Ubuntu for Small Business

[John Richard Moser]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1



Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 06:39:47PM -0400, John Richard Moser wrote:
> 
>>Matt Zimmerman wrote:
>>
>>>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).
> 
> 
> It really won't.  I use gnucash on a daily basis and it meets most of my
> needs, but Money it ain't.
> 
> 
>> - Some POS from Sourceforge, but finding a good one may be difficult.
> 
> 
> That's the trick.
> 

Jay found a nice bananapos thing at http://www.bananapos.com/

> 
>> - 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.
> 
> 
> This is hypothetical software; we need actual implementations which can be
> packaged up and made into a product.  If some of the pieces aren't there
> yet, we can think about what we can make from the existing ones, or wait.
> In either case, a concrete plan would be advisable.
> 

I would say float together an -alpha- product from the existing ones.
This is more a psychological aid than a specific one; if there's a
partly worked out product, you have the following possible situations:

 - The maintainers just keep latest software versions packaged and test
to see if things work, giving them minimal work

 - The maintainers actively work on it, devoting significant time to it;
they may fork off some projects to fill the gaps just because -they-
have a desire to see the thing finished

 - Other people see the unfinished product and volunteer to help
maintain it and code up some of the extra things (like usplash?  Ubuntu
device database?  What else has Ubuntu churned out aside from packages
of other peoples' code?).

The down side is that you'd have maintainers spinning on a product
that's unfinished and that needs significant back-end work to be
finished.  Scripts and programs would need to be designed and worked out
to fill in the gaps; this isn't a package-up-and-go project by far.

In the end it's up to the Ubuntu community.  We can scramble together a
Wiki page on it (UbuntuForSmallBusiness), but it's by no means a small
project and the resources have to be there and properly managed or it'll
fall apart quite quickly.

- --
All content of all messages exchanged herein are left in the
Public Domain, unless otherwise explicitly stated.

    Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be
    wasted on re-inventing the wheel when there are so many fascinating
    new problems waiting out there.
                                                 -- Eric Steven Raymond
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFDIm0jhDd4aOud5P8RAu2zAJ4782qV1j2Hon2+ZPqMfAPDe9fMSgCeI/Nr
yaR9pgGI3l8E+wW0Ha+4UAk=
=VmOk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----