Hi all,
ERPNext is all Epoch Consulting does. We get 100% of our revenues from ERPNext Implementations.
We have made a few customizations to ERPNext that we deliver to our clients. However, we have not been very proactive in contributing these customizations back to the ERPNext codebase because:
- We did all these customizations as a separate app and though our app is freely available and downloadable, we do believe that what we have developed is generic in nature and can be used by the community at large.
- Because of #1, contribution is an after thought and because of client priorities we keep slipping and postponing sending our code base back to the core product.
Therefore going forward we resolve that:
- The generic things we develop for clients will be developed on the ERPNext codebase and we will do that by doing a pull request and then develop the enhancements that our clients need
- The customizations we have already developed will get pushed back to the ERPNext codebase on priority in 2018.
By doing so, it is a Win-Win-Win scenario.
Epoch wins because we have inputs from the ERPNext core team and the community at large by designing the enhancement generic enough to be used by different organizations, industries, countries and segments. Epoch further wins because the code we develop gets critically evaluated by the core ERPNext team and the community making our code more robust and our developers more experienced. Epoch wins yet again because the code is now maintained by the core team and the community, freeing up our developers to focus on delighting newer customers.
ERPNext wins because the product becomes better and more rounded.
The community wins again for this reason.
It’s been a journey to get here but once this became obvious, we are kicking ourselves as to why we did not do this last year. Still getting here has been a journey of maturing and getting used to the opensource model.
We do hope every service provider and free lance developer will also see the merit of implementing enhancements by doing a pull request rather than parking it in a provider specific app.
Obviously customer proprietary developments we do, or peculiarities related to a specific client will continue to be part of Epoch specific app.
Happy 2018 to everybody and here’s hoping that ERPNext by the end of 2018 would have at least 50% contributions by service providers and the community at large.
May I request each service provider to contribute back your customizations, localizations in 2018. Let’s grow the ERPNext pie. As the pie grows, our slice becomes bigger even if as a percentage our share reduces marginally.
Best regards
Jay