6 ms·

So a CRM that replicates Salesforce APIs? Sales people don’t want a Salesforce FOSS version, that’s why they green light salesforce. It’s about trend not practi

So a CRM that replicates Salesforce APIs? Sales people don’t want a Salesforce FOSS version, that’s why they green light salesforce. It’s about trend not practical software. Only dev teams that have been implementing Salesforce for 5 years want a FOSS version.

mgl 2y ago
Salesforce is a generic application platform today, and this is how see it. Openkoda is not a drop-in replacement for Salesforce CRM, it is a useful replacement when you want to build your core business application a) retaining full source code ownership and ability to get any Java/JS team to work on it and run anywhere you want, b) without becoming dependent on technology and commercial limitations of working with big S.
- imachine1980_ 2y ago
  >Salesforce is a generic application platform today Not is standard. You need to train your costumer in this interface you can simply contract employees who knows Salesforce.
  - somat 2y ago
    I don't know much about salesforce, but if it is anything like every other "enterprise" grade software every installation is a special unique snowflake and you have to train the people on it anyway... Or more realistically you give them a 5 minute overview and let them flounder away a few weeks hating the infernal thing while they try and figure it out.
- nathantotten 2y ago
  People don’t build applications on Salesforce because it’s a generic platform, they build on it because they need to integrate with the sales/crm process/data/etc. Edit: To be clear, I’m not saying your idea isn’t good. There is tons of room for this stuff, but be careful in assuming the reason devs use Salesforce platform is because of the features. It’s usually not. Source: I ran dev tools at Salesforce.
- liotier 2y ago
  > Salesforce is a generic application platform today Indeed. So, if one is going to customize the hell out of it anyway, with most of the functionality being extensions, then why not just use a free software core ? Vertical solutions providers might find profitable to serve their customers and not pay the Salesforce tax.
megadal 2y ago
Well, there is Odoo. Which is pretty much exactly what OpenKoda is (FOSS ERP). Odoo is doing quite well. It made Fabien Panckaers the youngest billionaire in Belgium.
- mgl 2y ago
  Yes, I think you could compare Openkoda with Odoo, but well... we are nowhere near being billionaires ;)
  - megadal 2y ago
    Assuming you are apart of the team, I'm sure you know Odoo is 20 years old. So, I can't see why in time there couldn't be real competition. OpenKoda and Odoo actually have sparked interesting questions for me about what an Open source ERP market would look like. One conclusion I came to is as opposed to vendor lock-in as most ERP/CRM products try to enforce, it would actually be better to go the opposite direction (high compatibility with existing alternatives). That said, have you guys considered allowing imports from Odoo into OpenKoda or other deep integrations? In theory, I feel like you can run Odoo apps in OpenKoda, or even vice versa. The experience would be suboptimal but being split between two ERP systems is too.
    - mgl 2y ago
      We meet a lot of companies who are not happy with software solutions which are hard to modify. It's not even about the cost, but about the limitations and poor development velocity. These companies strive to build something innovative, they just find these closed platforms really cumbersome and slow to deliver. When you start investing millions of dollars into a bespoke solution you really want to truly own it at some point. And this is impossible with closed and proprietary application platforms.
      - octopoc 2y ago
        Where do you meet such companies?
j45 2y ago
Maybe some plugins could work with both. Also custom integrations
anonzzzies 2y ago
There are people building for decades on things like Ofbiz[0] because it's flexible and it's truly open source. There are open and closed projects built on top of it, because it's a flexible business system which allow you to quickly model and built anything. I know a few companies myself that replaced Salesforce with a custom Ofbiz implementations and local companies that do the implementations. [0] https://github.com/apache/ofbiz-framework https://github.com/apache/ofbiz-framework / https://ofbiz.apache.org/index.html https://ofbiz.apache.org/index.html
- jackthetab 2y ago
  That looks very interesting. I'm on the lookout for software for a bootstrapped biz. A problem I can see my mugg^H^H^H^Hcolleagues flinching at that UI and thinking "this can't be very good" just based on the UI; like it or not, looks matter. The themes I saw are basically color schemes. Has anyone done a more "modern" UI/UX?
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    I think there are some like https://github.com/growerp/growerp https://github.com/growerp/growerp and I saw one on Vaadin and some others. But yeah it is what most ERP tends to look like and then people make snazzy pages for specific sub flows for specific groups of users.
TZubiri 2y ago
Free Sales software is quite an oxymoron

mgl 2y ago

Salesforce is a generic application platform today, and this is how see it. Openkoda is not a drop-in replacement for Salesforce CRM, it is a useful replacement when you want to build your core business application a) retaining full source code ownership and ability to get any Java/JS team to work on it and run anywhere you want, b) without becoming dependent on technology and commercial limitations of working with big S.

imachine1980_ 2y ago
>Salesforce is a generic application platform today Not is standard. You need to train your costumer in this interface you can simply contract employees who knows Salesforce.
- somat 2y ago
  I don't know much about salesforce, but if it is anything like every other "enterprise" grade software every installation is a special unique snowflake and you have to train the people on it anyway... Or more realistically you give them a 5 minute overview and let them flounder away a few weeks hating the infernal thing while they try and figure it out.
nathantotten 2y ago
People don’t build applications on Salesforce because it’s a generic platform, they build on it because they need to integrate with the sales/crm process/data/etc. Edit: To be clear, I’m not saying your idea isn’t good. There is tons of room for this stuff, but be careful in assuming the reason devs use Salesforce platform is because of the features. It’s usually not. Source: I ran dev tools at Salesforce.
liotier 2y ago
> Salesforce is a generic application platform today Indeed. So, if one is going to customize the hell out of it anyway, with most of the functionality being extensions, then why not just use a free software core ? Vertical solutions providers might find profitable to serve their customers and not pay the Salesforce tax.

megadal 2y ago

Well, there is Odoo. Which is pretty much exactly what OpenKoda is (FOSS ERP). Odoo is doing quite well. It made Fabien Panckaers the youngest billionaire in Belgium.

mgl 2y ago
Yes, I think you could compare Openkoda with Odoo, but well... we are nowhere near being billionaires ;)
- megadal 2y ago
  Assuming you are apart of the team, I'm sure you know Odoo is 20 years old. So, I can't see why in time there couldn't be real competition. OpenKoda and Odoo actually have sparked interesting questions for me about what an Open source ERP market would look like. One conclusion I came to is as opposed to vendor lock-in as most ERP/CRM products try to enforce, it would actually be better to go the opposite direction (high compatibility with existing alternatives). That said, have you guys considered allowing imports from Odoo into OpenKoda or other deep integrations? In theory, I feel like you can run Odoo apps in OpenKoda, or even vice versa. The experience would be suboptimal but being split between two ERP systems is too.
  - mgl 2y ago
    We meet a lot of companies who are not happy with software solutions which are hard to modify. It's not even about the cost, but about the limitations and poor development velocity. These companies strive to build something innovative, they just find these closed platforms really cumbersome and slow to deliver. When you start investing millions of dollars into a bespoke solution you really want to truly own it at some point. And this is impossible with closed and proprietary application platforms.
    - octopoc 2y ago
      Where do you meet such companies?

j45 2y ago

Maybe some plugins could work with both. Also custom integrations

anonzzzies 2y ago

There are people building for decades on things like Ofbiz[0] because it's flexible and it's truly open source. There are open and closed projects built on top of it, because it's a flexible business system which allow you to quickly model and built anything. I know a few companies myself that replaced Salesforce with a custom Ofbiz implementations and local companies that do the implementations. [0] https://github.com/apache/ofbiz-framework https://github.com/apache/ofbiz-framework / https://ofbiz.apache.org/index.html https://ofbiz.apache.org/index.html

jackthetab 2y ago
That looks very interesting. I'm on the lookout for software for a bootstrapped biz. A problem I can see my mugg^H^H^H^Hcolleagues flinching at that UI and thinking "this can't be very good" just based on the UI; like it or not, looks matter. The themes I saw are basically color schemes. Has anyone done a more "modern" UI/UX?
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  I think there are some like https://github.com/growerp/growerp https://github.com/growerp/growerp and I saw one on Vaadin and some others. But yeah it is what most ERP tends to look like and then people make snazzy pages for specific sub flows for specific groups of users.

TZubiri 2y ago

Free Sales software is quite an oxymoron