Openbravo Community Awards winners

Openbravo has organized the Openbravo Community Awards to honor individuals and companies for their outstanding contributions to the Openbravo ERP and POS projects during 2008.

Openbravo Community during the last weeks has nominated first and voted later the people that made a difference for them with their contributions. During the Openbravo World Conference, that occurred last weekend, we revealed the winners of every category.


The Individual Awards acknowledge people that have allocated time and resources to make Openbravo POS or ERP better project. The winners in the group are:

Best Quality Assurance. An individual with outstanding contributions in the area of Quality Assurance

Goes to Naveen Chanda for his participation in the Openbravo ERP 2.40 alpha 2 and 2.35 MP4 testing cycles on a number of platforms and for his active participation in Openbravo ERP forums.

Finalists: Paulo Leandro, Juan Reyes, Ville Lindfors, Jignesh, Ronny G.

Best localizer. An individual with outstanding contributions in the area of localization.

Goes to Mohammad Jaffar Fahmi for his work translating Openbravo POS to Arabic, the most popular locale for Openbravo POS.

Finalists: Kenzo Repole, Jens Wilke.

Best developer. An individual with outstanding contributions in the area of software development.

Goes to Andrej Svininykh for this work on developing several features for Openbravo POS and integrating some new devices like scales and receipt printers.

Finalists: Ville Lindfors, Ronny G, Ben Sommerville.

Best support participant. An individual with outstanding participation in Openbravo support channels.

Goes to Telepieza for his work dedicated in documenting HOWTOs for Openbravo ERP in Spanish (55 of them are currently available)‏.

Finalists: Enric Alegre, Miguel Marquez, Victor Gaspar, Jimm.

The Technology Awards recognize outstanding projects lead by companies or organizations build on top of Openbravo technology. The winners in the group are:

Best localization. An organization with outstanding contributions in the area of localization.

Goes to Amorebieta-Etxanoko Udala for leading the Euskara language translation for Openbravo POS

Finalists: CBT Open, Apal Informatique, Mancomun.org

Best implementation. An organization that has performed an outstanding implementation of Openbravo in a challenging environment.

Goes to Conasa for their work on developing and installing a vertical solution for religious services based on Openbravo ERP 2.40 with PostgreSQL.

Finalists: Qualian Technologies, Microgenesis, Open Sistemas.

Best development. An organization that has performed an outstanding development based on Openbravo.

Goes to Open Sistemas for their work developing many features, now part of Openbravo POS, aimed at the fast food business (for client Bocatta)‏.

Finalists: Open Sistemas and Software Engineering Research Center.

Open Sistemas after receiving their award

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees, everybody's contributions are important.

Thanks to everybody that has participated in the nomination and voting process.

Openbravo World Conference - Community Day 2

This is a follow up of my summary of the 1st day of the community days. These are the insights from the second day of the community days. I have not summarized all the sessions as some were demos. Feel free to send me your insights if you want me to include them in this post.

Building an Open Source ERP Ecosystem through Modularity and Core Contribution. Paolo Juvara

Key ideas:

• Community is a A group of people that collaborate around a common project. An ecosystem is a group of autonomous but interdependent communities that collaborate around a number of loosely coupled objectives and projects
• The most significant innovation of version 2.50 of Openbravo ERP is the introduction of a modular architecture support that enables an Openbravo ecosystem very similar to the Linux ecosystem. Openbravo ERP itself is the core of the ecosystem and autonomous communities can collaborate on independent value added components.
  
• Modularity architecture & Openbravo Forge enable the Openbravo ecosystem.
• Templates to provide customized solutions for specific industry segments

The community imperative. Matt Asay

Key ideas:

• Open source is now mainstream. 50% of the companies plan to adopt open source
• People are attracted to Linux because cost
• Open source lowers risk and probability of failure
• People is planing to increase the use of open source in critical mission application
• The real value for open source applications come from ISV
• Community begins when self-interest meets software
• An open source project should be bigger than the company

Matt Asay during his key note.

Localization: Opening New Markets and Developing Unchartered Territory. Richard Morley

Key ideas:

• Localization can benefit tremendously from the Forge & modularity
• Openbravo is taking the rule of the enabler putting the common ground to create any localization
• Areas of prioritization for Openbravo localization efforts in the next years are : flexible Chart of Account (COA) configuration, multilingual & multicultural user interface and master data management, user interface and master data management, configurable multi-currency environment, flexible, configurable tax handling, integration to web services, transaction rounding rules, flexible transaction numbering rules, flexible, document driven, accounting rules, support for the configuration of payment methods, flexible and extensive standard reports, support for “generic” business processes. Notice that this a list of areas to work, it does not represent a commitment in terms of deliveries from Openbravo.
  

Modules: Best Practices. Ismael Ciordia.

Key ideas:

• Modules are the atomic building blocks and deliver the individual functional extensions. They are the lowest level of granularity and the smallest element of reuse.
• Packs are a collection of modules.
• Templates allow you to deliver a combination of modules and packs plus a configuration file as a reusable, packaged solution that installs at the click of a button.
  
• Dependency: a module depends on other module when it requires it to run
• All changes after 2.50 should be done using modules, including customizations, to simplify modularity
  

Openbravo World Conference - Community Day 1

Saturday was the first day of the Openbravo World Conference community days. There were around 200 attendees. Lots of conversations and ideas floating around.

In the next days we will be publishing the slides of all the sessions. Let me share with you some insights from the first day of the community days.


Word from the CEO: empowering the ecosystem. Manel Sarasa

Key ideas:

• Freedom is value for partners, customers and community members
  
• Projected the video truth happens from Red Hat to illustrate how disruptive innovative changes like open source end up been adopted
  
• There is a failure in the ERP market due to the proprietary market tradition: complex price structures, vendor lock-in. Open source means an ERP for everybody. No company has managed to delivered a win-win proposition to the ERP middle market.
• Vision: empowering the ecosystem: a modern product, 100% web based with great functionality footprint, delivered and built through freedom, with a great professional offer. It is mission critical, professional services are key to success
• Some facts about Openbravo. More than 1.250.000 downloads, 5.000 registered developers, 50 localization registered projects, estimated 1.000 implementations, 100 professional partners serving 30 different countries, 100 excellent professionals
  

The Impact of Open Source in a Down economy. Richard Daley

Key ideas:

• The time is right for the open source applications now. It has been already for open source operating system vendors like Red Hat
  
• Open source is the safer option nowadays (lower risk)
  
• At infrastructure tier open source has already consolidated (such as LAMP), now the application tier is consolidating. Increase ratio of adoption of open source solutions
• Community participation is key for better software, more secure, more international, better supported
  
• Lean budgets favor open source. Many open source commercial projects are seeing an increase in activity and commercial operations
• Open source and cloud computing. Open source has commoditized the software industry, the cloud computing is doing the same for hardware. Cloud computing and software as a service. Benefits: pay as go, reduced operational costs, scalability and availability.

Richard Daley during his key note.

Openbravo in the Ecosystem: Integrate it into the Information System. Sandra Massé

Talend is fully integrated with Openbravo ERP allowing data extract, load and transformation with other systems to Openbravo.

Key ideas:

• Talend is an open source ETL tool. Reduces the cost compared to proprietary solutions up 20 times.
• 900.000 product downloads, 20% registered users
• Challenges: high volumes of data, heterogeneity of the environment, differences in data structures, maintain the consistency of old and new systems

The Case for Openbravo ERP on Ubuntu Server Edition. John Pugh

Canonical and Openbravo are working together to make Openbravo ERP ready for the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Key ideas:

• Contribution between operating systems and open source applications
  
• Community is key to Canonical. LaunchPad.Net, Ubuntu collaboration platform, has more than 12.000 projects registered.
• Ubuntu server edition was released two years ago and it is a good platform to deploy professional applications
  
• Cloud computer included in next release of Ubuntu 9.04 (to be published on the 23rd of April 2009)
  

Expanding your Market Reach with IBM DB2. Antonio Maranhao and Boris Bialek

IBM is working with Openbravo to adapt Openbravo ERP for DB2 database engine.

Key ideas:

• IBM DB2 Express edition is available free for download and has a flexible licensing scheme
• IBM is working on supporting Openbravo ERP on top of DB2 database engine
  
• DB2 has compatibility layers what makes very easy to port applications to DB2 and is highly optimized for very demanding environments
  

Deployment Advances from Sun for the System Integrator. Pedro Yagüe

Sun has been working with Openbravo to enhance the support for OpenSolaris and GlassFish in Openbravo ERP.

• One of the largest open source vendors: every software asset we produce is open source
• Sun allows to try and run their software and have special programs for startups.
• Sun bases its growth with its partners. Sun's partner ecosystem is key to their succeed.
• Openbravo ERP runs on GlassFish, Sun's application server and is going to be packaged for OpenSolaris.
  

Jaspersoft Integration with Openbravo. Tim Cloonan

JasperReports is the default report engine behind Openbravo ERP and POS projects.

Key ideas:

• 10.000 customers in 96 countries. 8 millions downloads, 90.000 members, 350 community projects, 50.000 forums support posts at jaspersoft.org
• Report writing is a key part of Openbravo ERP customization
• Using Jaspersoft iReport, the visual report designer, you can save time lots of time in the report creation process.
  

Business Momentum Integration. Ron Kramer

Business Momentum have created B-Orange, a solution that integrates Openbravo ERP, Alfresco, Zimbra, Funambol and Magento.

Key ideas:

• B-Orange is a cooperation with Bonware, Advanced Projects and Products, Business Momentum.
• Zimbra and Openbravo integration. Part of the e-mail integration is now part of Openbravo ERP since version 2.40
• A demo of the integration was shown that is available on-line at wwww.businesssmomentum.eu
  

Qualian Technologies. Case Vaishnovi Infrastructure. Senthil Palanisamy

Implementing Openbravo ERP on a construction equipment company in India.

Key ideas:

• Customer has 1.000 employees, 1 billion Indian ruppies turn over. Challenges: 100 desktops, independent systems for inventory and accounting, migration from a previous system. Need for new requirements not supported by their legacy system: centralized stock managed, BOM, sales commissions, etc.
  
• The implementation has been very successful. Users and managers are happy because the new level of flexibility and functionality gained
  

Open Sistemas. Bocatta case. Andreu Bartolí (on behalf of Open Sistemas)

Implementing Openbravo POS in Bocatta, one of the largest fast food chain in Spain.

Key ideas:

• Challenge: have all the different locations linked and integrated in a single system with a powerful POS system
• Openbravo POS was further develop to accommodate better the fast food restaurant that was contributed back to Openbravo POS project.
  

Bonware. CaravanTukku case. Ville Lindfors

Implementing Openbravo ERP in a caravan accessory customer.

Key ideas:

• Challenge: to automate sales, supply chain, invoicing, 200 customers, 2.000 stores doing international trade
• Benefits: reduced labour costs, post costs (40.000 euros per year), ware activities are streamline
• Plans to roll the same solution in the same industry and to enhance even further the customer business process

Participating in the Swiss Open Source Software Conference

Next 1st and 2nd of April I'm going to be attending in the in the Swiss Open Source Software Conference in Bern.

On 2nd of April there are two sessions on Openbravo ERP in the conference business track:

• 13:30 Openbravo ERP: Open Source ERP for professional business by Walter Demichiel, Director of DW-Net.
  
• 14.30 Building an open source community: the Openbravo experience by Jordi Mas from Openbravo.

Walter Demichiel is the Direktor DW-Net, a partner of Openbravo. He will focus his talk in Openbravo as a professional solution for business.

I will be focusing my talk on Openbravo community, specially in the latest initiatives that we have been developing and how you can contribute to the Openbravo ecosystem.

Openbravo ERP & POS projects have a new home

Hello everybody!

Openbravo ERP & POS projects have a new home:

• Openbravo ERP is located at http://forge.openbravo.com/projects/openbravoerp
• Openbravo POS is located at http://forge.openbravo.com/projects/openbravopos
  

We have completed the users and forum posts migration that we have previously announced, all the previous forum activity has been migrated to the new Openbravo Forge

The new home includes a complete new forum system with many new features. If you have question regarding the usage of the new Forge, please use the public support forum for Openbravo Forge.

Openbravo ERP & Openbravo POS 28th of March projects migration details & tool map

The Openbravo migration to the new Forge will occur Saturday 28th of March starting at 7.00am GMT+1 and it expecting to be completed by 14.00 GMT+1. During this period of time it will not be possible to create new forum messages in the Openbravo ERP & POS forums. The objective of this process is to migrate all the forum posts from SourceForge to the new Forge.

The people working on the migration will be using the Openbravo IRC as communication channel. That is as you know:

Server: irc.freenode.net
Channel name: #openbravo

You are more details in out Wiki about Openbravo chat channels.

On account synchronization

In case that your SourceForge username does not match with your Openbravo Single Sign on username, your previous activity in SourceForge will not be preserved. This is not desirable since you will loose all the recognition of the activity that you have previously generated and its ownership. For example, in my case my user at SourceForge is jordimash but in our Single Sign On system is just jordimas. I'm interested in having my previous activity generated as jordimash mapped to my new Single Sign On user jordimas. If you are in this case, write your details in our Migration Account List and we will do the mapping for your account

Openbravo ERP core project tool map

• Project home page -> Openbravo ERP project at Openbravo Forge
• Project News -> Openbravo ERP project news (using the new Forge, active after the migration)
  
• Wiki -> Openbravo Wiki
• Forums -> Openbravo ERP forums in the Openbravo Forge (using the new Forge, active after the migration)
  
• Downloads -> SourceForge downloads
• Mailing lists -> SourceForge mailing lists
• Source Control System -> Openbravo Code (Mercurial repository)
• Bug tracking system -> Openbravo Issues
  

Openbravo POS core project tool map

• Project home page -> Openbravo POS project at Openbravo Forge
• Project News -> Openbravo POS project news (using the new Forge, active after the migration)
• Wiki -> Openbravo Wiki
• Forums -> Openbravo POS forums in the Openbravo Forge (active after the migration)
• Downloads -> SourceForge downloads
  
• Source Control System -> Openbravo Dev (Subversion repository)
  
• Bug tracking system -> Openbravo Issues

If you want to see the new forums, have a look to the Support forum for example. Feel free to post here any question that you have.

What's new in Openbravo Forge for Openbravo ERP and Openbravo POS forum users

As I commented recently this Saturday we are going to migrate the Openbravo POS and ERP projects to the new and shiny Openbravo Forge. This means that starting this Saturday 28th of March, Openbravo community is going to use the forums provided by the platform.

Having new forums has been a long time requested feature by our community and we are very happy to be able to answer.

Let me highlight some of the new features that the forums have compared to the ones used until now in SourceForge:

· HTML messages with a full WYIWYG editor. This includes obviously the possibility to use formatted text, images and links. A new world compared to the old plain regular text
· Attachments. Now it is possible to attach files to messages, ranging from logs to screenshots. This is handy when you need help debugging problems or users want to share results.
· Sticky messages. This is really useful for forums that want to highlight a new message to all the newcomers. For example, a FAQ built from the activity of the message, a very hot issue of the week, a reminder to all participants, etc.
· Google indexing. As you have noticed Google does not index SourceForge content. This is specially bad for the forums because it is a very important source of knowledge for Openbravo ERP and POS projects. With the new Openbravo Forge, all the content is indexed by Google, what makes one of our more important knowledge assets fully available to everyone easing the search and resolution of Openbravo related issues.

If you want to see the new forums, have a look to the Support forum for example. Feel free to post here any question that you have.

Tomorrow I will blog about the detailed migration schedule for the Openbravo POS and ERP projects that is taking place this Saturday to 28th of March.