[Vtigercrm-developers] Vtiger Open Source and On Demand evolution

Tue Oct 21 05:53:13 GMT 2014

TLDR:

   1. Vtiger CRM Open Source serves to be framework with many ready-to-use
   modules, and is complemented by Extensions Marketplace that offer even more
   additional modules.
   - Open source fixes are rolled out on a weekly basis to the developer
      branch
      2. Vtiger CRM On Demand is a SaaS service hat is built on Open Source
   framework offering 24*5 support, exclusive modules, frequent updates, and
   security.

PS: this post is in response to Chris's post on 'Yetforce 0.0.3 and other
forks' thread. He raises very good questions and concerns about the open
source and on demand. I responded to the key questions below.

*Why doesn't Vtiger offer paid support for Open Source?*
It is expensive and time-consuming to support on-premise installation when
compared to offering support for On Demand solution that is hosted by us.
Often, the issues related to open source, are specific to the environment
in which the CRM is installed. So, when we fix an on-premise issue, more
than 50% of the time, the fix is specific to the environment, and not an
improvement to he product. So, while open source support is profitable (and
we did it until 2010),  it diverts our resources away from improving the
framework.

*Why doesn't Open source edition have all the features of On Demand (OD)?*
All the core framework improvements, including UI layout improvements, have
been released to open source. I was not exaggerating when i said over
20,000 hours of engineering work has gone into 6.0 and 6.1, and more
enhancements are in the pipeline.

Customers who pay, expect a premium product. Hassle-free hosting, 24*5
support, latest features are valuable benefits..but without exclusive
features, our service will be missing the icing on the cake. On Demand has
modules such as email campaigns, quickbooks, magento. that are not released
to open source.

*How does On Demand help make Open Source better? Usability/Framework
improvements (after OD) vs Custom development (before OD)*
>From 2004 to 2011, until we released On Demand, our business was based on
offering support and customizations to open source product. It was
profitable. But, only about 40% of the customization work used to be
generic enough to go into the open source version. We did learn many things
by doing these customizations and made the framework more extensible (ex:
vtlib), but we were not satisfied. It was not helping us reach our goal of
providing the best CRM platform. We stopped doing the customization work in
2012.

On Demand was primarily driven by our desire to work on features that reach
thousands of users, not a few. We wanted to spend most of our time to
improve the core and the UI. We are seeing results of that in the past 1
year. after spending 2012 and 2013 in improving the core. We are nowhere
near done on this. Our APIs are still work in progress.

We became profitable again with the new SaaS business model in 2013, and
are excited about bringing more stuff to open source users through a better
framework and a rich set of extensions via marketplace.

*Mobile App is free*
We made the mobile apps free for open source users this week. This is
another benefit we could afford, due to revenue coming form On Demand
service.

*Why doesn't Vtiger release daily builds?*
We are doing weekly updates to the developer branch, sometimes more often,
and update the trac tickets. In the past 3 weeks we have been busy going
through all the old issues in trac and closing the ones that are fixed. The
progress is here - trac roadmap
<http://trac.vtiger.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/roadmap>.

Regards,
Sreenivas

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 4:22 AM, Hamono, Chris (DPC) <Chris.Hamono at sa.gov.au
> wrote:

> Thanks Sreenivas
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> So why is it the poor cousin? (see below for the 6 month release cycle
> comments)
>
>
>
>
>
> But, looking at the other side of the coin, we see that On Demand product
> development is boosting our open source forward.
>
>
>
> Absolutely. It gives you real world experience. But then so does this
> mailing list. You get to see the issues people have here as well.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> In this statement you are treating OnDemand as separate from vtiger. This
> is very telling. On demand is therefore a private fork of vtiger.
>
>
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> I am sorry but this statement is clearly wrong. It is probably the basis
> of the discontent in this list.
>
>
>
> All the active opensource projects I have been involved with have a
> nightly build. Using git (and github) it is very easy to have a master
> stable branch and then versions and nightly builds.  Or in your case weekly
> builds
>
>
>
> There is absolutely no reason to have the open source version lag behind
> and missing the features of the OnDemand version. This would appear to be a
> commercial decision which I would say ignores my comments about what drives
> markets. What you are also doing is increasing your own workload. It would
> appear you need to backport the OnDemand changes to the open source
> codebase. This double handling must be expensive.
>
>
>
> I don't disagree that there should be major releases. And with these more
> care should be taken, but for developers like myself and others on this
> list a nightly (weekly) build would be far more beneficial. This build
> should be in line with OnDemand not the poor cousin.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> And what happens to the marketplace if those developers are unhappy? They
> cannot sell enough of their product because the OpenSource version is
> substandard?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Sreenivas
>
>
>
> I can see in your response the careful thought out process of protecting
> your commercial interests. It reminds me of the time many years ago I did
> battle with a group of hackers. They were intent on breaking my software.
> It was a game we played and I conversed with them on the newsgroup devoted
> to hacking my software.
>
>
>
> They said something that made me think and changed my outlook on software
> development. They said "For us hacking is a sport. We will never buy your
> product, So why are you wasting time trying to stop us from hacking it"
>
>
>
> They were right. The time I spent combatting them would have been better
> spent on improving the customer experience. Sadly I was instead diverted by
> the challenge of defeating them.
>
>
>
> You have the same combative attitude as I had. It would appear to me that
> you think open source developers and users have to be controlled otherwise
> you will lose your competitive edge.
>
>
>
> This is wrong and ignores my previous comments on effective marketing. By
> harnessing the power of the open source developers both your OnDemand and
> Open Source versions will move forward much faster and your own sales will
> increase.
>
>
>
> I appreciate the need to "do it my way" but the other cliché also rings
> true "Don't cut off your nose despite your face"
>
>
>
> Chris
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 6:44 AM, Hamono, Chris (DPC) <
> Chris.Hamono at sa.gov.au> wrote:
>
>
>
> SNIP
>
>
>
> ....
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.vtiger.com/
>
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