[Phpgroupware-developers] Re: phpGroupware database and uml documentation in wiki?

[Dave Hall]

Hi Kai,

I have sent this to the developer list, so all contributors to the
project can be involved.

Kai Hofmann <address@hidden> wrote:

> Dear Core Team and developers,
> 
> hopefully you have seen my postings about the phpgroupware 
> database schema as well as the phpgw API UML diagram 
> together with the draft of a SQL style guide for the phpGW project 
> at 
> 
> http://www.probusiness.de/projekte/phpgroupware/

I have looked over them.  I don't think they are totally correct, and
they do not include the discussion that took place on the lists after
they were published.

> 
> Please feel free to use these document or links to use them in the 
> phpGWwiki
> (because we don't have write access to it yet).

Parts of them may be included in the wiki at some stage.  You do not
have write access to the wiki as you have not met the requirements for
obtaining contributor status.

> In fact, I would be interested in seeing the documents there for open
> discussion. 

The discuss has already started on the lists.

> Of course these documents can be maintained by myself and my 
> colleagues. 

The idea of wiki is that all people with access jointly maintain them. 
The reason why we run a protected wiki is that some of these documents
are important for all users, and so we can not have everyone having free
reign over them - this is the same as the api in cvs.  Better ACLs might
be able to be added in the future, which would allow discussion items to
be globally editable.


> Just as an examples for another idea for an address (and more) 
> databasescheme, 
> I added one of the schemes we use for internal purposes. Please don't
> publish this scheme, 
> as it is not finalized and the license policy for it is not yet 
> fixed. 

One minute you wish to have an open discussion then you send the
proposal to a select few, with a request to not publish it.  I am confused.

I do not understand the licensing issues.  As it currently stands all
apps in the phpgw cvs are distributed under the GPL.  This schema
impacts on all phpgw apps, and there components of the model which
affects a GPL'd app, so I fail to see what the licensing issues are.

So I do not see why this document can't be added to the wiki - as a PNG
or PDF.

> My
> colleagues 
> and I are well prepared to work on the phpGW database as well.
> 
> Please note that this is a conceptional database model and not a 
> physical!(This means that for M:M relations an extra table will be 
> generated by
> creating the physical model from the conceptional one).

I think we can all understand db modelling.

> 
> Some design criterias we have used are:
> 
> - self referencing tables to map hierarchies to the db
> - role tables for flexible and configurable attributes
> - communication_types to allow all know and future(!) types of
>  communication devices like phones, email etc. in all variants
>  (business phone, private phone, ....)
> - relations to join related tables (as mentioned in the SQL style 
> guide I
> published)
> 

This actually appears to me to be some type of confused model which
attempts to do HR and CRM in one model.  Unfortunately phpGW is
groupware which should have some CRM functionality (through infolog) and
basic HR functions (through reworked contacts/accounts link), not trying
to do everything possible for every situation.

Cheers

Dave

PS - bogus.example.com is not a valid domain

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