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AJ Schrafel Paper Corp

Is there interest in a crowd funding bug fixes? If you already know of a forum where this is happening please post a link.

Here is my basic idea.

  1. This would only be for official openERP published modules.
  2. A bug / minor feature improvement that is not getting the attention it needs could be suggested for development and those interested could throw in as much as they want.
  3. openERP partners could bid on completing the project.
  4. openERP would then merge the bug / feature on an accelerated basis.
  5. There could be a division of the bounty between the developer and openERP.

Why only official openERP modules?

  1. Because partners bidding against each other for development of each others' modules seems like a conflict of interest.
  2. Because partners should be able to respond quicker to their customer's needs and negotiate for custom programming.

Why am i posting this?

  1. Because I see merges sitting on launchpad for MONTHS. These are minor things that should take a minimal amount amount of effort to review and approve a merge.
  2. Because I see annoying bugs / improvements sitting on launchpad with low priority and no patches.
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Ray Carnes

Why not purchase an OpenERP Enterprise license? This is the model that is already setup for the editor (OpenERP) to generate revenue! Supporting them supports the community no? There are only a few cases where we can respond faster than OpenERP.

AJ Schrafel Paper Corp
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That is a fine option also, but I see bugs with patches sit for months waiting to be merged. Is the turn around faster with an Enterprise license?

Ray Carnes

The shortest bug fix came 24 hours after our email reporting it. The longest took about 10 weeks. On average, it takes about a week. It usually takes 24-72 hours to get a ticket assigned to someone. The time it takes to fully resolve a bug - this does depend on how clear the bug report is, how easy it is to replicate the problem, how detailed the fix is (for the most difficult bugs, we've been given profiling code to test and/or several patches that fix the bug in stages) and, lastly, how busy the support teams are.

Note: OpenERP does not automatically agree that every bug you log is a bug.

AJ Schrafel Paper Corp
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Yes, I see what you are saying, not every reported bug is a bug, and things take time to work out. I am talking about after a real bug has been identified, fixed, and the merge request just sits. I can give examples, but then it will look like I am bashing the developers of this fine product, which is not my intention. Nice product, nice people, just want bugs (which have been confirmed as bugs, and a fix committed) merged quicker. If an enterprise license gets the bugs you report fixed/ merged faster that is a good solution.

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Fabrice Henrion (fhe)
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If the problem is how quick an identified and fixed bug can be merged in trunk, crowd funding is not the solution. Here is why it takes time:

  1. A merger (person in charge of merging) needs to be extremely (if not the most) qualified technically to avoid introducing new bugs or regressions when merging new code,
  2. A merger engage OpenERP SA's contractual responsibility at every merge because he adds code that Enterprise contracts will guarantee forever,
  3. It is not because a bug has been identified and fixed for a customer that it is a bug and/or that the fix is relevant for the default version of OpenERP (meaning for the whole world). It means there is an additional verification step even if the fix exists and is correctly coded.

These reasons show you that:

  • A merger must not only be an exceptional developer and technical analyst but also have a serious experience in OpenERP. It is complicated and long to find and ramp up this kind of resources.
  • Money cannot buy engaging OpenERP SA's legal responsibility more lightly. That due diligence needs to be done in any case.

As a final note: if the reason why you ask to get this is to have access more easily to a better bugfixed version of OpenERP without contracting an Enterprise contract, it defies the purpose of the business model. You are asking to receive the result of a service that you are not paying for. In fact, making public the bugfixes of Enterprise customers is already not common practice because you can cherry pick them without a contract. If one day the mergers team is able to have no backlog at all and that all the correct Enterprise bugfixes are consistently merged quickly in OpenERP, it shouldn't shock anyone that this version of OpenERP be available only to the Enterprise customers and that the users not paying anything get a version that doesn't have these merges.

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