was dependant on the failure condition] (and all the while locking the funds and 'pre-paid tokens' as needed from each department budget involved and only refunding them if warranted - so the entire operation could ultimately be considered atomic by the client).

The instance I'm thinking of had multi-tired levels of funding to clear, with multiple shared pools to pull both funds and 'pre-paid tokens' from (in some cases one, both, neither or either were required for a successful transaction - with the availability of both being determined based on the contents of shared pools in an inter-dependent hierarchy which allowed for flexible budgets and pre-paid token reserves by allowing resources to be shared between departments, virtual groups and the company as a whole - as desired (or not) by the various administrators at each level of the organisation, rules which were all subject to change dynamically by them), so it's fair to say it was reasonably non trivial.

I realise that might not make a lot of sense (might make more sense if you re-read it a few times :), but all I'm really getting at was that it did a lot of things that are (as I seem to have proved ;) quite complicated to explain, but in a way that was trivial to use as a user and to use the functions in the front end, because the libraries and the backend processes were done well.

It's completely backend independent and all you'd need to do to change the format it uses was change a single library file to match your DB. It could use SQL, BDB, or CSV or XML file for data storeage and not care about the data input/output, but you'd still be able to take advantage of advanced features of a better backend because of the carefully chosen core functions (and getting them right was absolutely vital). Tedious and deliberate planning (and ensuring you get the time to do it) was all that's really required to achieve this. I spent months planning, long before I started coding any of this.

The key (as I'll admit to having banged on about on /. before :) was simply deliberate and considered planning of development beforehand. I feel as long as you plan ahead and have a solid foundation, your able to cope with the curveballs you'll inevitably get thrown (and not have to re-dig your foundations later).
Re:Why should we contribute to this? by Ogerman · 2003-11-04 09:14 · Score: 1

The key (as I'll admit to having banged on about on /. before :) was simply deliberate and considered planning of development beforehand. I feel as long as you plan ahead and have a solid foundation, your able to cope with the curveballs you'll inevitably get thrown (and not have to re-dig your foundations later).

Thanks, that was very insightful. I am currently overhauling the database design for a fairly complex project I'm working on. Numerous people in the past with less than a full clue have suggested things like "just throw ADOdb on top of it" whereas I'm aiming for the "tedious planning to do it right the first time" approach. (-:

Forget this stupid MPL, Dual License Compiere! by mdupont · 2003-11-03 01:28 · Score: 1

The real problem hindering Compiere developement is the choice of the MPL

The Mozilla was relicensed :
why-relicensing

I have written to Janke about allowing me to use the database schema under a GPL Dual Licensed Product with MPL. I dont know what to make of his answer, do you think he understood the question?

LICENSE MAIL

That would be the best thing for Compiere'S Future.

mike

--
Introspection is the key to understanding

ERP/CRM?? by batura · 2003-11-03 01:29 · Score: 4, Informative

I didn't know what this was, so from their webpage:

What are ERP Software Solutions? ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning and is the software to support your entire business processes. ERP Software Solutions typically consists of modules such as Marketing and Sales, Field Service, Production, Inventory Control, Procurement, Distribution, Human Resources, Finance and Accounting.

What are CRM Software Solutions? CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and is the software to support your business process to find, get and retain customers. CRM Software Solutions typically consist of modules such as Sales Force Automation, Call Management, Self Service.

KDE does this by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:31 · Score: 2, Informative

In any KDE program, click Help on the menu bar, then select About KDE at the bottom. You will see four tabs, each with Information on how you can help improve KDE.

In fact, you can help right now KDE 3.2 Beta. has just been released. Try it out, report any bugs or problems to help improve KDE, so KDE 3.2 will be a success when its released around Christmas.

Why open source in this field? by Psychic+Burrito · 2003-11-03 01:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think ERP + CRM applications are only interesting for large companies that have a lot of money - can anybody tell me why it's better for the community that these companies do not have to spend so much money?

Heck, the E in ERP stands for Enterprise, doesn't it? And "ressource planning" bascially stands for "how to spend your money the best way" - if these enterprises have so much money, why shouldn't they spend a bit on software? Please enlighten me, thanks.

Re:Why open source in this field? by AxelBoldt · 2003-11-03 01:53 · Score: 1

Ideas cannot be owned nor sold.
Re:Why open source in this field? by EJB · 2003-11-03 01:56 · Score: 2, Informative

It seems logical, but it's not true. Many smaller companies have ERP software, even if it is not always called that way.
A web-shop can make use of Compiere for inventory management, and a small distributor with a warehouse as well. There's also a general bookkeeping module.
I'm not sure what other modules compiere already has, but what it has is already quite useful for many smaller companies.

And even if it was for big companies? Open source is not so much about software that costs no money, as you are well aware. The world would be a better place if big utility companies had bug-free billing software, for example :-)

- Erwin
Re:Why open source in this field? by TrueJim · 2003-11-03 02:03 · Score: 1

One reason to create Open Source in this field is that it would help small businesses become bigger businesses. We slashdotters advocate competition and choice in software, but a good ERP and CRM package would help promote better competition in a field outside our normal domain. A big obstacle to growing any business is managing the increasingly complexity of enterprise resources; if we could help businesses solve that problem, we would help small businesses grow.

Large companies would benefit as well, since an Open Source ERP system could help eliminate a lot of the inefficiencies that arise from incompatible enterprise information systems. This is particularly true for companies that have grown through acquisition and have therefore inherited a lot of different EIS. In turn, increased efficiencies in large companies are good for the economy, and hence good for us in the long run. (In the long run, efficiency improvements create more jobs; in the short run, however, a lot of jobs are lost, as many types of jobs depend on inefficiencies as part of their charter.)

An Open Source ERP and CRM system would also contribute to globalization, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on which part of the globe you call home.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), I don't think the cultures of ERP and CRM systems are sufficiently mature yet for the Open Source model to create best-of-breed offerings. The Open Source model works best when the requirements and design of the applications being developed are very well understood by lots of people; i.e., when all the commercial offerings have evolved to the point that they all more-or-less look alike. ERP and CRM aren't to that point yet.

--
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
Re:Why open source in this field? by Samus · 2003-11-03 02:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Thats easy really. Its all about the small to medium sized businesses. How many small businesses have you ever come across that could really use some good groupware software or other things but can't afford them? I saw several while I was contracting. If these companies can save a few dollars and get the tools to help them compete on a larger level its a good thing. See the economy is really driven by small businesses. When lots of small companies are doing well there are more jobs. Boeing, Ford, GM et all create very few jobs compared to the number of small businesses that open up everyday. In this world of increasing technology these tools help lower the bar for entry into a market. They can also create a niche for a small business to help other small businesses implement and use these tools.

--
In Republican America phones tap you.
Re:Why open source in this field? by nerph · 2003-11-03 02:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

The E in ERP does stand for Enterprise, but that's more for marketing the name than anything. What the products actually aim to provide is a toolset for planning all of the resources managed by an organization.

A good ERP system when implemented to support solid business processes can drastically improve a company's productivity and operating efficiency. This is true for small, medium and large companies. The reason that most people associate ERP with LARGE corporations is because they typically implement a tier 1 ERP such as Oracle, SAP or JDE, which are the most well known (and expensive).

There are tons of small and mid-sized organizations that employ less well-known ERP systems. In fact these days it's damn near impossible to grow from small to mid-size without implementing at least a portion of an ERP system. This is why it is so important to have open source projects like Campiere. Trust me, the small companies do NOT have tons of cash to throw around (i.e. they are not evil).

The funny thing about ERPs though is that they have become largely Resource Tracking systems rather than planning systems (with the exception of production planning, which stems from MRP). The actual planning job is left to solutions that sit on top of the ERP like Cognos Enterprise Planning, Analytic Applications and SAP xApps.
Re:Why open source in this field? by nerph · 2003-11-03 02:31 · Score: 1

+1 Insightful (maybe) -5 Can't spell the damn product name right! Where's the "edit post" button when you need it???
Re:Why open source in this field? by Psychic+Burrito · 2003-11-03 02:54 · Score: 1

Oh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up!
Re:Why open source in this field? by pigscanfly.ca · 2003-11-03 04:08 · Score: 2, Interesting

CRM can be quite usefull for smaller companies .
The ability to keep track of your customers and provide better support is a neccesasity if smaller companies want to keep there clients .
Re:Why open source in this field? by Mengoxon · 2003-11-03 07:05 · Score: 1

This is like asking: Enterprises have so much money - why don't they give it to me?

SAP or Baan usually costs 200K$ for a mid-sized company site, add another 200K$ for the implementation consultants.

If you can save half of that money, you could save a job or two. Besides, as has been often argued in these forums, open-source is not just about free as in free beer. There are thousands of enterprise legacy systems out there without support because of merged, acquired or bankrupt software companies.

And to add to the former arguments: to pay off software from one of the major players, you need to be in the league of 10M$+ - also, developing countries companies could benefit from this.
Re:Why open source in this field? by Tablizer · 2003-11-03 14:31 · Score: 1

I think ERP + CRM applications are only interesting for large companies that have a lot of money - can anybody tell me why it's better for the community that these companies do not have to spend so much money?

Training, experimentation, less burden on the DBAs. If a company can experiment with something without buying yet another Oracle license, it increases the chance that they will adopt it.

BTW, Compiere seems to have the interesting practice of using data dictionaries (field tables) to drive form and reports generation and standard handling instead of hard-wiring such into the code. If you have a good table browser, then it would be a lot easier to add or change IO fields by changing the data dictionary than by hunting around in the code. I used to do this a lot in the "desktop database" era.

--
Table-ized A.I.

DB dependence is a bug! by $tefan · 2003-11-03 01:36 · Score: 1

It should be written DB independently in the first place - depending on a specific DB engine is a design bug, that they are trying to fix only now, with donations.

DB independence is a big deal, but surely isn't something new.... Eg. Makumba TagLibrary is DB independent - can work with MySQL, Informix, PostgreSQL, DB/2, Quadcap embedded DB...

Re:DB dependence is a bug! by julesh · 2003-11-03 01:57 · Score: 2, Informative

Eg. Makumba TagLibrary is DB independent - can work with MySQL, Informix, PostgreSQL, DB/2, Quadcap embedded DB...

Sure, it's quite possible to be DB independent if your usage of the DB is as simplistic as Makumba's appears to be (note: I've just had a quick read of the documentation to get a feel for what it does, I haven't actually used it, as its a JSP thing and I tend to avoid JSP whenever possible...)

There doesn't seem to be any usage in this system of the following features, all of which are horribly unstandardized and can cause sever headaches when moving from DB to DB:

- stored procedures (not supported by MySQL yet, many variations in language used to define them elsewhere)
- foreign key constraints (i.e. ensuring that a column in inserts or updates references a valid row in another table, also not supported by MySQL)
- triggers (hell, I've never used these myself, but folks tell me they can be very handy, and are also not supported by MySQL)
- date arithmetic (OK, I'm lacking in experience, but I find it rather tricky to write SQL queries that can cope correctly with automatically producing date ranges that work in both MySQL and MSSQL, the 2 DB servers I do have more than brief experience with).
Re:DB dependence is a bug! by $tefan · 2003-11-03 03:04 · Score: 1

Sure, a primary goals of Makumba is to keep things as simple as possible, not offering bells and whistles (non-standard 'SQL' extensions) of various DB engines.
Instead, Makumba uses standard OQL on the application layer, and transoforms it into standard SQL when communicating with the DB server. Moreover, it also speaks SQL dialects to accomodate various DB engine particularities when absolutely needed.
All the non-standard SQL extensions tend to fool the application developers into writing DB dependant code, locking themselves effectively down to the specific DB engine.
Compiere now (ab)uses this to raise funds from developers who realized that specific DB engine is overly expensive, and are willing to pay some $$$ ("donation") to get away from it, to potentially save more money and/or stay competitive/in business.
Re:DB dependence is a bug! by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2003-11-03 07:40 · Score: 1

With all due respect, you're missing the point. Some DBMSs provide these "non-standard extension" because they are useful. Achieving the same goals with the same reliability in client code would take much more development; why bother, when your database tool already offers the same functionality?

Portability is merely a means to an end, not an end in itself. Lack of portability does not imply a bug, it is simply a design decision to be made by weighing the pros and cons, just like any other. In this case, it seems a decision made one way some time ago is now causing problems, but who knows whether it was the right decision at the time? Maybe if the original development had been done with portability in mind, the extra overhead would have killed the project and there'd be nothing left now on any system.

This issue simply isn't as black and white as you're making it out to be.

--
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Re:DB dependence is a bug! by Hognoxious · 2003-11-06 00:01 · Score: 1

Some DBMSs provide these "non-standard extension" because they are useful. Achieving the same goals with the same reliability in client code would take much more development; why bother, when your database tool already offers the same functionality?
Err, because other database tools don't? Which part of "non-standard extensions" don't you understand? If you must use bells and whistles, at least they should be isolated from the rest of the code; then if the other DB does support whizzyfeature, you leave the module in. If not, you replace it with one that emulates it, perhaps from more primitive functions.
It would still have been better to use simple, standard, functions in the first place, IMHO. The whole thing smells of designing from the technology forwards, rather than from the functionality back.
it is simply a design decision to be made by weighing the pros and cons, just like any other.
And design decisions can be just as stupid as any other.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:DB dependence is a bug! by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2003-11-06 01:28 · Score: 1

Err, because other database tools don't? Which part of "non-standard extensions" don't you understand?

I understand perfectly well, thanks. I just acknowledge the fact that the requirements for some projects do not include portability, and indeed may include constraints that are best satisfied by using specific tools. You fail to acknowledge this possibility.

Of course it's normally best to isolate any non-standard interfaces you use (or indeed any interfaces you use to any API you didn't write yourself) via some sort of abstraction layer. That's just page one of the Book of Smart Software Design. It doesn't mean you can't take advantage of non-standard features, though, particularly where there is a significant cost/time penalty for sticking with pure standard.

And design decisions can be just as stupid as any other.

Indeed they can, and making them on the basis of hard and fast rules rather than considering the pros and cons in each case is just about the easiest way to make a stupid design decision.

--
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Re:DB dependence is a bug! by Hognoxious · 2003-11-07 06:57 · Score: 1

I just acknowledge the fact that the requirements for some projects do not include portability
They write it in Java (remind me, what was the slogan - write once, run anywhere?), and yet tie it to a specific, non-open RDBMS.
You fail to acknowledge this possibility.
No. But it does go against the open-source ethos somewhat.
You fail to see the contradiction.
... making them on the basis of hard and fast rules rather than considering the pros and cons in each case is just about the easiest way to make a stupid design decision.
And building something open that has a dependency on something not open is the easiest way of making people say sod it, and choose something else. If they'd never claimed it was open source, I would agree with you.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:DB dependence is a bug! by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2003-11-08 14:02 · Score: 1

Portability isn't implied by open source, and indeed many of the major points in favour of open source don't depend on portability at all.

Moreover, it is a matter of reality that a lot of tools, open source or otherwise, can only practically be written using proprietary or otherwise platform-specific tools.

Sometimes this is just down to time constraints: using a specific library may cut months off the development time, at the expense of (immediate) portability, as in this case. Of course, if portability matters, you can always use those months you saved later on instead to write the same code you would have had to write in the first place to work with some other tool lacking the custom feature you used originally. You have lost nothing by taking this approach, and made a release of your software that works with that particular non-standard tool much earlier than would otherwise have been possible.

Other times, there are performance constraints on your application, which can be met by using non-standard extensions in some tool, but not using only standard code. This problem (portability vs. performance) has existed since forever, and will forever continue to do so. It's a trade-off, and sometimes performance is the more important factor.

Finally, of course, sometimes it's just easier to use a custom extension and no-one sees any risk in doing so. Try building the Linux kernel with a standards-compliant C++ compiler that doesn't offer all the non-standard extensions that gcc includes and see how far you get. But since gcc isn't likely to go away any time soon, this hasn't been found to be a particularly devastating weakness, even though the output code from gcc isn't as high quality as some more targetted compilers.

Basically, all I'm saying is that while portability may be desirable, and it's a silly idea to compromise it "just because", sometimes other things are more important. What matters is meeting the requirements for your specific project, and portability is just a means to an end you may or may not need to reach.

--
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.

Re:Maybe not by value_added · 2003-11-03 01:37 · Score: 1

Using your analogy, the addition of corporate sponsorship to a PBS program would make it identical to regular (commercial) television programming. I think the answer lies, like all things, in how it's done.

For example, I subscribe to both PBS television and radio in part because I get free (subsidised) coffee mugs, T-shirts, music, invitations and discounts on concert tickets among other things. Also, the combination of pleasant but persistent mailings requesting money and having my name officially honoured helps to make me feel like I'm getting something tangible for my contributions -- something a "Register Now" button on an application or website can't do, let alone a Paypal transaction. Incidentally, the marketing tactics used by PBS aren't so different than those used by everyone from Greenpeace to the Sierra Club to the NRA to your local politician. I think the reason PBS gets my money is they nag more (and more nicely) than everyone else.

I don't have the answers, but stuffed toy penguins donated by corporate OSS users wouldn't be a stretch for those of with kids. Neither would a T-shirt, or maybe a secret decoder ring.

Maybe I better shut up before we see the first Annual Slashdot Pledge drive.

Pledge drives for open source? by analog_line · 2003-11-03 01:43 · Score: 1

Well, that would probably get a lot more people to avail themselves of paid distribution services (which hopefully would omit the beg-ware), but the net effect would be me getting rid of my computers...

I have enough aggravation listening to the constant pledge drives of my local public radio station (I kid you not, a drive once every 3 months or less). I don't need more of it from my web browser or whatever else. I use open source stuff precisely because it tends to make it easier to avoid ads begging me for my money. For example, I use gaim on Windows and iChat on my Macs instead of the official AIM client because they allow me to avoid the advertisements (specifically, the godamned movie trailers that I saw recently). Not because of any superiority of design or operation.

Building automated begging into open source software is the surest way to drive me away from open source software.

Funding by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:44 · Score: 0

Fund raising for enhancements is typical in the OSS.

I'd like to see funding for another OS enterprise solution Convea http://www.convea.com to port to Linux/Mozilla.

Re:Maybe not by duffbeer703 · 2003-11-03 01:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

The marketing tactics of PBS, the Sierra Club, etc and the tax-deductibility of contributions have ripped the souls out of american charity.

The Sierra Club was once an actual club, with meetings where members actually met and discussed whatever they discussed. Now it's just a place to send a check.

Today, charity is an industry with a large percentage of contributions supported a well-paid bureaucracy skimming off the top.

--
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK

questionable or not by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:46 · Score: 0

Alot of people are bitching that database abstraction layer is a part of a good design. But lets get real, most projects (be it commercial or OSS) are usually crap in the beginning. I read the page and looked at the faq. Looks like the software is Java based, but they chose to use PLSQL. Somethings are easier and more efficient with stored procedures, triggers and so on, so there must be a good reason they chose to go that route. Porting to Java should be fairly simple, if the developers are experienced with J2EE technology.

Re:Maybe not by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 01:47 · Score: 0

Using your analogy, the addition of corporate sponsorship to a PBS program would make it identical to regular (commercial) television programming. I think the answer lies, like all things, in how it's done.

No, PBS is in fact much much worse than regular television. They're double dipping by getting federal money via grants and then asking (hell, pleading, insisting, spending hours and hours a day begging during pledge drives) for donations on top of that. Then they have "sponsored" programs which is nothing more than corporate advertising on top of it.. just a little more subtle. All the while we end up with nothing but a homogenized liberal soap box for people who are too extreme to get on regular television.

Old news by ebuck · 2003-11-03 01:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

Compiere has been hounded for a postgresql database port for a long time now.

They have had a committee to oversee it, they have had numerous people (of varying skill) offer to contribute, and they have had a stunning lack of progress.

Their opinion has not changed much, which is, "If you have the Enterprise needing such software, Oracle is nothing more than a drop in the bucket" Eventually, they complained that it would be a finiancial burden to make the port happen. That's when someone indicated a "donation" web page should be set up (as a compromise).

I see the donation webpage as nothing more than an attempt to keep the port from never happening, by addressing the one point of money (raised when it became obovious that many wanted the feature, but few would donate time or money)

Open source? by joshv · 2003-11-03 01:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

But it requires Oracle. Huh. An Open source product that requires the purchase of a proprietary software product. Kinda defeats the purpose. No?

Personally though I don't understand why application developers use a database for anything other than storage. If all you are doing is simple inserts, selects, updates and deletes it should be very easy, if not trivial to make the application database independent.

Stored procs, triggers, etc, are evil as they spread your application logic all over the place and there are no standards for how they are implemented by different vendors. It's hard enough to find a relatively standard subset of SQL semantics.

-josh

Re:Open source? by Tsu+Dho+Nimh · 2003-11-03 02:10 · Score: 1

"An Open source product that requires the purchase of a proprietary software product. Kinda defeats the purpose. No?"
It's VERY useful. The runtime Oracle license is inexpensive (compared to proprietary ERP software), and you can alter the Compiere code as you please.
Re:Open source? by krumms · 2003-11-03 02:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

Stored procs etc. are fantastic if you know what platform you're building for (and that target platform has been set in stone).

I'm building an in-house piece of software in this manner, and stored procs alone saved me LOTS of work - particularly with respect to security checking. All the necessary checking is done automatically when the user logs into the database. Furthermore, users can be assigned roles within the system automatically as a knock-on effect.

I thought about trying to go database independant for a while, but the sheer amount of time saved for an application with a 95% chance of always running on a particular platform with a particular RDBMS compared to doing it all in the code ... well, it's a no brainer.

However neat it is, cross-platform isn't always The Way.

But I completely agree with you with respect to open source projects and db independance. That said, this project hasn't always been open source right? Perhaps that's half an answer as to why they built it the way they did ...
Re:Open source? by Stone316 · 2003-11-03 02:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

If all your doing is simple DML then your not using a database to its full potential. I've been a DBA for 7 years now, a few of those years spent in development shops. Lets take Oracle for example, there are tons of features in there to help performance, managability, etc and alot of them are unique to Oracle.
Database independance is all fine and dandy but its a trade off. Your trading for time to market. ie, if your application is complex then your going to end up writing features that are probably available in the database. Thus, your time to market will be longer. I'm not talking about simple applications here.
At one location, even tho all of our customers would have been using Oracle as the backend, management decided to write a few features that were already available in Oracle. You don't want to know how much they expected this to cost or how long it would take.
Another thing to keep in mind is market share.. Why develop for a database that has less than 10% market share? If you take Oracle, SqlServer and DB2 you have over 90% of the market covered. (Alot of DMS's comprise of the remaining 10%.) Personally, if I was a developer, i'd worry about getting my app to work with those databases first. I wouldn't be too concerned with a database that has a 1% market share, opensource or not.

--
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Re:Open source? by nerph · 2003-11-03 02:38 · Score: 1

We do it for performance reasons.

In an ideal world, the database would be fully normalized, all of the business logic would be performed through the abstracted business layer and the analysis could also be done through the business layer against the normalized database.

Now before everyone starts screaming, "this can be done!". Yeah, yeah I know it can. But not everyone can afford it. So that's why for cost-effective, well performing solutions we still use ugly work-arounds including database-level stored procs.
Re:Open source? by Thing+1 · 2003-11-03 02:42 · Score: 1

But it requires Oracle. Huh. An Open source product that requires the purchase of a proprietary software product. Kinda defeats the purpose. No?

Rather than changing Compiere to support alternate databases, perhaps a good project would be "duplicate the Oracle API."
This way, any application which requires Oracle could be shoe-horned into another database. Granted, not all databases have the same features so perhaps there'd be some APIs you would not be able to implement (so have them return errors?). Abstraction is a good goal, as others have stated, but instead of spending the effort to make just one program abstracted, create this API layer and you can abstract many more programs with one swell foop.

--
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Open source? by nehril · 2003-11-03 03:27 · Score: 1

An Open source product that requires the purchase of a proprietary software product. Kinda defeats the purpose.

if you think that the main point of Open Source is "free as in beer," then you don't understand Open Source. With this system a user has full visibility into the inner workings of the product AND can modify/maintain/extend it at the source level.

If the providers "go out of business" users can shop support out to somebody else. THESE are the big reasons to do it, even though it requires non-free software to function. I can see how a big giant company with infinite cash might be tempted by those reasons from a business continuity perspective.

by your standard, there would be no point in releasing Open Source software for Windows either (cygwin? perl?)
Re:Open source? by scrytch · 2003-11-03 03:42 · Score: 1

Stored procs, triggers, etc, are evil as they spread your application logic all over the place and there are no standards for how they are implemented by different vendors. It's hard enough to find a relatively standard subset of SQL semantics.

Sounds to me like you bit on the MySQL propoganda hook line and sinker. MySQL doesn't even support views, and no doubt there's legions of fanboys decrying how evil those are as a result, probably something about "indirection being slow" or "hiding the details" or something. People who push this party line usually think slash is a masterpiece of engineering.

With stored procedures, I can make my business logic portable by shoving anything database-specific into the procedure. Not to mention that I don't have to worry about table structure in my program at all once I have a procedure in each of the the CRUD matrix boxes. MySQL fanboys can get back to me when they learn what that term means.

Show me the standard external interface. There's always ODBC I suppose...

--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Re:Open source? by JamieF · 2003-11-03 09:37 · Score: 1

> Personally though I don't understand why application developers use a database for anything other than storage.

Clearly. But what does storage entail? Transactions? Backup? Concurrent access that works properly in all situations? Availability? Scalability?

> If all you are doing is simple inserts, selects, updates and deletes it should be very easy, if not trivial to make the application database independent.

Great! OK, so what if you AREN'T doing simple inserts, selects, updates, and deletes? If all you do is read and write data from the disk, why even use a database? Just use flat files! Woo hoo!

>Stored procs, triggers, etc, are evil

Exactly. It's much better to put all the persistence logic in the business layer, and make the database stupid so that it can't be clustered. That works way better. I always say, time-tested code can't hold a candle to my team of underpaid sweaty CS dropouts rolling something on their own! Or better yet, they can just overlook all the tricky situations they don't understand, and fix it later when it's in production and loses real data!

>as they spread your application logic all over the place

Because as we all know, single-tier architectures are the wave of the future. It's always better to write all of your code in The One True Programming Language that the alpha coder on the project happens to like, and run it all in one process in one tier.

> and there are no standards for how they are implemented by different vendors. It's hard enough to find a relatively standard subset of SQL semantics.

I'm not sure that there are *no* standards, but practically, it makes more sense to just encapsulate the persistence code for specific database back-ends, and write product-specific code for each back end. If you actually separate persistence logic out from business logic, this isn't very much work, and you can also attach a test harness to the back-ends and make sure they all work properly (reducing the likelihood of having lots of unique bugs in each back end).

Personally I tend to lean on triggers and referential integrity constraints (redundant rule enforcement is GOOD) more than stored procedures, but there are some other things in Oracle (or MS SQL 2K, or DB/2) that aren't in, say, MySQL, and these things are not just silly superfluous features that should be ignored in favor of hand-written replacements in PHP or whatever.
Re:Open source? by JamieF · 2003-11-03 09:53 · Score: 1

You may have already thought of this, but it probably would be helpful to factor out your persistence layer even though you're not expecting to need another back-end soon. It's cool to be able to make a persistence test harness (test your stored procs instead of your whole app, reducing the LOC you have to look through for each bug) even if you don't need another back-end.

OTOH, in a project that's actually funded, sometimes it's better to just hack something, QA it until it works, and ship it, and fix the internal ickiness (that slows developers down) later.
Re:Open source? by scosol · 2003-11-03 12:48 · Score: 1

> Stored procs, triggers, etc, are evil as they spread your application logic all over the place and there are no standards for how they are implemented by different vendors.

Well, spreading app logic around is certainly "evil", but SPs have nothing to do with that.
In fact- when dealing with a "real" database, typically your SPs are the "final say", and are the best place to actually have your business logic...

--
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
Re:Open source? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 17:21 · Score: 0

There is a standard for stored procedures--SQL/PSM. The only problem is that Oracle and Microsoft don't support it (DB/2, PostgreSQL, and InterBase do).

They've been taking donations for quite some time by Gunfighter · 2003-11-03 01:56 · Score: 1

This isn't news at all (it's "olds"). They've been taking donations for database independence for over a year now. Did it really take you this long to pick up on it? They'll eventually have all of the business logic rolled into Jboss instead of residing in PL/SQL form in the database.

Head over to their database independence forum for more information.

--
-- Stu

/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.

What are the alternatives by lkratz · 2003-11-03 01:57 · Score: 2, Informative

I spent some time looking for an opensource CRM and had a look to compiere. Being on Oracle was an issue, but being on java was another issue for my customer.

We are now looking to some more light weight alternatives like http://www.anteil.com/ . It's already based on free/open source databases and written in PHP.

Does anyone know other open sourced "light" CRM. Or a real experience on Anteil ?

Re:What are the alternatives by teeker · 2003-11-03 04:18 · Score: 1

unfortunately no...I just went through that recently (including Anteil, which almost looked promising, IIRC). Everything that's out there is mostly a fancy phone book. Not much automation, forecasting, logging or any of that stuff. The client ended up going with SalesLogix *shudder* because it integrates with Outlook, which apparently the sales monkeys can't live without. Also has some integration with the accounting software and does some stuff with MSWord for form letters and stuff. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can even come close to doing all that stuff in the Open Source world at the moment. There is a lack of business application software out there....and it's an especially thankless job so there will probably always be a gap there.

--
teeker
Re:What are the alternatives by wooftronics · 2003-11-03 05:39 · Score: 1

Mine's pretty lightweight: XRMS
Re:What are the alternatives by marcello_dl · 2003-11-03 11:15 · Score: 1

There's the python-based, db-independent work done by Gnu Enterprise and its small business section Gnue Small Business. Applications and docs are at a very early stage, the RAD tools seem to work.

--
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol

Kinda scary by bwaynef · 2003-11-03 02:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

I thought that the push behind open source was that the features that were technically best, and would be of the most benefit to the users were the ones that were added. That may not always be the case if the model of "fund-raising" is adopted, so that the wealthiest are able to control the feature-list of OSS. If you'll adopt a reasonably paranoid outlook then the implications should be obvious. Personally, this is a bit unsettling

Re:Kinda scary by Just+Some+Guy · 2003-11-03 03:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

I thought that the push behind open source was that the features that were technically best, and would be of the most benefit to the users were the ones that were added.
You thought wrong. New features are the ones that meet a need - either of the programmer who implements them, or of those paying the implementer. It is often the case that development is driven by technical merit, but that's certainly not the only motivation.

--
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Re:Kinda scary by bwaynef · 2003-11-03 06:06 · Score: 1

and would be of the most benefit to the users... --->
You thought wrong. New features are the ones that meet a need

It would appear to me that if the features benefit the user then it has met a need, that of the user.
There are currently request mechanisms in place that provide for new feature requests to be made. The developers/programmers weigh the number of requests against each other, along with other tradeoffs and work in what they feel will be the most beneficial to the project. I see no need in having a pay-for-inclusion model when the one being used is satisfactory and provides results on par or better than what I fear the pay-for-inclusion model would render.
Another benefit of the OSS-model is that the code is reviewed and if there is a better, more cost-efficient way of doing things then the codes is reworked/massaged so that the code serves the users as best as it can, and in so doing being "technically best." (see above quote, or parent)

The Open Code Market by jordiweb · 2003-11-03 02:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

As I see it, the only valid solution is to align the interests of the developers with those of the end users by creating a market where one or more users can commission (and pay for) from enhancements to existing software to a full software package, and the software is later released as GPL. I call it The Open Code Market.

I have developed the idea further in a paper which you can find here. It should be published in the next FirstMonday (November '03) ... or not ;-).

Not a New idea by POds · 2003-11-03 02:07 · Score: 1

This isnt a new concept and i believe its a terrific one. AROS's bounty program has been working for AROS for quite a while.

Its also being used to port Mozilla too Amiga compatible systems. Over 4000 dollars has been raised so far for the person(s) who decide to take it on.

Im sure plent of people are doing this and its working. Look at some of those people. Their puting in 100, 200 dollars. Thats a lot of money considering some major packets of software cost that much and these guys are only paying for a feature that is not specific to them, but a community!

Open Source people are good people!

--

Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/

Re:Not a New idea by PurplePhase · 2003-11-05 08:13 · Score: 1

Hey, thenostromo.com link doesn't work right now, and I'm very interested in other bounty programs - do you have any other links to share or is Google my only answer?

Thanks,

8-PP

Re:Will they have G.O.A.T.S.E. support? by Stone316 · 2003-11-03 02:09 · Score: 0, Troll

If google hasn't heard of it, it doesn't exist.

--
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."

Also used in the boardgame world by Call+Me+Black+Cloud · 2003-11-03 02:12 · Score: 2, Informative

GMT games has "Project 500" (P500) where they take preorders for games in development/planning and begin preparations for printing after 500 orders have been made (no money is charged at preorder time). This page explains how the system works in detail. It's been very beneficial to the company, providing stability and allowing for planned growth.

Public (Radio|Software) by nick_danger · 2003-11-03 02:13 · Score: 1

I can see it now: Twice a year your software will stop working for for a week or two at a time, while it bombards you with incessant messages extolling the virtues of becoming a "member," while only permitting you to perform useful tasks for about 5-10 minutes each hour.

Re:Maybe not by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 02:15 · Score: 1, Funny

Also, iirc the sierra club,greenpeace and their ilk have been labeled terrorist organizations.

Compiere by Mantrid · 2003-11-03 02:16 · Score: 1

Wow, I've never heard of this app...looks very intriguing! The only problem would be that most ERP systems are discreet, rather than process based...but depending on how extensible this is, or if we could pay people to get some formulation modules running or something...damn! This is interesting to me to say the least...

A couple problems by danharan · 2003-11-03 02:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

Rather than just port to PostgreSQL, they want to do

Real time parsing Oracle DDL and DML statements and converting them to the target database.

So, you'll have a performance hit for using anything else but Oracle?

They also note that they got stuck porting to PostgreSQL because it lacked embedded transactions. How about offering them $20,000 for adding that feature? They already have most of the work done!

Some will whine that this approach does not support MySQL (as evidenced by the comments by donors). Having had experience with using both Oracle and MySQL for enterprise applications written in Java, I can say that the performance and productivity hit is fairly high (like reading /.)

You can't for example write a "DELETE from products where product_id in (Select product_id from ... )" query in the last stable release of MySQL. As a result, you are forced to write many, many more lines of code, and make a lot more calls to the db. (I'm not dumping on MySQL - I still use it - it's fast, but it's not "Enterprise" material yet).

--
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"

Re:A couple problems by tgl · 2003-11-03 17:01 · Score: 1

> Rather than just port to PostgreSQL, they want to do

Real time parsing Oracle DDL and DML statements and converting them to the target database.

Indeed. If this had read "... parsing SQL99 DDL and DML statements and converting them ..." then I would be willing to buy into it. As is, they've made it perfectly clear that they think Oracle defines the standard. I'm not interested in playing that game.

The gripe about lack of nested transactions is a fair cop, but when you define acceptability as "whatever Oracle thinks" then you are clearly not really interested in an open solution.

regards, tom lane
PostgreSQL core committee

Did it really work for Mozart? by Pan+T.+Hose · 2003-11-03 02:25 · Score: 2, Informative

In software, why not something along the lines of "such and such paid for this feature", an eternal mention of one's contribution to the project. It worked for Bach and Mozart, why not for OSS today?

Just yesterday I saw Amadeus by Peter Shaffer (it was a fourth time I've seen this play, one of the best versions I might add) and I can assure you that it didn't work for Mozart at all. Of course we could seek parallels of Antonio Salieri to Bill Gates and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Richard Stallman, but I think we've already gone way too far with that misleading analogy. If we keep comparing Mozart to free software then absolutely no one who knows history would ever want to be involved with free software.

--
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."

Re:Did it really work for Mozart? by heironymouscoward · 2003-11-03 03:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

You miss the point: Mozart (and Salieri and many other musicians) lived almost entirely from patronage. Did Mozart not name some of his symphonies after his patrons? I don't know how your brain flipped into comparing Salieri with Microsoft, this is bizarre.

But the point is that art does not always sell, sometimes, often, it has to be sponsored, and although this seems scary, it's a model with a long tradition that has often worked very well indeed.

Sponsors can be stupid and brutal but they can also be generous and tolerant. Since the best art comes from an artist who has some freedom, the public generally ignores the stuff sponsored by heavy-hands, and goes for the finer work.

--
Ceci n'est pas une signature

ERP Applications aren't that simple by cybrthng · 2003-11-03 02:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

I don't know if you have EVER use an enterprise applicaiton before. Even if it IS just select/inserts/deletes for basic GL/AP/AR applications you are talking about people, systems and components requiring gigs to terrabytes of data and hundreds if not THOUSANDS of concurrent users.

MySQL can't handle flash back transactions, doesn't support load balancing, hot site, and paralell or clustered transactions. I need all of these to support an enterprise environment!

Sure compiere may be small, but it needs a powerfull database. It needs the features of an enterprise database oh which there isn't an open source solution to. I wouldn't dare want to recover a mysql or postgress 1.2 terrabyte erp system.

Oracle RDBMS is an amazing product. Overly capable and getting easier to use as the releases pile on. You pay for the mindset that you have a multi billion dollar company supporting you.

That brings me to the question of why use Compiere at all on anything but oracle and is there a demand for an ERP system that doesn't use a commercially supported system as NO vendor in there right mind would want to support a product they didn't develop or that didn't have its own superb support channels to begin with.

oh well. You have to remember that big business is alot different than hosting a small website or cddb database on your average linux pc :)

Re:ERP Applications aren't that simple by sporty · 2003-11-03 02:50 · Score: 1

I don't know if you have EVER use an enterprise applicaiton before. Even if it IS just select/inserts/deletes for basic GL/AP/AR applications you are talking about people, systems and components requiring gigs to terrabytes of data and hundreds if not THOUSANDS of concurrent users.

ERP software doesn't need to be complex or "large". It depends on the number of departments you are cutting across and the data you are manipulating. Look at something like exchange. Exchange suffices as ERP software as long as you don't need anything else.

The reason most ERP software is so huge, but not necessarily bloated, is because it needs a featureset that makes everyone happy. Unfortunately, every company works differently, so having a field for "isMarried" may be wanted by some, and not by others. Manufacturing, contracts.. all those things are taken care of somehow. Some ERP software like to do it in various plugins and what not. But for a very base set, ERP software can be very VERY simple.

--
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Re:ERP Applications aren't that simple by joshv · 2003-11-03 03:58 · Score: 3, Informative

I don't know if you have EVER use an enterprise applicaiton before.

No, you don't know. I have. I've worked quite extensively on an ERP application called PeopleSoft. It locates all of it's business logic in the middle tier. The SQL it produces is very database agnostic and will run with minor modification on most database platforms.

Even if it IS just select/inserts/deletes for basic GL/AP/AR applications you are talking about people, systems and components requiring gigs to terrabytes of data and hundreds if not THOUSANDS of concurrent users.

Yes, and basic SQL is more than sufficient to support this.

MySQL can't handle flash back transactions, doesn't support load balancing, hot site, and paralell or clustered transactions. I need all of these to support an enterprise environment!

Who said anything about MySQL, I believe the article was about Postgres. Regardless, or production AP/GL application supports hundreds of concurrent users without any of these features (at least not in the database layer) - so you clearly don't need them to support an enterprise environment.

oh well. You have to remember that big business is alot different than hosting a small website or cddb database on your average linux pc :)

Thanks for the lesson. I'll have to leave now because I have a production PeopleSoft issue to troubleshoot on our 10 CPU database server.
Re:ERP Applications aren't that simple by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 04:02 · Score: 0

Why is it that the enterprise people are always hassling us about NEEDING Oracle, J2EE and everything else that is costly and trendy ?
I know J2EE (though I have no love for it), and I know Oracle (and I know the OSS alternatives (PostgreSQL, mySQL, perl) just as well), and IMHO it's the uncontroled growth of disparate decisions in big companies and vendor-lock-in that are responsible for the choice to go with trendy and costly architectures in bigcorps, not the architectures themselves.

I will admit, on the spot, that Oracle is a very powerful beasty indeed, but everyone worth their salt knows just as well that ACIDity of data can be had even from your own filesystem, using files.

So repeat after me: what you gain from using Oracle is speed and size. Everything else is candy thrown in by bad programmers and incompetent management. J2EE is enough proof of that.
Re:ERP Applications aren't that simple by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 07:07 · Score: 0

"That brings me to the question of why use Compiere at all on anything but oracle and is there a demand for an ERP system that doesn't use a commercially supported system as NO vendor in there right mind would want to support a product they didn't develop or that didn't have its own superb support channels to begin with"

And why use Compiere at all when you can buy SAP or PeopleSoft? I mean, really, why bother with Open Source at all when you can pay so much more money for cheerful sales people?

Are you paid to shill for Larry, or do you do it as a hobby?
Re:ERP Applications aren't that simple by fdragon · 2003-11-03 07:27 · Score: 1

MySQL can't handle flash back transactions

MySQL BEGIN, COMMIT, ROLLBACK transaction syntax requires use of InnoDB, BerkleyDB (think .dbm files that have been round for years), or GeminiDB (If you want to pay money).

doesn't support load balancing, hot site, and paralell or clustered transactions

MySQL Replication can be configured for all of that. When it comes time to load balance MySQL, putting a hardware solutions such as a Cisco CSS 11000 series load balancer in front works without problems. Should you prefer a more Linux way, IPVS works. Or Should you like a generic method without a way to remove dead hosts, then you can you DNS round robbin.

That brings me to the question of why use Compiere at all on anything but oracle

You haven't priced Oracle lately have you?

is there a demand for an ERP system that doesn't use a commercially supported system

Think Fortune 5000 companies that are sick of paying $500,000 in "maintence" fees for JD Edwards running on an IBM AS/400 that they cannot find anyone to maintain for them. Think small businesses that using QuickBooks Enterprise doesn't scale to due to artifical limitations of the software such as 10 concurrent users, and greater than 30,000 products, vendors, and customers.

NO vendor in there right mind would want to support a product they didn't develop or that didn't have its own superb support channels to begin with

You pay me enough money, I will support it. I don't care if I have no access to the source code, I can find a way to make the application work. It may not be pretty, and it could get VERY expensive, but in the end it will work.

You have to remember that big business is alot different than hosting a small website or cddb database on your average linux pc

Your right, in that situation you have one boss, in big business you have 5000.

--
The program isn't debugged until the last user is dead.
Re:ERP Applications aren't that simple by steveorama · 2003-11-03 07:29 · Score: 1

"It needs the features of an enterprise database oh which there isn't an open source solution to." SAP open sourced it's database SAPDB (formerly ADABAS) a while ago. If SAP, being one of the leading ERP vendors, can run on this open source platform, I'd say that there is an open source solution to an enterprise database.
Re:ERP Applications aren't that simple by JamieF · 2003-11-03 10:16 · Score: 1

>I've worked quite extensively on an ERP application called PeopleSoft. It locates all of it's business logic in the middle tier. The SQL it produces is very database agnostic and will run with minor modification on most database platforms.

The folks I know who have implemented PeopleSoft at Fortune 500 companies complain bitterly about how it's terribly slow even on monster hardware, specifically because it is written to be so database-agnostic. This is not anything to brag about, and is certainly not an indicator that this is a good way to design something. Maybe it made sense for PeopleSoft to be portable at the expense of writing redundant code in the app that's already in major RDBMS products, AND making the app slower by running code in the app tier when it would run faster in the DB tier, but that doesn't mean that this is a good idea in general. Heck, it might even be a plain mistake on PeopleSoft's part that they have just had to live with.

BTW, I'm assuming a connection between two parts of your message here, but... a 10 CPU database server just to achieve hundreds of concurrent users, for an app that deliberately avoids running any code in the database tier? Ouch!
Re:ERP Applications aren't that simple by scosol · 2003-11-03 12:51 · Score: 1

> Sure compiere may be small, but it needs a powerfull database. It needs the features of an enterprise database oh which there isn't an open source solution to. I wouldn't dare want to recover a mysql or postgress 1.2 terrabyte erp system.

Ahem- Firebird(Interbase): http://firebird.sourceforge.net/

--
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.

one day by akaina · 2003-11-03 02:32 · Score: 1

Perhaps in the future we may even see these pledge requests linked within the GUI itself? ... ever heard of "Adware"????

--
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

PostgreSQL is also better for accounting... by einhverfr · 2003-11-03 02:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

WHile MySQL has other strengths (most notably MySQL is strong where you do not WANT full ACID support, while PostgreSQL is strong where you do).

Triggers are very important for any business-critical database, as is the requirement that a database raise an exception when it cannot insert EXACTLY what you tell it to into the database.

For example, if you insert a number into MySQL that is too large for its data type, MySQL will truncate it (NOT good for accounting), while PostgreSQL will terminate the transaction and happily raise an exception! THis behavior is NOT ACID complient.

MySQL has some other strengths-- it provides a set of generic non-ACID compliant tools (such as HEAP tables) that enterprise databases cannot afford to offer.

--

LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP

Re:PostgreSQL is also better for accounting... by Cajal · 2003-11-03 06:04 · Score: 1

Why would one ever not want ACID support? If you're going through the hassle of storing data in a database, you obviously care about it enough to care about its integrity. That's what ACID compliance in a DBMS gets you. Why would you ever want to turn that off?

Non-ACID compliance is not a feature.
Re:PostgreSQL is also better for accounting... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2003-11-03 07:24 · Score: 1

For example, if you insert a number into MySQL that is too large for its data type, MySQL will truncate it (NOT good for accounting), while PostgreSQL will terminate the transaction and happily raise an exception! THis behavior is NOT ACID complient.

OK, you got me. Why can't you just roll back the entire transaction, and issue an error message indicating that the data provided was invalid? How is that in any way non-ACID-compliant? (Or are you saying that PostgreSQL doesn't respond this way, and that's what isn't compliant?)

--
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Re:PostgreSQL is also better for accounting... by rossifer · 2003-11-03 14:33 · Score: 1

The author you're referring to confused his antecedants (which "this" does "this" refer to?).

The MySQL behavior described is not ACID compliant (it alters an input without notification).

The PostgreSQL behavior described is ACID compliant.

Regards,
Ross
Re:PostgreSQL is also better for accounting... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2003-11-03 14:57 · Score: 1

Ah, that makes sense then; thanks.

I agree entirely that changing the supplied data without warning isn't ACID compliant; in fact, it's quite scary that any serious database would even consider it reasonable behaviour. :-(

--
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Re:PostgreSQL is also better for accounting... by Hognoxious · 2003-11-05 22:58 · Score: 1
Triggers are very important for any business-critical database, as is the requirement that a database raise an exception when it cannot insert EXACTLY what you tell it to into the database.
Questions & answers:
1. Which is currently the most successful ERP system? SAP.
2. Does it use triggers & sequences? Not in the DB. They are in the application itself.
3. So, are DB triggers important for business-critical systems? Apparently not.
4. Is SAP DB independent? Yes.
5. Why? See 2 above.
For example, if you insert a number into MySQL that is too large for its data type, MySQL will truncate it (NOT good for accounting),
That error should have been caught well before any DB operation was even attempted. Your design is broken.
--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:PostgreSQL is also better for accounting... by einhverfr · 2003-11-06 04:33 · Score: 1

Why would one ever not want ACID support?

ACID stands for (iirc) Atomicity, Consistancy, Isolation, and Durability. Under certain circumstances, one or more of these features may not be necessary, particularly if the information you are storing is not inteded to be durable.

Here is the example that comes to mind:

Suppose I want to use MySQL's HEAP tables as a simple SQL interface for a moderately complex coordination system between processes on different systems. If the database system fails and is rebooted, this information will be created from scratch. Needless to say, performance is important and durability will likely cause more problems than it is worth.

There are others, I am sure. Basically the answer is that you may not want ACID compliance when you want something that has interfaces like a database, but does not act like a database.

--

LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP

People$oft Replacement by micaiah · 2003-11-03 02:33 · Score: 1

People$oft absolutely sucks!!!!!! There definitely needs to be an open source ERP/CRM solution. First of all PeopleSoft as a product sucks, it is very unstable, can never fulfill what it promises and the support is absolutely terrible.

Compare the Postgres, MySQL by Pan+T.+Hose · 2003-11-03 02:35 · Score: 1

This is great news that Compiere finally went DB-independent. As a Perl DBI/DBD user I find DB-independence almost a prerequisite for any software I use, almost as important as its free software license. (Still, I'd like to see SQLite support, my favorite DB-apps prototyping DB.) Now, when it doesn't depand on Oracle any more, I will probably finally install it in my lab. How is PostgreSQL and MySQL comparing to each other speed-, flexibility- and security-wise? Which one would you suggest using with Compiere? Is that true that with MySQL Compiere is faster for the most simple tasks, but anything more than that requires PostgreSQL, which is slower in the short run but better choice in the long run? I'm asking because I want to have a flexible and long-term maintainable solution, where performance (via the hardware budget) is one of the most important factors, and the best security is a must. Thanks.

--
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."

Re:Compare the Postgres, MySQL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 05:25 · Score: 0

Postgresql performance has improved a lot in the past five years. Postgres is very fast with large sets of data; database performance has never been the bottleneck in any of my applications.

MySQL reads might be faster, but they slow down and return bad data when the indices get corrupted, which happens quickly w/ multiple users writing data to the database.

Pledge same as shareware? by tjstork · 2003-11-03 02:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think the "pledge" system, from an end user perspective, is nearly the same as the pay for the license approach of shareware. In both:

a) the user downloads the program
b) if the user uses the program, and likes it, they are encouraged to "register" it to support its continued development.

Perhaps the most reasonable mechanism is to change the licensing model somewhat to differentiate from end users and developers. We could say that open source systems -can- charge money for end users. That way, the dough filters back to the developers and good projects don't die for lack of funding. Developers using open source would pay a tax of some sort to keep the open source system moving.

To differentiate developers from end users, we might require a C/S degree plus some form of certification to actually participate in the open source pool. This would serve as the basis for professionally licensing computer programmers - a long overdue move anyway. The minimum requirement would be a C/S degree + a certification. Not sure if it's right to say any engineering degree will do because C/S is a discipline in its own right and there's theoretical stuff a C/S grad will have that an EE switching over will miss.

Thoughts?

--
This is my sig.

Re:Pledge same as shareware? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 03:24 · Score: 0

That's stupid. The strength of open source is that any fool can get into it. All that business about filtering off the dross is what the Darwinian nature of the open source model is supposed to address, and does quite well. What this nonsense about differentiating between "developers" who are legally able to charge for their work? Are you just looking to ensure a job for that shiny new CS degree you just polished off? (Not that I'm lambasting shiny new CS degrees--I happen to have one. But I think this comment is missing the point of OSS.)
Re:Pledge same as shareware? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 10:46 · Score: 0

No.

Users of shareware are not just encouraged but told that they are REQUIRED to register if they continue to use the software. They have no access to the source-code whatsoever. Often there are nag screens that pop up and cannot be disabled. Often the "free" version is crippled (while some say this is not shareware, a large proportion of the good "shareware" out there is).

With free software, you may be encouraged to donate, and there may even be a link in the about screen or something, but you are by no means required to do so (morally or otherwise). You get the source code, you can modify or redistribute it, and you can strip out any of these "donations pleas" if you wish. And if they are obnoxious, they probably will be.

Even the relatively innocuous notices that often appear in free software (such as GNU manifestos, prominent legal notices, charity solicitations etc.) tend to get pulled out for aesthetic reasons when the software is bundled in distributions.

So no, it's not the same at all.

Okay, stupid question time! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 02:39 · Score: 0

arguably the most comprehensive open source ERP/CRM solution

Erm??? Me not know these TLAs...can anybody hip me? What the heck is ERP/CRM?

Re:Okay, stupid question time! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-06 00:48 · Score: 0

Three more TLAs for you: YOU ARE GAY.

if you read the article by jbellis · 2003-11-03 02:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

it says any target db will require stored functions ("but not triggers or procedures"). that kinda lets mysql out.

incidently they say that their first porting effort failed b/c "Compiere is using embedded transactions" which postgresql doesn't support. I think he means nested transactions which indeed no open source database supports yet... at least not postgresql or firebird or mysql. :(

Re:if you read the article by Hognoxious · 2003-11-05 22:39 · Score: 1

"Compiere is using embedded transactions" which postgresql doesn't support. I think he means nested transactions which indeed no open source database supports yet...
I thought he meant "we relied on DB specific features, coded ourselves into a corner, and made a total hash of abstracting the DB operations from the application".

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."

Re:Will they have G.O.A.T.S.E. support? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 02:42 · Score: 0

If you don't know what it means, then you don't deserve your job as a DBA.

What if I don't know what DBA means?

Re:Currently requires Oracle? by orionware · 2003-11-03 02:55 · Score: 1, Interesting

Ha!

We have one mysql box running on a p3 machine and it handles over 250,000 inserts and 800,000 selects a day. And it never dies.

--

Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...

PITA? by mrscott · 2003-11-03 02:57 · Score: 1

We've been using PostgreSQL for a little over two years to drive our website. I haven't found it to be any easier or harder to install and maintain than MySQL. We use phppgadmin for administration. As for overkill... we don't use all of its features, but they're there if we need them. We do make heavy use of views which are not yet available in production releases of MySQL and which was a major factor in choosing PostgreSQL. As for installation, I've always uses Apachetoolbox - up to now. I moved to RPMs for our latest incarnation as the Postgres Global Development Group provides RPMs that work extremely well. Scott

Re:Maybe not by NoData · 2003-11-03 03:00 · Score: 1

No, PBS is in fact much much worse than regular television. They're double dipping by getting federal money via grants and then asking (hell, pleading, insisting, spending hours and hours a day begging during pledge drives) for donations on top of that. Then they have "sponsored" programs which is nothing more than corporate advertising on top of it.. just a little more subtle.

That's right, cuz everbody knows the BIG MONEY is in public television! Those PBS fatcats have Rupert Murdoch and his ilk trembling in their boots! C'mon. Get real.. So they have multiple funding sources. So? It underscores the meager appropriation Congress gives the CPB. Less than a third of PBS funding comes from tax-based sources (federal, state, or otherwise). I assume you'd rather them plead for voluntary donations than a bigger check from the govnt.

All the while we end up with nothing but a homogenized liberal soap box for people who are too extreme to get on regular television.

Riight...who's the left wing nut on PBS again? Is it LeVar Burton on Reading Rainbow or the pedant of dry interviews, Charlie Rose? No, no, it's the subliminal leftwing conspiracy foisted on us during the antelope mating scenes on Nature. Or perhaps its the Dems having their way with the audience when NOVA explores the mysteries of the Amazon basin. Don't even get me started about Bert and Ernie.

Any chances on getting by Dishwasha · 2003-11-03 03:13 · Score: 1

LDAP support for importing customer information?

Re:Any chances on getting by jedir0x · 2003-11-03 05:33 · Score: 1

not a chance in _hell_ by posting it on this site. You need to submit those feature requests to the projects themselves. You'll never see the feature requests if you don't make them.

--

I'm not drunk, I'm just in touch with pi.
Re:Any chances on getting by primus_sucks · 2003-11-03 07:10 · Score: 1

Sure, donate $5000 to me and I'll do it:)

Support, etc.? by jacobcaz · 2003-11-03 03:18 · Score: 0, Flamebait

My company just went through a PeopleSoft conversion (really, today 11/3 is our live day). And seeing how God-awful complex PeopleSoft is, I can't imagine running a package that can do everything ERP software is supposed to do without a similar level of complexity.

So how about support? We pay a ton for PeopleSoft support, but they are damn responsive and typically we have an answer back via email before a phone call is made.

I can't imagine touching an OSS ERP solution without some kick-ass support (which I would be willing to pay big bucks for). I also would have a difficult time (read, impossible time) convincing the CEO, CFO, COO, etc. that they should choose open source for their entire enterprise. They are not going to bite.

Re:Support, etc.? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 03:33 · Score: 0

Well, you never know. Commercial products have a tendency to amass massive amounts of features into one product, which would really make better sense as a large collection of distinct pieces. Oh, certainly there's no question that anything really complicated will require (for those who aren't supergenius DIY types) outsourcing to a consulting business that specializes in that sort of thing, but that's not the same as requiring a big huge corporation to provide support. I mean, wasn't the point of this big ERP trend to make your life easier? What would be the point if it were impossible to administer on a day-to-day basis (ignoring the problems with setup, which are amortized over time)?
Re:Support, etc.? by jacobcaz · 2003-11-03 03:50 · Score: 1
- I mean, wasn't the point of this big ERP trend to make your life easier?
Actually, I thought the big ERP trend was to make consultants rich. According to my users it's not easier for them. I thought the holy-grail of ERP is to be able to get vital information in (near) real-time for the big-wigs. Making life easier for the CFO/CEO/etc to get more broad-reaching reports doesn't necessiarily mean it's easier for the people who have to use the system to enter the data that will eventually make those reports. :-)
Re:Support, etc.? by Hognoxious · 2003-11-06 00:28 · Score: 1

According to my users it's not easier for them.
Users always say that. The problem is, they see their little job (e.g. entering customer orders) as an end in itself.
It's not. It's a means to an end; making the correct product, getting it to the correct customer, and getting paid.
Hence, if the old system allowed them to type in invalid addresses (hey, shipping will call us if there's a problem, then we'll just call the customer and ask ...), invalid bank account numbers (hey, its accounts' job to sort that out), invalid product codes (hey, I usually see the production manager during tea break, we'll discuss it then...) then they'll prefer the old system. The new one's the wrong colour, too.
That's why they're users.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:Support, etc.? by Hognoxious · 2003-11-06 00:51 · Score: 1

My company just went through a PeopleSoft conversion (really, today 11/3 is our live day).
and you've got time to post to /. ?!?!?!
Must have been <Comic book guy> smoothest implementation ever!</cbg>

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."

great, just like npr and pbs by bigpat · 2003-11-03 03:22 · Score: 3, Funny

"Perhaps in the future we may even see these pledge requests linked within the GUI itself"

Great... just like public radio or television...

'We will bring you to your gui in just a moment, but first... please contribute to our effort... it is you the user that contributes the most to our efforts and if you think that this program is of value to you and you want to see it continuously improved... The next one hundred callers ...err emailers will receive a log beach towel with their pledge of one hundred dollars... Okay now we bring you to your user interface.'

repeat every 3 months.

Re:Currently requires Oracle? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 03:32 · Score: 0

We have one mysql box running on a p3 machine and it handles over 250,000 inserts and 800,000 selects a day.

Cute! That would get my company through 9 AM without any problems.

I'm not saying that MySQL is incapable of decent loads, but "250,000 inserts and 800,000 selects" is not considered a real load on an enterprise server. Think about Slashdot's own servers, for instance - they do several selects on every page view, multiplied by several million hits per day.

Are you sure? by Stone316 · 2003-11-03 03:38 · Score: 1

I installed postgreSQL the other day, piece of cake.. all I had to do was RTFD. If your a DBA either is a piece of cake to get running.

Personally, I prefer postgreSQL.. I couldn't imagine not having some features such as subqueries and triggers.

--
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."

Ironic timing, considering these security concerns by BallPeenHammer · 2003-11-03 03:42 · Score: 0

This discussion is ironic, considering today's announced Postgres security issues:

PostgreSQL to_ascii() Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

Buffer Overflow in PostgreSQL's repeat()

Buffer Overflow in PostgreSQL's lpad() and rpad()

Buffer Overflow in PostgreSQL's cash_words()

--
The Law of Falling Bodies

Re:Currently requires Oracle? by alex_ant · 2003-11-03 03:55 · Score: 0

Post anything supporting OSS, get modded up. Post the truth, get modded down. Yeah, Oracle performs better than MySQL... is ANYBODY going to deny this? Is this really a big secret? Obviously Mr. AC touched a sensitive spot, otherwise his post would have been modded funny.

Re:Maybe not by alex_ant · 2003-11-03 04:02 · Score: 0

A pledge drive on libertarian Slashdot?? Haha. "Stupid kids, if you want a stuffed animal, go out and earn one. I make 80K/year as a Unix admin, so obviously earning enough to support a decent living with plenty of stuffed animals is totally possible. You have NO RIGHT to take MY PROPERTY that I EARNED to buy YOUR SELF a stuffed animal with it."

Re:Maybe not by alex_ant · 2003-11-03 04:05 · Score: 0

Come on. Take a good look at Snuffalopogus and just TRY to tell me he is not a deliberate mockery of the Republican elephant mascot.

Re:Will they have G.O.A.T.S.E. support? by Stone316 · 2003-11-03 04:13 · Score: 1

A log should be kept when a post is modded so we can figure out who these dumbasses are. What the orginal thread talked about, doesn't exist. Try doing a search with some of the key words of his post..

--
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."

Re:Maybe not by rsmah · 2003-11-03 04:16 · Score: 1

That's right, cuz everbody knows the BIG MONEY is in public television!

You've bought into the myth of poverty that PBS promotes without checking the facts.

In NYC, for example, the PBS TV station has the largest budget of all the TV stations in the city. And the other stations aren't chump change -- many are the flagship stations of the big networks (WNBC, WABC, etc.)

So, while PBS may not be a *profit* machine, don't doubt that at least a few PBS stations have plenty of money.

Just FYI, PBS hires management consultants and cares about cost/benefit ratios just like any other broadcaster. I know this because I know a few people who have done consulting gigs for them.

Cheers,
Rob

Mozart is a bad example by Pan+T.+Hose · 2003-11-03 04:26 · Score: 1

You miss the point: Mozart (and Salieri and many other musicians) lived almost entirely from patronage.

Yes. They lived almost entirely from patronage, or died from the lack thereof.

I don't know how your brain flipped into comparing Salieri with Microsoft, this is bizarre.

You don't know the history of Mozart, do you? I didn't say that sponsoring art or free software development is a bad idea, it's a great idea, but Mozart is probably the worst example one could find.

--
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."

Re:Mozart is a bad example by heironymouscoward · 2003-11-03 07:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

:-) I've seen the movie as well, but it is fiction like most dramatic stories. Mozart was at times very wealthy, at times very poor, but the story of him as a poor oppressed artist fighting the establishment in the form of Salieri is just fantasy.

It's true that Mozart spent the last ten years of his life as an 'independent', after doing eleven years or so of the patronage circuit. It's also true that his best music comes from the time when he was desperate, starving, and sick. His early work is mainly junk. But that could be because he was young, not because of patronage.

Anyhow, Mozart is an excellent example, because it demonstrates something that I did not want to say, but which I believe is true: the best software comes, and will always come, from the desparate and starving and isolated developer, not the fat happy corporate keyboard bunny.

Personally, I am going through a late Mozart phase, working long hours for little gain, and I've never been so productive or creative in my life.

--
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Re:Mozart is a bad example by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 16:40 · Score: 0

Trivial counterexample: Shakespeare.

Worked under patronage, produced the bulk of his widely acclaimed sonnets that way.

When he wasn't doing that, he was writing plays, and making money off the performances. Oooh. Like writing software, and making money off services....

Re:shut up. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 04:26 · Score: 0

Sure, but what does this have to do with fucking yourself.. oh I understand..

The new PBS-OS by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 04:31 · Score: 0

The PBS-OS is a great system to use, if you don't mind the 5-minute Pledge Breaks that you get every so often when you're working...

Re:Maybe not by Skjellifetti · 2003-11-03 04:43 · Score: 1

You might be making an apples to oranges comparison. Most of the PBS programs seem to be produced by a particular local PBS affiliate while most commercial broadcasting is produced (or bought from independent studios) by the network, not by the local affiliate. A proper comparison would add the local affiliate budgets to the network budget for both PBS and the networks. I'll bet PBS as a whole looks pathetic in comparison to NBC, ABC, CBS, or Fox.

--
FreeSpeech.org

Not the only ERP/CRM by ducomputergeek · 2003-11-03 04:47 · Score: 1

I've been using SQL-ledger for my small business for about a year. We have grown from 2 to now 8 employees. We started out offering VR modelling to real estate agencies, develoeprs, event planners, wedding/floral design, interior designers, etc. and that side grow quickly to about a $25,000 a month business.

We also provide affordable online and print advertising campaigns for SMB's and technology consulting service (my area) to small businesses and manage five relatively large sites for churches and other non-profits.

Even though we are still small, we are growing an expect to gross about 400k for FY 2003 and proably reach over the $500k mark next year.

One of our "units" runs an online art co-op store for local artists. We manage the site, take pictures, handle transactions and payments to the artists each quarter, scan images, create QTVR models of sculptures, etc. As our business has evolved and became diversified, we needed an ERP and settled on using OSsuite which is a modification of the NOLA ERP solution and OSCommerce webstore software. We are waiting to see if their CRM system also comes into play at some point.

For our needs, it works very well, but its designed for small businesses like ourselves.

--
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.

shitty project by genevaroth · 2003-11-03 05:00 · Score: 1

when I was in e-comm all I got was customers asking for a e-comm store to tie into their backend- I called them in regards to this and they had no plans for it ever. That and the oracle dbase pretty much killed my intrest in this project.

Re:shitty project by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 06:02 · Score: 0

And we care why? There are tons of projects that tons of people could care less about. Why post here about it.

So I say ignore your shitty comment, I was looking for something intelligent but after seeing your post it pretty much killed my intrest in your comments.

Is this the only open source solution? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 05:06 · Score: 0

For open source CRM, are there other ones I should be looking at, or is this one the only one?

If there are other ones, can someone ballpark the "market" share? Is it similar to MySQL vs Postgres or Red Hat vs Suse? Or is it 90%-4%-4%-2%, and I shouldn't waste my time looking at other open source solutions yet, as they aren't mature enough or don't exist?

And while we're at it, since we're talking about Postgres, can someone recommend some comprehensive documentation (preferably something recent) on modPerl/Postgres based website how-to's for beginners?

It seems that MySQL and php is everywhere, with documentation in abundance, but if I want to create a database based web site based on modPerl/Postgres, I'm sol.

Re:Important note ! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 05:09 · Score: 0

Of course! There must be girl trolls. Otherwise, how could they . . . um, nevermind.

~~~

How to determine stability of database org? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 05:19 · Score: 0

I see MySQL everywhere. Mickos is partnering with large corporations on projects all the time, with the announcements coming out regularly.

Where is Postgres? From what I've read of both database orgs, I'd prefer to go with Postgres. But it seems that Postgres is on some kind of stealth mission.

How does one figure out the stability/resources of Postgres, or similar companies/organizations?

While the source may be public, if one disbands/fails, it's going to take some time to get the ball rolling again, with bug fixes, security fixes, and continued development. Before committing resources and internal development time, how should one investigate how stable the org is, and how likely the org will continue to develop the project, at least for the next few years, if not longer?

Comparison to other OSS "ERP" projects? by Phatmanotoo · 2003-11-03 05:27 · Score: 1

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

and of course GNUe, which seems to be more of a programming framework.

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

Re:Will they have G.O.A.T.S.E. support? by bluethundr · 2003-11-03 05:32 · Score: 1

A log should be kept when a post is modded so we can figure out who these dumbasses are. What the orginal thread talked about, doesn't exist. Try doing a search with some of the key words of his post..

Call me a bit paranoid, if you will. But for all those "AC Trolls" my guess will be that if you are logged in, but checking the "Post as AC" box you will be known as AC to the world but Slashdot will know exactly who the AC was. If not logged in at all, I would think that they are logging hardware adresses and IPs.

--
Quod scripsi, scripsi.

Small Enterprise by nurb432 · 2003-11-03 05:45 · Score: 1

Just because the word "enterprise" is tossed about doesn't mean its a HUGE company with endless resources.

Even a small business can benefit from an ERP solution, but they cant afford one.

OSS ERP gives them an option.

and CRM is useful even in the smallest of businesses, if you have more then one customer...

Going to PostgreSQL helps greatly ... most of us cant afford Oracle, if we could, we would afford a 'commercial' ERP package..

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----

JBuilder to eclipse; a significant downgrade by Kunta+Kinte · 2003-11-03 06:56 · Score: 1

At present, the development environment is Jbuilder...perhaps a seperate slashdotting can happen and convice them to move to Eclipse?

JBuilder to Eclipse? That would be a good thing?

JBuilder Personal is a free download and is the best IDE I have ever used, bar none. It comes with a GUI builder and a graphical debugger. It is a *hell* of a lot faster than eclipse, whose editor is unbareably slow on by 1.3GHz machine. JBuilder is the faster Java application I have ever used.

Not because eclipse is open source does it mean it's better. I am not in anyway associated with Borland, but I have to say moving from JBuilder to eclipse would be a significant downgrade.

I know I may sound like a fan boy, but I have been very impressed with JBuilder.

--
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW

Isn't that what the SQL standard is for!?! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 07:14 · Score: 0

Why not just program for SQL standards, and require their database vendors to conform to those standards as well?!?

This just seems to encourage "embrace and extend".

Re:select * from first_post by BasharTeg · 2003-11-03 08:21 · Score: 1

Empty set (0.00 sec)

Great Idea for Now, But... by serutan · 2003-11-03 09:03 · Score: 2, Funny

Opensource programmers in India will add those same features for less than half as much in pledges.

Compiere Database Independence by jjanke · 2003-11-03 09:14 · Score: 1

Talkers talk - we code.

To contribute, you need to have superior experience in writing large scale applications with detail knowledge of the source (Oracle) and the target (Java) system. We need to get stable system out of the door and cannot afford to coach. We havely paid the destabilization price for accepting unaudited contributions.

Our database independence approch is NOT a code simple port - with that you are constantly busy doing porting - but to dynamically generate the accessors for the target system. That requires that you finished your parser project ;-)

Jorg

P.S.: I found an interesting correlation between guys who never contributed a single line to anything and the ones complaining about Compiere's approach resulting in getting stable, reliable and feature-rich software out.

Enough talk - back to code

Re:Compiere Database Independence by Hognoxious · 2003-11-06 00:41 · Score: 1

Talkers talk - we code.
That's your problem - too much coding, not enough thinking & designing.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."

Use Firebird... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 10:10 · Score: 0

and get all the features they are wanting in a database: Firebird

Re:Currently requires Oracle? by Pathwalker · 2003-11-03 10:15 · Score: 1

So it does about 3 writes per second, and about 10 reads per second?

No wonder it never goes down, if it's sitting idle all the time.

Or did I misunderstand, and that is per user, and you have several hundred users connected with that being the average workload per user?

Re:Currently requires Oracle? by orionware · 2003-11-03 11:02 · Score: 1

Each db hit doesn't necessarily represent a unique user. Transactions (in the general sense) might be several reads and writes at once.

At any given point there are 60-80 concurrent users hitting the db machine.

--

Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...

Re:Currently requires Oracle? by orionware · 2003-11-03 11:04 · Score: 1

On the machine that it's running on, which is anything but server class, it does quite well.

--

Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...

Re:Currently requires Oracle? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-03 11:30 · Score: 0

I've seen MySQL fall over under the load of too many queries on so many occasions. Usually involving joins or sorting or whatever. MySQL locks the entire goddamned table for so many stupid operations. Such a POS.

250,000 and 800,000 per day are *peanuts*.

I still don't understand... by Trejkaz · 2003-11-03 12:01 · Score: 1

... why database independence can't be made the job of the database developer. We already have a standard language, now let's have a standard wire protocol, and lo and behold, any client library would work with any database server (differences in SQL functionality aside.)

--
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!

Why is parent flamebait? by scosol · 2003-11-03 12:42 · Score: 1

He's making a statement- disagree with it if you'd like but don't mod it down!

--
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.

Re:Ironic timing, considering these security conce by tgl · 2003-11-03 17:16 · Score: 1

"today's announced Postgres security issues" ?

All of those were known and fixed quite some time ago. Three out of the four you quote were fixed in PG 7.2.1, more than a year and a half old.

Better go find a fresher news feed, troll.

I'm surprised they haven't raised the money yet. by WoTG · 2003-11-03 19:31 · Score: 1

I looked at Compiere a little over a year ago. At that time there was already a lot of talk about raising money for a port/recode to java middleware+postgresql. It made sense, and I assumed they'd reach their funding goal in short order. They already had several users, most of whom were paying Oracle thousands anually for support contracts - why wouldn't they pledge to get the port done, and then pay someone (presumably a lot less) for comparable postgresql support? I guess it doesn't work as easily as that.

Perhaps an escrow agent of sorts is required to take pledges in a more professional or secure manner?

Re:Ironic timing, considering these security conce by BallPeenHammer · 2003-11-04 10:50 · Score: 0

Actually, I could use a better news feed. I did only get a notice of them this week. What would you suggest?

--
The Law of Falling Bodies

Why Oracle? by Hognoxious · 2003-11-05 02:06 · Score: 1

Am I the only one who wonders why they didn't build an open source system on an open source DBMS in the first place?

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."

Re:Currently requires Oracle? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-05 21:51 · Score: 0

That's because Oracle is proven technology...

Proven to suck, you mean, thought to be fair, it sucks less than informix.

255 comments