Compiere from the Source

Compiere Open Source failed?

Recently, Consona acquired Compiere.  Is this a failure of Open Source business model? What decisions led to the current situation?  In this first chapter of a three part blog series, I will provide some details and insight into the inner workings of commercial open source companies.

In the open source environment, many business models have been tried.  In the Compiere environment (including the forks like Open Bravo and Adempiere) different models were put into practice.  One of the crucial aspects in open source is inbound marketing. Long before inbound marketing became fashionable, the successful open source projects used this approach to gain momentum.

The blog concentrates on open source business (application) software with it's special challenges, but the lessons learned also apply to infrastructure and tool open source projects.   

Adempiere failure - the chance for Consona to revitalize Compiere

The Compiere troublemaker and Adempiere leader "red1" (Redhuan D Oon - @red1Oon) resigned: "I have quit as 'leader of ADempiere' . I have enough after nearly 4 years of battles. Anyway the legend is born. It shall have to die now." I have to say that it is not too surprising. The Compiere fork Adempiere had pure monetary motivations (despite singing the "open source song") and it did not work out for the community. 

In my upcoming blog series, I will elaborate on the motivation for the Adempiere guys to fork and why they failed.  Due to the recent purchase of Compiere, I had quite a few discussions with people interested in a revival of Open Source ERP.  Maybe Consona sees that as an option too.

Open Source ERP has a future. The "competing" open source products are quite weak compared with Compiere - maybe it is time for a new start where the objective is to create a great product to compete against the commercial ERP applications and frameworks.  The open source community also became more mature - with little support for "troublemakers" and the need for technical and business leaders.

Compiere from the beginning to Consona

I am in the process of creating a very detailed three part blog about Compiere history and potential future:

1. The Business of Open Source - from the early Compiere days until today
2. Open Source Community and Contribution for Business Applications - my experience with creating the most successful open source business application and lessons learned.
3. Open Source ERP - a technical review of options then and today.

It will take me a few days to complete it and receive/include some feedback and validation I requested.

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