Comments on: Why the Technology Matters – An Analysis of Consona’s Acquisition of Compiere http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/enterprise/why-the-technology-matters-an-analysis-of-consonas-acquisition-of-compiere-1070810/ Software Advice Articles, News & Best Practices Guides Thu, 17 May 2012 19:12:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Phil Simon http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/enterprise/why-the-technology-matters-an-analysis-of-consonas-acquisition-of-compiere-1070810/#comment-4208 Phil Simon Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:34:12 +0000 http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/?p=4976#comment-4208 Interesting post about the future of technology. It makes you wonder whether many OS vendors ultimately have this type of exit strategy in mind. Interesting post about the future of technology. It makes you wonder whether many OS vendors ultimately have this type of exit strategy in mind.

]]> By: Yves Sandfort http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/enterprise/why-the-technology-matters-an-analysis-of-consonas-acquisition-of-compiere-1070810/#comment-3565 Yves Sandfort Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:06:22 +0000 http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/?p=4976#comment-3565 Don, I agree more with James response, Compiere was bought because the current Consona stack does not have cloud capabilities as well, as well as it is bound to windows only. To everyone it must have been clear, that Compiere was since 2 years not really considered an open source project anymore. Which was not only because of a missing community, but also because of a closed approach. Don Klaiss took the decisions to close down the product and stopped any work on the open source part, which created a big discrepancy between the community version and the "pro" version. Bigger than it should have been, a WebUI is a framework part, not an add on! Compiere took with GWT a fancy open source technology, but the integration is/was of bad design, I had a chance to see the code multiple times and that was not the way it should have been done. My company did several performance and code analysis on Compiere for most large customers and we identified seriouse problems in performance, memory handling, application design and similar stuff. Beside that we identified about 7 security issues in the system which are still existing. As all of the above is known facts, I totally agree with James that this deal was all about licensing and getting buzzword compliant. My view is that Consona will close Compiere more down than what Don Klaiss ever did in his time and we will see it disappear from the markets, as the customers (at least the big ones) are moving to more vital options. I also partly agree with Trifon, that they have or should I besser say had a vital community for Adempiere, but also that project is struggling haevily as you can read in my and other blogs on how money is made and the cake is split... So is Commercial Open source a working business model? I truly agree and it will continue to evolve, but only for projects who find a good line between the commercial (earn money) and open source (be open) part. There are good examples, but still there are more bad examples... Yves Sandfort, CEO, comdivision group Don,

I agree more with James response, Compiere was bought because the current Consona stack does not have cloud capabilities as well, as well as it is bound to windows only.

To everyone it must have been clear, that Compiere was since 2 years not really considered an open source project anymore. Which was not only because of a missing community, but also because of a closed approach.

Don Klaiss took the decisions to close down the product and stopped any work on the open source part, which created a big discrepancy between the community version and the “pro” version. Bigger than it should have been, a WebUI is a framework part, not an add on!

Compiere took with GWT a fancy open source technology, but the integration is/was of bad design, I had a chance to see the code multiple times and that was not the way it should have been done. My company did several performance and code analysis on Compiere for most large customers and we identified seriouse problems in performance, memory handling, application design and similar stuff. Beside that we identified about 7 security issues in the system which are still existing.

As all of the above is known facts, I totally agree with James that this deal was all about licensing and getting buzzword compliant.

My view is that Consona will close Compiere more down than what Don Klaiss ever did in his time and we will see it disappear from the markets, as the customers (at least the big ones) are moving to more vital options.

I also partly agree with Trifon, that they have or should I besser say had a vital community for Adempiere, but also that project is struggling haevily as you can read in my and other blogs on how money is made and the cake is split…

So is Commercial Open source a working business model? I truly agree and it will continue to evolve, but only for projects who find a good line between the commercial (earn money) and open source (be open) part. There are good examples, but still there are more bad examples…

Yves Sandfort, CEO, comdivision group

]]> By: Trifon Trifonov http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/enterprise/why-the-technology-matters-an-analysis-of-consonas-acquisition-of-compiere-1070810/#comment-3453 Trifon Trifonov Sat, 10 Jul 2010 23:09:38 +0000 http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/?p=4976#comment-3453 >Additionally, they are being enhanced every day by armies of volunteer programmers. That allows Compiere to just focus on enhancing its application functionality for accounting, manufacturing, distribution, etc. Just small remark on the above statement. I would say that it is ADempiere (fork of Compiere) that gets the big army of volunteers who enhance the source code. Since ADempiere forked from Compiere, we have fixed more than 2000 bugs Bugs - 243 open/2467 total http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=176962 and managed to develop extensions like: - Postgres port(Compiere works on EnterpriseDB) - WEB UI based on Zk framework - Manufacturing module - Replication - EDI X.12 and EDIFACT - many more smaller features Regards, Trifon ADempiere founder >Additionally, they are being enhanced every day by armies of volunteer programmers. That allows Compiere to just focus on enhancing its application functionality for accounting, manufacturing, distribution, etc.

Just small remark on the above statement.
I would say that it is ADempiere (fork of Compiere) that gets the big army of volunteers who enhance the source code. Since ADempiere forked from Compiere, we have fixed more than 2000 bugs

Bugs – 243 open/2467 total
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=176962

and managed to develop extensions like:

- Postgres port(Compiere works on EnterpriseDB)
- WEB UI based on Zk framework
- Manufacturing module
- Replication
- EDI X.12 and EDIFACT
- many more smaller features

Regards,
Trifon
ADempiere founder

]]> By: James Dixon http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/enterprise/why-the-technology-matters-an-analysis-of-consonas-acquisition-of-compiere-1070810/#comment-3442 James Dixon Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:23:15 +0000 http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/?p=4976#comment-3442 I agree this acquisition was not about Compiere's customer-base. But to me this is not about technology, it's about the licensing of that technology. Consona needs a cloud computing story with utility pricing. Their existing on-premise technology is based on .Net, which means paying for Windows etc. To have a cost-effective cloud story Consona needs a platform that does not have per-instance license fees. Regardless of how good the Compiere technology is or isn't, this deal was about licensing. James Dixon, CTO, Pentaho P.S. Open source software is not 'free' as in zero cost: there are always costs involved I agree this acquisition was not about Compiere’s customer-base. But to me this is not about technology, it’s about the licensing of that technology.

Consona needs a cloud computing story with utility pricing. Their existing on-premise technology is based on .Net, which means paying for Windows etc. To have a cost-effective cloud story Consona needs a platform that does not have per-instance license fees.

Regardless of how good the Compiere technology is or isn’t, this deal was about licensing.

James Dixon, CTO, Pentaho

P.S. Open source software is not ‘free’ as in zero cost: there are always costs involved

]]>