ERP is HIGHLY COMPLEX

When Compiere first debut as FOSS ERP (for those uninitiated it is Free and Open Source Software for Enterprise Resources Planning) around circa 2000 AD, many including me jumped into it not knowing that all that scripture is not code. Having sourcecode to a full fledge ERP System is only 10% of the journey. 

90% of an ERP System is the complexity of business organisation and processes itself. It is not about the number of tables that you now know has to exist in an ERP, but the sheer number of tables going off into a seeming indescribable mess with functions that seems to reach for the sky.

An ERP System is by definition integrated and that means on table joining to another joining to another, well i could go on, but for example:

C_Order join to C_OrderLine join to C_BPartner join to C_Location join to C_PaymentTerms join to M_Product, ok enough!

Perhaps the good side of having FOSS is that you can examine all this up close and tinkle with it. But the sheer size of it (around 1.9 gigabytes of code and scripts for ADempiere) can put you back say 23 years to unravel where the spaghetti begins or ends, and that may not really tell you which is an end or beginning.

That is perhaps why Jorg Janke, Compiere's owner must have sniggered when he decided to unload it all into cyberspace under SourceForge (for those again of the ignorant kind, SourceForge.net is a free repository for most of the world's FOSS projects). Having the Bible in one hand and the Messiah on the other does not deliver the Kingdom of God at hand.

You still need experts and gurus, and that is why they do not seem to die out or lose out in the speakers' circuits. If Linux maturity and global advancements are insufficient to turn your office completely Microsoft Windows free, then what more to expect from turning your whole or partial business operations such as inventory and order handling on an FOSS tap that does not easily turn right.

Don't get me wrong about FOSS now. Even proprietary software such as SAP, Oracle, Accepta, JD Edwards, and Baans possess the same demons. ERP is just 90% non-software stuff.

If you decide to go down the FOSS road, take my advice. Stick to one that is community based and not those that are plying the FOSS gospel for gold rather than glory. ADempiere is the gospel and glory whereas Compiere and OpenBravo are now just for the pot of gold.

Commercial interests take advantage of the FOSS chicks and lay out elaborate licensing and packaged traps that sooner or later you have to pay somewhere somehow at the expense of delayed bug fixes or releases. It is a zero sum game. They wish to earn more than they put in.

Here at ADempiere we already thanked the Lord Compiere the first day it was born. We made our money the hard way, that is by selling time based services and no more. All further is disastrous excessive self-defeating greed.

Can You Even Stand In A Bazaar?

What do you guys think a bazaar is? Is it chaos? Or is it a higher form of chaos, as they try to say in wave particle physics or Zen, "Organised Harmony In Chaos", or "The Butterfly Effect" - what we think is chaos is actually balanced and perfect.

Do you think our project uses the bazaar or cathedral approach? Or is it using both or none? <-- Another Zen kuon for the lazy meditators who rather lurk than help us in the trunk! :-) Whatever it is, there are applications in present day wikinomics. Wikipedia is one of them. It started on the utter anarchic premise that anyone but anyone can edit it. Then the forces of good pens vs bad pens fought it out and you end up with bad pages and lock out debates, banning of individuals and i even see words that demonised Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has lots of subject matter specialists, not your simple everyday microsoft word classroom project of writing short essays. It is getting very highly organised and very encyclopedic. Somehow when you remove the borders or barriers of entry, you draw the largest crowds and hatred, i mean interests. But coming out of the classroom and into the real world here cos our our project here is unique and that is exactly exciting. Because we are not Wikipedia nor Linux but ADempiere, a defacto non-commercial project in ERP space. We are also not Compiere nor OpenBravo as we put it.

What then makes us unique? How are we so differentiated to the point we are so proud of it? What are our good and bad points? Or are they both perfect as a whole - A Bazaar with a Cathedral?

This thesis is important as it affects our philosophy and outlook in this project. How we understand and perceive things is how we shall act and react.

I have my own opinons, and of course when one believes in own opinions one can express it strongly. One can also express it quietly, in pain.

Take Obama vs 'another 4 yrs of Bush' McCain campaign recently. Both sides love US of America. Both sides want to defend her. But both are dead on against the way to do it.

But to us outside, we say, "Who gives a shit about US of A?. We just want you out of our faces". I thought i will hear that in Middle East. But i hear it stronger in Latin America. Elected Presidents scoring votes for threatening to cut of oil to the USA.

In our own project here, we see 'some chaos' in action. Someone wants to do something good, someone else comes and create trouble. What resulted seems to be chaos. Or is it? Did good finally comes out of it? Did it draw people who were once far back into the fold? Did it send more ppl away?

It is hard to see things from afar since we are right in the middle of it. If we can see our earth from the moon we say its blue and beautiful. If we see it from another galaxy through the Hubble Telescope we say its magnificient. But if we stay on Earth, we say we have 4 yrs to live before 2012 when the Mayan Calendar ends.

Right here right now in the project, we have little arguments going on. Some like to say, "this is political!" and start another bush war. Is this helping? Or is it the energy that is as old as the Universe itself?

Even if the leader is a tyrant cum a priest cum his wife behind the scene, it can draw more hatred in the form of pure energy in the long run. It is someone you love to hate. It is someone you cannot stand.

Whatever it is, i am asking you to see it from afar. From a billion light years away. It will do you a lot of good. It can calm you down. At least you are standing far from the fires.