All:
If your box is at least V5R4 (although V5R3 is possible but not as easy),
I would suggest loading Zend PHP and MySQL and using SugarCRM. It's free.
It's open source. And it runs great on IBM i. ...
I always try open source software first. Since there is no cost involved,
there is no reason not to. Plus, IT can become real heroes to the company
when you can deliver this kind of functionality quickly and at little to
no cost.
SugarCRM looks interesting, but in terms of "no reason not to" try open
source software first, what is the effect of the OSS license requirements if
/ when you make your own private modifications or extensions? As I
interpret their license, I know that if you distribute or "make the software
available" to third parties you must make the modified source available as
well. But in that context, does making the software available refer to end
users of your own installation, or just distributing the modified software
to run at another installation?
Put another way, let's say a distributor has an independent sales force
where the sales reps are not employees of the company but may represent and
sell products from multiple vendors. If the distributor installs SugarCRM
and customizes it then lets the independent sales force access and use it,
does that count as "making the software availalbe to a third party"? The
sales force would be users; there would only be one installation of the
modified software.
Can the company consider extensions developed on their own to be
proprietary? Or by virtue of allowing a non-employee user to access the
system does that count as "making the software availalble to a third
party"? Would that give a user the right to ask for the modified source
code?
I'd interpret the license to allow proprietary extensions regardless of who
the users are, and the requirement to make the modified source available to
only apply if "distributing" the software such that a different installation
of SugarCRM could utilize their own extensions. But IANAL, and could see
how one could argue that allowing non-employee users to access a system
qualifies as "making the software available to a third party".
I realize the OSS model is such that sharing modifications back with the
community is what allows the product to mature from the collaborative
efforts. But in terms of playing devil's advocate for "no reason not to try
open software first", if a company considered extentions to be proprietary
and a competitive advantage, then I could understand a reluctance to build
on an OSS code base.
And, once the DB2 Storage
engine for MySQL is released, you will be able to access all of the data
in SugarCRM in your existing applications.
Will that be available for V5R4 or just V6R1+? And if you implement
SugarCRM now, with MySQL hosting the databases in the IFS, will the DB2
Storage engine once released allow RPG access to the existing SugarCRM
data? Or do you have to migrate the data to a new database set in order for
both Zend and DB2 to access the same data?
Doug
midrange.com
