[Vtigercrm-developers] Cooperation - part 1

[John Glidvard]

+1



2014-07-28 21:43 GMT+02:00 Pabiszczak, Błażej <b.pabiszczak at opensaas.pl>:

> *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). 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
>
> 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
> E: b.pabiszczak at opensaas.pl
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.vtiger.com/
>
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