Re: Compiere

[Christopher Browne]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2002 08:08:33 PDT, the world broke into rejoicing as
Todd Boyle <address@hidden>  said:
> Check out this project, it has had 176,000 downloads.
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/compiere
> 
> Can anybody advise +/- on this thing?   Does it work?
> 
> Are there any potential benefits to the user communities if
> the projects collaborate in any ways?   Presuming the existing
> developer communities would already be collaborating if they
> had a use for it.  Maybe a new segment of user community
> exists that did not exist before, to contribute code towards
> interoperability, or to maybe merge some things?
> 
> Also, they seem to be asking for suggestions what to do next,
> for example, build a perl interface on it,

BIG, BIG, BIG problem with Compiere:

It requires a whopping big pile of software that is:
 a) Not open source, and
 b) VERY nontrivial to install.

Notably, Compiere requires:
  a) Oracle 9i, which is not free, and which is not something you want to
     throw at people who are not willing to devote quite a bit of time on it;

  b) Sun Java 1.4 SDK.
     This is again distinctly nonfree, non-open-source software, requiring
     paying licensing fees to Sun if you're using it for anything other than
     toying around, and, again, isn't the sort of thing that should be thrown
     at other than seriously devoted technicians.  (Have you ever tried
     installing an "interestingly complex" piece of Java software?  I have;
     it is NOT for the faint of heart...)

Compiere may itself be "free software," but it's only free if you have already 
sent your briefcases full of money to Sun and Oracle.

I'd consider it to be _barely_ "open source;" their software is MPL-licensed, 
but the only software it depends on that _is_ available in "open source" form 
is the web browser.

Contributing to MPLed Compiere basically amounts to giving your code to the 
vendor.  It is doubtless a meaningful proposition for a VAR that already is 
doing system integration with Compiere; the relevance to other software seems 
rather dubious.
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