Ubuntu for Small Business

[John Richard Moser]

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Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 12:56:54PM -0400, John Richard Moser wrote:
> 
>>What does anyone think about an Ubuntu for Small Business as a future
>>Ubuntu subproject?  Resources are probably spread rather thin there with
>>all of the Ubuntu subprojects like myuBuntu or Ubuntu Server; so this
>>would probably not become an immediate priority.  For scope though,
>>something like:
>>
>> - Money clone to handle finances
>> - POS system (there's 500,000 of them on Sourceforge, are any of them
>>   any good?)
>> - Inventory (possibly in the POS)
>> - Service tracker (possibly part of the POS)
>> - Customer databasing to look up your old receipts based on your name,
>>   address, CCN, etc. (possibly in the POS)
>> - OpenOffice.org (spread sheets, word documents, etc)
> 
> 
> If workable open source solutions exist for these needs, then yes, I think
> it would make a lot of sense to collect them into a bundle as an Ubuntu
> derivative.
> 
Dmitriy K. pointed out that GnuCash will suffice for Money (but it needs
to be ported to Gnome2 instead of Gnome1; it's active, just short-handed).

So we have:

 - GnuCash
 - Some POS from Sourceforge, but finding a good one may be difficult.
 - Inventory, service, and customer database may be out there, don't know.
 - OpenOffice.org is there
 - The "Employee Kiosk" is probably not there at all, although parts of
what would go into it exist and so we need a little CMS magic to be
written for a little glue
 - Some kind of open exchange server (like OpenExchange) may be
interesting in the long run, for a calendaring/groupware backend,
especially if it could integrate into the theoretical EK; it'd be more
interesting for Ubuntu Server though, as this is a bigger business'
friend more than a single-shop.

TBH I'd like to try a hand at learning PHP (due to there being a nice
Hardened PHP that does a very little bit to help defend against XSS and
a few other nastinesses) and doing some web development using Google's
tricks from Google Suggest, i.e. almost full interactive instead of
simply redrawing a whole page.  I'll have trouble finding time for that
though; but by the time any kind of team or anything was put together
and this would be going through the Ubuntu Community Council or
Technical Board, I would probably be able to set aside a few hours one
day a week (sick isn't it?).


So, short version is no, it's not all out there.  That doesn't mean an
alpha can't be worked out and then spun until the rest is there; pretty
much, get what CAN be found into main and leave a meta-package around
hoping for people to step up to fill the gaps.

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    Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be
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