[Vtigercrm-developers] YetiForce 0.0.3 and other forks

[Sreenivas Kanumuru]

Hi Chris,

*The open source version is the best advertising you can get for the
> OnDemand version.*


+1. We see it the same way. On Demand success rides on the strength of the
open source version.

But, looking at the other side of the coin, we see that On Demand product
development is boosting our open source forward.

CRM is only a tool. Lot else goes into making it beneficial for a business.
With On Demand a lot of our time goes into helping customers with
implementations. During this process, we found that we need to make the UI
simpler, and brought those enhancements to 6.0 version of open source. The
quest for simpler UI is an ongoing exercise. For example, in 6.1, you see
that lists now have a easy search boxes. Many of these enhancements are
coming from the On Demand engineering work.

Vtiger open source has a lot of features already from workflows, to
reports, to role-based access control, to inventory management to project
management. We are focusing on improving the usability of these.

*Many people cannot use the OnDemand version, for example us, we are a
> government agency that hosts sensitive information.*


We will continue to invest in APIs and developer resources to make Vtiger
CRM open source the platform-of-choice for on-premise installations. Over
20,000 hours of engineering work has gone into 6.0 and 6.1 versions. We are
excited about the open source future. Today, we made our mobile apps free
for iphone and android, both for open source and on demand users.

*It is very obvious the open source version of VTiger sadly lags behind
> OnDemand in both features and fixes....*While I can understand the idea
> behind running 2 different versions I believe the logic is flawed, and this
> is why...


I commented on this in earlier posts. On Demand gives us the luxury of
deploying weekly updates. With open source, releasing a version once every
6 months is  too much to handle for clients since upgrades are a delicate
task. We still try to release once every 6 months and include all bug fixes
that are available from on demand. When it comes to releasing new features
to open source, our approach is to enable a marketplace where clients can
get features that are well supported by their developers. We will continue
to bring core platform enhancements to facilitate new feature development.

Regards,
Sreenivas


On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 6:44 AM, Hamono, Chris (DPC) <Chris.Hamono at sa.gov.au
> wrote:

> My 2c worth
>
>
>
> It is very obvious the open source version of VTiger sadly lags behind
> OnDemand in both features and fixes.
>
>
>
> OnDemand is designed for profit and that's great. The core developers need
> to earn a wage for their hard work! It is seen as necessary to have a
> better version as the paid version. Why else would people use it if they
> could just run up a local copy.
>
>
>
> While I can understand the idea behind running 2 different versions I
> believe the logic is flawed, and this is why...
>
>
>
> Two versions create angst. Just read this mailing list to see that.
>
> Two versions stop developers from contributing. I have tried but it's too
> hard.
>
> Therefore angry developers create forks.
>
> Forks reduce the number of active developers, they are now spread across
> multiple projects.
>
> Many people cannot use the OnDemand version, for example us, we are a
> government agency that hosts sensitive information.
>
> Too many forks are confusing for users - which fork has the best support,
> which fork has the function they need?
>
>
>
> And finally
>
> The audience for OnDemand and open-source are different markets. They
> barely overlap, but they do listen to each other.
>
>
>
> What this means is you actually get fewer customers using OnDemand than
> you would if there was only one version and a happy community.
>
>
>
> The *perceived* risk is. If there was only one version, then other people
> would create their own OnDemand instances and therefore reduce profit by
> taking customers. While that is true to a point it is wrong to see it as a
> weakness. It is actually a strength. Customers who are willing to pay for
> OnDemand will prefer to use the version created by the original developers.
> Therefore vtiger.com will always be the most popular.
>
>
>
> The open source version is the best advertising you can get for the
> OnDemand version.
>
>
>
> Chris
>
>
>
> p.s. now can we get back to fixing real problems like the workflow problem
> I have mentioned?
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* vtigercrm-developers-bounces at lists.vtigercrm.com [mailto:
> vtigercrm-developers-bounces at lists.vtigercrm.com] *On Behalf Of *PlaymaN
> Tepes
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 14 October 2014 6:03 AM
> *To:* vtigercrm-developers at lists.vtigercrm.com
> *Subject:* Re: [Vtigercrm-developers] YetiForce 0.0.3
>
>
>
> +1 to Alan and Matteo.
>
>
>
> 2014-10-13 19:26 GMT+02:00 Manuel Fernando <ptdesigner at gmail.com>:
>
> Yes, and good things came out last year and some others, i believe are
> coming, so, keep your good work Vtiger team.
>
>
>
> Snip
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.vtiger.com/
>
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