Yeah, I think we all are.
The concept you propose is good. The implementation can be worked out.
It is setting up the user groups and finding them representation in the developer community that is the real hurdle.
BKM
I totally agree that ERPNext will benefit if the domains were separated. I see some very popular paid manufacturing software that ERPNext could beat in features alone. But because ERPNext is mixed up (I don’t mean messed up, but more like a treasure box with many many different jewels), the value is actually decreased.
In marketing these days, DIFFERENTIATION is very important. You must be able to say who you are or what your software is in 10 seconds. Therefore, mixing up everything devalues.
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That is probably the first identifiable task that needs to be addressed.
BKM
That is where organized user groups focused on only one domain could have an impact. Then the individual domains begin to have their own life. That is how you get outside attention. When any one given domain begins to make waves, the world pays attention and possibly sees the other things the package can do as well.
BKM
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Groups can be multiple. Half of them may fail. They are not elected bodies, they are just volunteer testers.
Groups should be small enough to take quick decisions.
I’ll start thinking about the “pipeline”
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Guys, can we do an whiteboard exercise?
There’s some levels of problems
- Level 0
- Install Bugs (they can affect everyone)
- Migration Bugs ( they affect some users, depending on how they setup ERPNext)
- Level 1
- Module Bugs (they affect some users, that may have started use a module)
- Level 2
- They are business process challenges or integration between features in ERPNext
- Examples (Scrap in Manufacturing, Sub-Contracting in Manufacturing)
- There’s an upcoming feature, how understand
- The boundaries of the feature
- What is the problem this feature can resolve?
- There’s problems out of the scope of the feature?
- Available ways to contribute with the extension of the boundaries of the feature
- Knowledge
- Monetary
- Work
- The boundaries of the feature
- They are business process challenges or integration between features in ERPNext
- Level 3
- You are developing things around ERPNext
- How contribute it back into a realistict time
- How get support from the community to do that?
- You are developing things around ERPNext
- Level 4
- Deprecations
- How what’s being deprecated affect others?
- Deprecations
If you face a problem in any level, how get support?
- Disquss
- If Discuss doesn’t resolve then, open an issue
- How many time, to someone understand and address this?
- What’s the impact for this bug
- for the user who identify the bug
- for the project
- for the community
- What’s the ETA time to get this resolved?
- for the user who identify the bug
- for the project visibility
- for the community feelings
- What’s the desirable time to get this resolved?
- for the user who identify the bug
- for the project visibility
- for the community feelings
If we can monitor problems level 0 and 1 (with sentry.io), probably we can apply pareto’s law, to resolve 80% of the problems, with 20% of effort.
What’s the implication, of active monitory bugs in someone-else server? Like mozilla and chrome does with crash reports?
Problems of Level 2, 3 and 4, come from the daily user experience with ERPNext, this most of the time, is because
- Some feature is incomplete (there’s no clear boundary definition)
- Some functionality have been disabled from one version to another (intentionally or accidentally)
- There’s some feature available, but it’s not documented (Ex: Transfer Warehouse in Packed Item)
- Users are already using the system in ways developers never thought
Can these problems addressed if we:
*** Have a system of PE (Proposal Enhancements), where :**
** * community can vote at level 1**
** * community can comment for what passed to level 2 (due traction policy)**
** * community can define scope boundaries at level 3**
** * work (can the community sponsor this)**
** * Who in the community can take the leadership to coordinate work here?**
17 Likes
True. Experience and study does eventually bring results.
I think the Frappe / ERPNext team is arranged into domain “owners”.
It would be nice if the domain owners listened to this advice. This would make Frappe / ERPNext agile. Many coders in this community would be able to contribute more significantly.
Team needs to be cross-functional.
Docker or no-docker we need 1 person who can do basic sysadmin things to test PR and collaborate with user group
The key to making this work, is to keep the time frames on deliverables and review very short (within days). This would make the groups and their results agile. You do not need to make a perfect waterfall. It is better to do small increments and immediate feedback multiple times. This way, if you make a wrong turn, you do not have to turn back again when you are already far down the wrong road.
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Identifying and solving bugs is also user involvement in development of ERPNext. This is a separate interaction in itself and it is equally important.
My idea for user group and PR testing was for users to manually test upcoming releases and be aware of changes, participate in the changes.
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@revant_one I partially agree, but the problem I see, is ERPNext is huge!
We have unitary tests, and they doesn’t cover 100% of the system, neighter edge cases like properly integrations between modules.
Also we have the demo.erpnext.org, where we can keep an eye, to understand what’s going on.
But, it still doesn’t solve the problem!
My suggestion with sentry.io, is because we can collect usefull information from everywhere, and keep this information open (if there’s not sensible data).
Also, sentry, has a nice way to organize reincident bugs, what can define some level of priorization.
But, even this has they own problems (it’s my technical side, making a technical proposition, that if not properly implemented, will exclude users voice from the equation)
Perfect!
This has been the topic recently.
“Bugs” and their fixes would be another set of circumstances.
BKM
This is Agile approach.
Guys, I think we need to consider a reading here, only remembering my subject is about the governance of the community, and not ERPNext or Frappé Projects, they are under the umbrella of Frappé,
Hahaha. It appears Frappe / ERPNext is all of the above.
I think this forum is doing a function like this.
I agree with Revant that Frappe / ERPNext will benefit from well-defined focused groups who can incrementally develop in an involved manner.
Another lecture
https://developer.ibm.com/devpractices/open-source-development/articles/open-governance-community/
Another lecture
IMHO, Frappe / ERPNext is one of the open source projects that is truly committed to Open Source.
Many open source projects are indeed single-vendor sample wares that use open source to hook in customers.
The manuals contain sparse information. True - the source code is released, but there is no information about tools, dependencies, and compilers, etc. When you look into the forums, the queries remain unanswered. The latest answers are at least one year old.
If you really want to dive deeper, you may take paid course modules offered by the company and basic consultation starts at $4,500.
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