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Why is OFBiz Open Source?

You may be asking yourself why is this project open source, and how the contributors to the project are going to make any money? The answer is here in the Why Open Source? document.

The OFBiz Strategic Business Plan

If you are interested in being involved with OFBiz or are wondering about the business related plans for the project, you may be interested in our Strategic Plan.

Foundational Concepts

The OFBiz Project is an open source software project that provides tools and applications for business. The software is freely open and used by many people and organizations. To enable that it is licensed using the Apache License Version 2.0. The Apache License Version 2.0 allows adopters of the technology to customize, use and even sell it as desired with no obligations other than a release of liability and a copyright acknowledgement for the original source.

The vision of the OFBiz Project is to produce High Quality Custom Enterprise Software which embraces and enables "The 5 'E's": 

  1. Ease of Cost
  2. Ease of Installation
  3. Ease of Customization
  4. Ease of Integration
  5. Ease of Use

Our goal is to make it possible for developers to provide the functionality businesses need for 1/10th of the cost and still make twice as much money. Adding up those numbers it is clear that much more than a free base package is needed.

We know this goal will require many unconventional differentiating practices. Here are some of the basic Tenets that will guide the OFBiz Project to this sort of success:

  • Massive Collaboration, Usage, and Review
  • No Sofware Intellectual Property. Period. Everything Shared, Open and Free. This is Necessary for Massive Collaboration, Usage, and Review.
  • Communicate and Work Directly With the Customers and Users. Get Continual Feedback From Customers and Users. Educate Them. Let Them Educate You.
  • Viciously Use the Best Design and Implementation Practices. Practices that Work, Not that Sound Good.
  • Always Re-Evaluate, Re-Design, and Re-Factor. Keep Improving. This Project Will Never Be "Done".
  • Hit What Matters Hard. Ignore Everything Else.

On the software design side our goal is accomplished by producing open source best practices applications based on a flexible framework. The flexible framework includes a number of custom tools provided by the OFBiz Project in addition to the best tools and platforms currently available. The goals behind the design of the tools and applications are as follows:

  1. Express process, rule, and data definitions in "natural" ways
  2. Minimize the code and work needed to implement functionality
  3. Maximize the reuse of existing components

The end result of focusing on these practices and design goals is that applications will be built, customized, and integrated fast and cheap. A person that is familiar with the tools and applications in OFBiz will be able to quickly and inexpensively produce custom software that satisfies the needs of any individual, business or organization.

To get a better understanding of the organization and components of the OFBiz tools and applications look at the General Documents on the Documentation Page, and also at Component and Component Set Dependencies

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