Re: After 1.4, looking towards baby steps to 2.0

[herman vierendeels <..hidden..>]

Hi Chris,

'but an intelligent database which can be the center of the enterprise'
I like this idea.
But i think, once 1.4 has its own tag, we should do a thorough review
of the db-schema.
e.g.
 relations and fields in and between company,entity,entity_credit_account
 company should be a top-level table being able to refer to
customers,vendors,employees ?
 should not contain field entity_id?

Thanks,
Herman




2014/1/3 Chris Travers <..hidden..>:
> Hi all,
>
> After we get 1.4 up and out the door, I am looking to see what we can do to
> help get pieces of our code more ready for 2.0.  Here are immediate
> proposals I would like to make:
>
> 1.  Break off the most obvious pieces of the db schema into Postgres
> extensions and publish them on pgxn.  These could be bundled with LedgerSMB
> as well, but should be available to other apps as well.
>
> 2.  Break off simple, mature functionality in Perl modules into CPAN
> modules.  This would focus on a stable API, better backwards compatibility,
> etc.
>
> I would propose focusing on accounts storage and menu structures first, and
> then maybe the contact management side.  Once something is broken off, I
> would like to try hard to maintain backwards compatibility so this should
> only be for things which have become relatively stable in terms of base
> functionality.
>
> Here are the impacts I could see for packagers:
>
> 1.  Packagers might want to package the extensions and cpan modules
> separately.  One advantage to this is that if changes need to be made for
> different Pg versions they can be.  The nice thing is that aside from
> bugfixes, it should be as simple as uploading once and then not having to
> worry about it until a material change comes in terms of requirements (and
> those would be minimized).
>
> 2.  These could still be bundled all together if they are seen as closely
> tied, but it would affect final target paths.
>
> As for licensing, I would like to propose the following:
>
> 1.  Major integration points I would like to be licensed under terms
> functionally identical to PostgreSQL (i.e. 2-clause BSD or similar).  This
> reduces questions of licensing that integrators may have.  As we simplify
> the Perl code and move more logic into the database, it seems to me that it
> may be good to move more of these to a BSD or similar license.  Note that
> our current PHP classes are under such a license.
>
> 2.  Areas of complex business logic I think for the time-being should be
> under the GPL2+.  As long as client libraries are under more permissive
> licenses I don't see anything we'd gain by making these more permissive.  As
> it is we currently have the issue that someone could fork and upgrade the
> license and we'd either have to follow them or not merge anything back.
> Some *very* generally applicable parts might do well to be released under a
> BSD-style license (the menu system comes to mind) in the hope that other
> open source projects may pick it up and contribute but I think they'd be a
> small minority.
>
> The licensing ideas are guided by the idea that what we are really hoping to
> bring to customers is not so much a web app or a web app framework but an
> intelligent database which can be the center of the enterprise.  From this
> viewpoint what we are doing in Perl mostly is trying to create interfaces
> for the database, while the major logic is in the database.  If folks want
> to use our API, I am happy for them to do so.
>
> Anyway, thoughts?
>
> --
> Best Wishes,
> Chris Travers
>
> Efficito:  Hosted Accounting and ERP.  Robust and Flexible.  No vendor
> lock-in.
> http://www.efficito.com/learn_more.shtml
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT
> organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance
> affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your
> Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics
> Pro!
> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
> _______________________________________________
> Ledger-smb-devel mailing list
> ..hidden..
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-devel
>