In evaluating Compiere the question is—should it be evaluated differently because it is open source? In short the answer is: No! However, in understanding the environment, there are many deciding factors and risks to consider when evaluating open source systems in general. Here are some areas to assess:
Functionally, the ERP software must meet your needs, and must at least have passed your evaluation criteria through either proof of concept or proven functionalities.
Compiere offers traditional open source General Public License (GPL) software as well as commercially licensed and supported versions of the application. The user thus has a choice.
Compiere offers a GPL version of their software as a community edition. In its simplistic form it is a form of distribution and exposure of the product to the world at large. In its complex form it is a collaborative, distributed, and transparent development environment. Community editions are good for evaluation, and small-to-medium environments until larger product support and upgrade assurances are required. Because the core of the product editions are the same, this book will cover both the community and paid-for editions.
The enterprise versions of Compiere are certified to be standards-compliant from a software, database, and operating system point of view. Managed by seasoned executives, Compiere invested more into these Enterprise editions for commercial operational acceptance and they are the true, supported versions of the software:
- You can purchase support assurance for such versions, including certified upgrades and maintenance, from the software vendor
- You can rely on the stability and roadmap of the technology stack
- You can manage the responsiveness of the vendor contractually
- You can find certified local support and experience
- You can find training and documentation
- You can still benefit both from the community editions and input
- You can have indemnity against possible patent infringements
As the open source market is maturing, and while the open source evangelists and the proprietary shareholders each have their stake in the ground, when it comes to sound commercial and risk management decisions the technology environment is now about long term freedom of use, architecture and platform, and not about "free" software.
Within the Compiere environment, the underlying core source code and Java technology is open to inspect and expand upon. Compared to other environments, it is also easy to find developers and support within the Java and Oracle/Postgress database environment. It is impossible to cover the Java J2EE framework environment in conjunction with this book, but is regarded as one of the most prolific and matured development environments available today, and forms the core to technology companies like IBM and Oracle.
The business benefit is that the underlying business logic source code is transparent and it is possible to understand and match it to the precise business functional process.
No integration process is easy, but open source systems provide a dynamic integration with other systems purely from the fact that it is transparent from the technology stack point of view.