From Compiere to ADempiere?!

It is hard to believe when I hear that the Compiere Community is split and the splinter group has started a project named ADempiere! I would like to see, as neutrally as possible, the impact of this move, by the break away group, for the end users.

If I recollect, it was in 2001 I came across Compiere as an Open Source project and subsequently I began to admire the determination of its founder Jorg Janke to keep the project going in Open Source. It is definitely not easy for a business application like ERP, CRM and SCM to survive in an Open Source fashion like the Linux Kernel or an Operating System bundled with GNU utilities. ERP is 20-30% software and 70- 80% customization and implementation.

When Compiere was tried with end users in India who took that initial risk for the lure of acquiring a good solution for peanuts we had some lessons learnt by the time we went through a few cycles of implementation.

Generally the experts at Zudha found that Compiere was for large enterprise of India than it would fit easily for SMEs as the definition of SMEs is contextual to regions and verticals.

As an admirer of Jorg, I rejoiced when Compiere got its first round of external funding by NEA in June 2006. Every entrepreneur who puts in few years of efforts and stays on with a project will be rewarded and I was glad that finally a reputed VC like NEA did smell the opportunity. I pity the VC Community as they failed to realize the potential and recognize Compiere back in 2003-04. Some smart VCs could have proactivley gone into the funding early as it would have helped Compiere to better position itself to take on some of the Oracle and SAP SME base by now than just beginning the process late. It would have sure helped the offering to adopt some latest technologies that would help users to migrate from time to time to the best things that are available in the world for other enterprise software users.

However, the turn of events post funding, shows that not everything is fine with Compiere at least in the short term until one understands what ADempiere folks are upto with their splinter group. Once initial fervor dies they may realize that the booty they have acquired is someone else's effort they relied on with some contributions here and there from the community until Compiere Inc changed the policies and not many may buy into the work of ADempiere thanks to the implications it may pass on to end users.

This proves that somewhere down the line Money meets the Mind and one could expect another XYZempiere to be formed soon when some of those folks break away with ADempiere's ideologies (of making money)! This also presents how Open Source Software is misunderstood by many. To me, Open Source is about innovation and choice for end user to modify the code base if they need to and definitely not for middlemen to gain control of the source for FREE.

At this moment the spat looks complicated for both Compiere and ADempiere. However, I wish I am proven wrong as I am one of those who admired Jorg Janke for choosing his own path as much as I chose to go on my own with Samooha. I empathize the ADempiere folks as they are taking on a group like NEA without really realizing the implications of Copyright infringements for which Compiere/NEA can always choose to gain its lion's share out of their Compiere fork. They can instead join the Samooha project which is Open Source to develop something innovative from scratch and gain the recognition of been there when Samooha reaches its primetime which I expect to be in 2008.

I hope we have a lesson or two here as we tread through Samooha for global SMEs to thrive. The best that's happening for Samooha right now is that we are working for both the Partner Community and Open Source without having to sacrifice either of them as we are upfront clear that we are doing it for mutual benefits and economic success through an advanced Business Solution approach. There's no free lunch! But there's enough freedom to choose!! Join Samooha!!!