[Vtigercrm-developers] Fwd: Re: Cooperation - part 1

Vic Cekvenich vic.cvc at gmx.com
Sun Aug 17 22:04:27 GMT 2014



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [Vtigercrm-developers] Cooperation - part 1
Date: 	Wed, 30 Jul 2014 19:36:16 +0530
From: 	Sreenivas Kanumuru <svk at vtiger.com>
Reply-To: 	vtigercrm-developers at lists.vtigercrm.com
To: 	vtigercrm-developers at lists.vtigercrm.com 
<vtigercrm-developers at lists.vtigercrm.com>




    /I think without 'install from file' button, vtiger CRM Open Source
    is dead project, so it was not only our voice. It was a reaction to
    stupid idea remove this button. You ever think about it what you are
    doing and how it will affect on community? /


While we removed Install from File from UI, by providing the command 
line Console, developers wouldn't have a problem installing extensions 
from file. We wanted to emulate the iphone like environment where apps 
installed through AppStore work fine even when you upgrade the iOS. Our 
view is to remove any apprehension in users mind when installing apps 
through Extensions Store. With such confidence, we feel they will try 
more extensions.

In any case, we took the welcome advise from you to provide the 'install 
from file' option with a warning note so that users are aware of the risk.

    /I suppose only 10% of vtiger CRM users can use Extensions Store
    because of implementation extension loader
    http://community.vtiger.com/__help/vtigercrm/php/extension-__loader.html
    <http://community.vtiger.com/help/vtigercrm/php/extension-loader.html> and
    withou Extensions Store is not possible do basic think like install
    new language file and another module manager compatible extensions./


This remains a valid concern. We are looking at options to allow users 
to install free / unencrypted extensions  without the loader. Currently, 
installing any extension requires the loader to be installed.

The reason we have the loader in the first place, is because we wanted 
to provide developers a secure environment for distributing extensions.

    /How do you plan expand your product if there is no language option
    etc ?/


I know your comment is not just about languages, but wanted to just 
state that 12+ languages are bundled in the product. They is no need to 
install them.

Regards,
Sreenivas


On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 1:27 PM, IT-Solutions4You <info at its4you.sk 
<mailto:info at its4you.sk>> wrote:

    I think without 'install from file' button, vtiger CRM Open Source
    is dead project, so it was not only our voice. It was a reaction to
    stupid idea remove this button. You ever think about it what you are
    doing and how it will affect on community? I suppose only 10% of
    vtiger CRM users can use Extensions Store because of implementation
    extension loader
    http://community.vtiger.com/__help/vtigercrm/php/extension-__loader.html
    <http://community.vtiger.com/help/vtigercrm/php/extension-loader.html>
    and withou Extensions Store is not possible do basic think like
    install new language file and another module manager compatible
    extensions. How do you plan expand your product if there is no
    language option etc ?


    Dňa 29. 7. 2014 10:48 Sreenivas Kanumuru  wrote / napísal(a):


        Thanks for sharing these, Blazej. You have recently lent your
        voice for
        adding the 'install from file' button in the Extension Store,
        and we did
        it.  We respect your opinion. (Infact, i emailed you a month ago
        to get
        your feedback but didn't receive your reply).

        While more remains to be done, I am pleased with the progress we
        have
        made since January on several aspects

          1. Extensions Store coming soon to make it easy for publishers to

             distribute modules to more users
          2. Dedicated team in Vtiger, for resolving trac issues.
          3. Focus on improving APIs to allow developers to write
        powerful extensions
          4. Focus on better Documentation  - New site -
        community.vtiger.com/help <http://community.vtiger.com/help>
        <http://community.vtiger.com/__help
        <http://community.vtiger.com/help>>
          5. Marketplace site will soon feature developers section to allow

             developers to promote their services (not just extensions).

           I responded to your points below.

        *Why Vtiger doesn't publish some modules?*

             /Although our modules have been installed on hundreds of
        servers,

             the producer did not want to accept them and crated more
        problems.
             This problem concerned a very simple module and we had
        dozens of
             other modules for publication that were far more
        complicated than that./



        We want to see more modules on the marketplace, not less. And we
        want to
        make it easy for users to install those modules without putting
        their
        installations at risk. Modules should be upgrade safe.

        With the new marketplace, our goal is to respond to new submissions,
        within 2 business days. We didn't do a good job on dealing with
        submissions last year, but that will change now.

        *Issues from Trac are not being resolved *(they are)


             After six months of reporting and ignoring them by the
        designer, we
             finally stopped adding them to trac.vtiger.com
        <http://trac.vtiger.com>
             <http://trac.vtiger.com/>.
             /A lot of errors that we reported stayed either unresolved
        (although

             they were marked as solved) or was completely ignored. For
        us trac,
             turned out to be impractical. /



        In the past 6 months, we have closed 100+ trac issues. 94 of the 170
        issues on 6.0 are closed. More fixes are yet to be committed to SVN.

        *Developers have to pay to get extensions listed* (Wrong)

             /Partnership would probably exist if we paid the producer.
        However,
             our values are somewhere else and they have never been
        appreciated./



        This is absolutely wrong. Our paid partner program only buys you a
        listing on the partner page. It doesn't get your extension
        listed on the
        marketplace, or get your code into the product. Extensions and Code
        submissions are reviewed on their own merit, nothing else.

        *Performance *(2 seconds or less)
        *

        *
        Our average response time for On Demand service is 2 seconds. We
        measure
        it daily because we take it seriously. Vtiger CRM open source
        has the
        same code base. We are on a mission to improve the performance
        to get it
        under 1 second. I know in some cases, such as Reports, Calendar,
        response times are unacceptable when you have over very high
        number of
        records. We have an On Demand customer for who reports are taking 2
        minutes. We are working on addressing this in the product.

        Regards,
        Sreenivas


        On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 1:12 PM, IT-Solutions4You
        <info at its4you.sk <mailto:info at its4you.sk>
        <mailto:info at its4you.sk <mailto:info at its4you.sk>>> wrote:

             Yes, We agree with all your points. We work with vtiger 8
        year (from
             vtiger 4.x version) and we have the same experiences.
        Absolutely not
             boring, just truly.


             Dňa 28. 7. 2014 21:43 Pabiszczak, Błażej  wrote / napísal(a):

                 *Introduction (boring, you can skip it ;)*
                 *

                 *
                 OpenSaaS has dealt with the implementations of Vtiger
        software
                 for five
                 years. I, as the owner of the company, have seven years of
                 experience
                 with it. We maintain an active contact with the
        community in
                 Poland and
                 we are eager to help others, often behind official
        channels.

                 Cooperation with Vtiger has always been complicated.
        Our first
                 obstacle
                 was the English language that is used in the software.
        Then, our
                 second
                 obstacle was the fact that the producer perceived us as
                 “necessary evil”
                 and/or “competitors”.

                 OpenSaaS has been implementing Vtiger 6 (from the first
        alpha
                 versions)
                 since a year, because it is a huge step in
        comprehending business
                 applications, even at the expense of stability that our
        company
                 corrected during tests at the end customer.

                 We placed our hopes on the producer thinking that if
        something
                 that was
                 released in 6.0 version was unstable, it will be
        corrected in 6.1
                 version. We reported over 100 errors during six months
        (a lot of
                 them
                 beyond trac.vtiger.com <http://trac.vtiger.com>
        <http://trac.vtiger.com>
                 <http://trac.vtiger.com>). Additionally, we did

                 not report hundreds of other errors since they seemed
        so obvious
                 that it
                 would not make any sense.

                 *Cooperation (also boring and you can skip it ;o)*
                 *

                 *
                 It is surprising, how difficult a contact with the
        producer can
                 be, even
                 though the considerable majority of reported errors
        regarded the
                 development of their application. I will divide it into
                 subsections in
                 order to make it more transparent:

                 1. Modules
                 As one of the largest Vtiger software producers in the
        world, we
                 reposed
                 our trust in the producer. Unfortunately, in spite of many
                 attempts to
                 communicate we gave up, and what induced us to do so was:
                 an attempt to publish modules for 5.4 version took many
        months
                 (to no
                 effect, in spite of sending many emails and reminders)
        - our
                 concerns
                 were completely ignored by Vtiger
                 difficulties regarding the modification of system files
                 (unfortunately,
                 there was no possibility for 5.4. version to create modules
                 differently,
                 the exception were modules of “hello world” type)
                 When after two years, we managed to reach a compromise
        and the
                 producer
                 promised to find the time and publish modules, it
        turned out
                 that they
                 started to reject the colour of fonts or, in more
        extreme cases, odd
                 visual elements. It would be acceptable, if the
        producer themselves
                 fulfilled these assumptions at least in 10% in their
        modules.
                 Although our modules have been installed on hundreds of
        servers, the
                 producer did not want to accept them and crated more
        problems. This
                 problem concerned a very simple module and we had
        dozens of other
                 modules for publication that were far more complicated
        than that.

                 That is why we gave up the publication of modules for
        Vtiger.

                 2. Reporting errors
                 We do not understand why the producer ignored many of
        errors that we
                 reported. After six months of reporting and ignoring
        them by the
                 designer, we finally stopped adding them to
        trac.vtiger.com <http://trac.vtiger.com>
                 <http://trac.vtiger.com>
                 <http://trac.vtiger.com>


                 A lot of errors that we reported stayed either unresolved
                 (although they
                 were marked as solved) or was completely ignored. For
        us trac,
                 turned
                 out to be impractical.

                 Many times we suggested ready-made solutions for
        problems but
                 they were
                 always ignored. Even our numerous requests for adding
        one line
                 of code
                 to files of the engine were impossible to be fulfilled
        by the
                 producer.

                 We cannot cooperate this way.

                 3. Partnership
                 Partnership would probably exist if we paid the producer.
                 However, our
                 values are somewhere else and they have never been
        appreciated.

                 *Priorities*
                 *

                 *
                 I am going to omit certain problems, such as community
        that does not
                 exist, documentation that is missing or the fact that
        users of the
                 software are often ignored. Now, Vtiger is becoming
        more and more
                 commercialised. I could provide many examples but it is
        not my aim.

                 An end customer, who the producer wants to acquire, is
        the biggest
                 problem. Currently, small companies and individuals are
        the most
                 important customers for Vtiger. Their main objective is to
                 develop their
                 cloud that constitutes their part of profits.
        Obviously, the
                 producer
                 decides on its own in which direction they would like to
                 develop, but it
                 created a lot of problems:

                 Quantity, not quality
                 The producer aspires to create an average product that is
                 delivered to
                 an end customer without prior testing. There have been
        a lot of
                 minor
                 functionalities created in order to make it possible to
        compare the
                 product with other software, such as SugarCRM or Sales
        Force. In
                 fact,
                 there are created defective semi-finished products that
        are not
                 acceptable for the regular customer.

                 What has been done with the modules:
                 Trouble Ticket
                 Calendar
                 Google Sync
                 Mail Manager
                 Reports
                 implies that the producer does not respect end users. I
        am not
                 going to
                 describe problems with these modules (and many others)
        because
                 who used
                 them knows what I am writing about.

                 I regard deleting part of the functionalities from 6.0
        version
                 and not
                 restoring them by eight months as an act of ignorance.

                 Although we sent ready-made solutions for migration
        errors from 5.4
                 version to 6.0 version to vtiger-list, they were not
        corrected for
                 months and I will leave it with no comments.


                 Shop
                 What the producer does with the shop is the indicative
        of software
                 commercialisation and the preference of own solutions
        over the
                 solutions
                 of partners as well as it is also the sign of ignoring
        the needs of
                 communities.

                 Performance
                 Nobody, who have not tried to do the following things, will
                 understand
                 this problem:
                 import millions of data,
                 implement the software in companies larger than 100 users.
                 It is incredible what Vtiger did in the calendar in
        Vtiger 6 (it
                 is only
                 one of many examples). During the past few months, we have
                 introduced
                 the software in a few very large companies, we have
        spent a lot
                 of time
                 on improving the logistics in generating the calendar.
        The basic
                 functionality of the software is useless without a few
        days spent on
                 amendments in the code.

                 Although everyone makes mistakes, that situation made
        us think.
                 If we
                 take existing errors in Vtiger into consideration, we
        will come
                 into the
                 conclusion that the producer has not introduced their
        product in any
                 large company. Any big implementations would require
        cooperation
                 with
                 partners such as OpenSaaS and many days of work to
        optimise the
                 current
                 code and introduce patches.

                 If I were wrong, that would mean that the producer does not
                 introduce
                 any patches to Vtiger community version.

                 *Summary*
                 *

                 *
                 We think that current direction of the development of the
                 software is
                 detrimental to the community. The further cooperation
        in this
                 direction
                 is not possible for us. Only radical changes can
        rebuild our trust.


                 Z poważaniem / Regards
                 Błażej Pabiszczak
                 M: +48.884999123 <tel:%2B48.884999123>
        <tel:%2B48.884999123>
                 E: b.pabiszczak at opensaas.pl
        <mailto:b.pabiszczak at opensaas.pl>
                 <mailto:b.pabiszczak at opensaas.__pl
        <mailto:b.pabiszczak at opensaas.pl>>
                 <mailto:b.pabiszczak at opensaas.
        <mailto:b.pabiszczak at opensaas.>____pl
                 <mailto:b.pabiszczak at opensaas.__pl
        <mailto:b.pabiszczak at opensaas.pl>>>


                 ___________________________________________________
        http://www.vtiger.com/



             ___________________________________________________

        http://www.vtiger.com/




        _________________________________________________
        http://www.vtiger.com/



    _________________________________________________
    http://www.vtiger.com/


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