This Cousin covers the three main mailing lists for the GNU Enterprise project, gnue, gnue-dev and gnue-announce. It also covers the #gnuenterprise IRC channel. A great deal of development discussion for this project goes on in IRC. You can find #gnuenterprise on irc.openprojects.net:6667, or you can review the logs. For more information about the GNU Enterprise project, see their home page at http://www.gnuenterprise.org.
Robert Jenkins said he was aiming to
replace an existing networked database, currently
running on Dataease 4.53, with a postgres based system
,
explaining The database I'm hoping
to replace has around 25 forms, ranging from one to five screens
worth of data, many of which use a number of virtual
fields displaying data extracted from other related tables.
He thought what I'm trying to achieve
fits in fairly well with the gnue project
but was not
sure how advanced the tools were - with
just a fairly brief look at the designer, I don't even know
if this requires an existing database structure, or if it can create /
manipulate tables to suit the forms it creates (as Dataease
does)...
. Derek Neighbors said that
GNUe should be good for this
,
adding that Robert will pick up Python
quicker than you could ever imagine
given his experience of
C and other programming languagues. He noted
Currently designer doesnt 'manage' db
tables. So you would need to create the structure with something
else (like pgadmin). If your dataease db has an odbc driver you
could simply using the dbmigration tool in pgadmin and it will
create all the tables for you.
The main focus at the
moment was to get more users, although any help on the development
side would be welcome too - I think
you will like GNUe.
Ryan Grange said he was also
looking at GNUe's capabilities myself for
a friend of mine who'd like to run an ecommerce site and have it
tie into an accounting system. GNUe may be overkill for what he's
trying to do at the moment, but if it's easy enough to manage, then
feature overkill hardly matters when the startup price is just
education and configuration. He may grow into needing the more
advanced features later anyway.
Meanwhile,
on IRC, it was asked how to migrate FoxPro applications to Linux.
Andrew Mitchell (ajmitch) noted foxpro
uses some mutant dbf format, which can be exported to a real DB
.
For the application/clients, from that
db you can build forms, etc, to replace what is needed - which sucks
if it's a big app
. Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) suggested
install postgresql - then on windows
box install pgadmin2 - then install odbc driver for foxpro on that
box. via pgadmin2 you can convert all your data/tables/queries etc
from foxpro to postgres via point and click - then once everything
is in postgres just write forms for the tables and such. Conversely
you could go the other way - and write gnue screens for your foxpro
tables - using odbc driver from gnue. Though i would suggest getting
rid of the foxpro tables first as they are 'weak' ;)
On CRM (Customer Relationship Management) in GNUe,
Charles Rouzer (Mr_You) said if
you are looking for complete packages it may take a while for
GNUe to do that.. but the purpose of GNUe is to make applications
very easily.. the designer interface is easy to use
. If
you want CRM for internal tracking
purposes
then DCL can
handle internal tracking.. with remote customers submitting
tickets/work orders..
Dmitry Sorokin (ra3vat) noted
that there is binary build of gnue
tools for win32 you can easily get working in a minutes
.
Further to
how
long does it usually take up for the patch, sent through info@gnue.org
to appear in source? /me is eager to see the biggest change in GNUe
:)
Peter Sullivan (psu), referring to
remember that the @gnue.org addresses
are'nt delivering at the moment - if you sent it recently, I would
re-send to jamest and jasonat their "real" e-mail addresses
.
Arturas said his patch to GFDisplayHandler.py
file completely rewrited class responsible for handling dates - dates
should be i18n'ed. Or maybe i can simply commit to cvs? this is a big change,
but it's form specific and it works (at least for me :)
James Thompson (jamest) said i'm thinking the
only thing we should do before you commit it is run it past jcater as he's
"da man" in the display handler section
.
Further to
I'm gonna
plan on going to that e-gov deal in washington - its close enough to
drive to
. Jason Cater (jcater) said that Stan Klein (sklein)
will be there, iirc - and I think stbain was
gonna try to help
. Charles said its
something I'm interested in - GNUe being used in governments
.
Two days later, Stan Klein (sklein) made contact with
Charles - jcater emailed me that
you might be interested in being a co-presenter at the
event in DC (see kernel cousin for details)
He
would send you my draft for the
demo abstract. I will need a bio and/or resume
.
Charles asked does co-presenter
mean getting on stage? I qualify for that? hehe
.
Stan explained the presentation is
a gnue demo
Charles had
thought they were going to be
held at booths
. Stan explained
They are having a set of "plenary
sessions" of 90 minutes each with 4 speakers/demos to a
session - I understand derek is doing a demo for LinuxWorld
We can do the same demo (or an improved version of it
.
Nick Rusnov (nickr) asked are you
saying derek's presentation would be less than perfect?
Stan clarified no, that by October it
could get better
. Charles said
I'm expecting by then I'll have my
first completed install, dunno how functional it will be but
should be ok - I need web forms more than anything - so I
might hack on php web forms client if I see I can
.
Jason Cater (jcater) said he had been
researching Point-of-Sale systems and found:
http://gibbon.sourceforge.net/
,
which listed GNU Enterprise as one of the financial systems
they intend to support
.
Lee Hughes asked about the status of the
Financials and Supply Chain (esp. Inventory Control) modules? I have a
client in need who is a great candidate for open source...
.
Derek Neighbors said They are not ready
to ship, the framework to build them exists. We are
doing some solutions that are doing inventory control, shipping,
invoicing etc, but we do not have time lines on them at this
point.
Ryan Grange said he was close to having
this system configured to run on a Mandrake system, but could use
guidance in determining what I may be missing and what RPMs might
have accomplished what I ended up using tarballs to acieve.
Derek Neighbors said that the main dependancies for GNUe were:
- Python >= 2.x
- wxPython(wxGTK) >= 2.x
- mxDateTime (reasonably current version)
- A database (pick from many more than likely postgres or mysql comes with Mandrake)
- pythondriver for chosen database
He noted We do not have rpms
for GNUe yet but we take patches. All dependencies should not only be
available via RPM but should be included on the Mandrake and Red Hat
distribution CDs.
Stan Klein said I
run Red Hat 7.2 and the distribution CDs don't carry wxPython or
mxDateTime. I had to download those from the appropriate sites.
He thought it would be good if some of the
dependencies were available on a GNUe-related web site
as had
been the case in the past. Also, mxDateTime did not follow
the Linux Standards Base that specifies where
things go
which meant I had to go
in and create a link from where mxDateTime actually installed to where
it was expected to be under the Red Hat 7.2 installation rules.
Mandrake might be the same.
Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) explained the background to acclite -
the possible fork of NOLA being worked on by some members of the
GNU Enteprise team, as referred to in
Basically to start we cleaned up the
NOLA code (directory structure and such)
-
then converted schema to postgres so didnt have
to use mysql - and have started to test those changes
. He noted that
Micah Yoder (MicahY) was/is working on basically
making gnue screens for the backend - some of the account management stuff has
screens
done as of time of writing. if
you want working postgres NOLA you can get it from our acclite (our nola cvs
for now until we merge back our changes)
. He confirmed that
eventually acclite/NOLA would run off GNUe Application Server
though its not scheduled for our first round of
'goals'
. There was no specific acclite mailing list, as
we really dont want a fork at this point
and were still hopeful that NOLA's owners would adopt the changes -
if we do a list and such it looks like we are
brute forking it
. The only reason they had even set up a separate CVS
was more than one person was doing them so we
needed it
. He felt quite frankly its likely
it will be fork as they may choose to not accept it - though they seemed
interested so we arent ruling it out
. He confirmed that NOLA (and
hence acclite) was US based so follows US
accounting practices
.
Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) cut and pasted some information
from the wxGTK project about the
first functional Unicode support for
wxGTK in CVS. You will need GTK 2.0 from www.gtk.org and some
recent version of FreeType from www.freetype.org.
Printing was still an issue, and there were several kludges and
links needed to get it to compile. However, this would form a
useful base for some of the work Arturas Kriukovas (Arturas)
was doing with unicode and i18n.
Derek Neighbors (dneighbo) was having issues using
postgres autoinsert id
in GNUe, which is used for most
of my demos
. Jason Cater (jcater) felt that
autoinsert ids are the spawn of
satan - why do you use them so much?
Derek said
um i dont see much of another way
w/o even more issues at this point - i need incremented key.
NORMALLY i do this via a table - not db internal 'autokey'
thing - but thats even more evil in gnue currently and why i
switched to the other way (as jamest provided a hack for
it)
. Jason provided some sample code showing how
to use a PRE-INSERT trigger on an entry to get the next
incremented key value from another table. Derek said
this code use to not belong
inside an entry but rather just inside a
<datasource>
. Jason said
you mean a <block> -
it works there too - only instead of "self." you have
"field."
Derek confirmed this was now working.
Jason Cater (jcater) confirmed he had got printed copies of
a new general GNUe brochure and flyers for each of the
GNUe tools, which he would send to Derek at Linux World
Expo in San Fransisco - the flyers
r0x0r - the brochure could be better - but I have 0 time
:)
. Arriving at the convention, Derek Neighbors
(dneighbo) reported that the GNUe booth was
buried in the
back of the dum corner
, but he hoped that things
would get better.
Later, he reported talking
to CEO of linuxfund earlier about a grant - he said he thought
we already submitted one i said nope - he said no i know you
did cause it almost won - im like nope - he went and looked and
and said yep we did as an lburkman - we both got a good laugh, he
said
we hsould resubmit
. Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) said
thanks lburkman! - you're my hero
;P
Derek said he definitely
will consider submitting one now an extra 500-1000
would help do shows like this and pay for marketing
stuff
.
The next day, Derek pointed to
http://www.ofbiz.org/
- the java competition - there is quite a buzz here about them
(LWE)
. Nick Rusnov (nickr) noted they were
very buzzword compliant - J2EE!
XML!
. Derek noted yeah the
xforms chair
stopped by as well and wants to work to see if we can make gnue
use xforms spec and possibly help us get on the committee so we
have a voice - which could be interesting. A
publisher
also agreed to publish a GNUe book if we author one :)
.
He explained xforms was a w3c
spec
which had been suggested as a format for GNUe
Forms by Daniel - the 1.0 spec
will release this week
. Nick felt
this is very similar to
TransForms
.
Dan Bethe (dtm) said he had introduced
gnue to some enterprise developers and
they've remarked that at a glance, it looks like it wants to
redevelop j2ee in python. is that in any way accurate?
Christian Selig (lupo_) claimed gnue
is j2ee done right, hehe - seriously, gnue lacks the
"streamlinedness" at the moment - and the completeness :)
.
Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) said that
I guess one culd say that, however
if j2ee were Free then possibly we wouldn't be doing what we're
doing
. Dan asked well how far is
it from being Free? basically would Sun have to totally change
its behavior or its licensing or both or what?
Christian said i think that even
if j2ee was free, there would still be a reason to develop gnue.
(hint: java) - nothing Free in FSF sense in Java
.
As well as freedom issues, Daniel noted that Java was not
real popular in GNUe land as a
language
from a technical point of view.
Daniel noted that several people were developing free J2EE-compatible
application servers, as previously discussed in jboss and tomcat are the 2
- but even they can't get J2EE certified though for some
reason or another
. Dan said his understanding was that jboss is state of the art and in many ways way ahead - not
unlike how apache is against other web servers or linux, etc
.
Christian said that the main freedom issue with Java
itself was not the JITs (virtual machines, but the dependance
on non-free libraries. Dan asked is
the FSF-style mentality consistantly against
relying squarely on java as an underlying framework?
Daniel suggested just non-free
Java - i.e., things that there is no free equivalent
-
although to be fair, GNUe developers were not keen on Java
as a language even if the freedom issues could be resolved.
However, there's no free j2ee
implementation and I don't think jboss can get j2ee
certified...I don't recall why probably
has t do with the cost of getting j2ee blessed
.
Dan asked ok but it essentially is
j2ee, right?
.
Dan said i've heard basically of
python being able to replace java in all technical sense
.
Christian agreed - python is imho
a 100% java replacement, but with better quality :)
He was not convinced that even Java was that scalable -
java can't really meet high-capacity
demands. have you ever seen a porn site using java?
This somewhat inevitably lead the rest of the discussion
rapidly off-topic.