[Zope-dev] the birth of ZCommerce

[Christopher Petrilli]

> Until there is an open-source accounting package, this should not be the
> only option.  It should be a option.  I do not want to have to depend on a
> proprietary accounting program to store my products in, even if does run on
> Unix.  Or perhpas the accounting package may not be designed for this kind
> of thing.  So the design should be such that it also allows the inventory to
> be stored in ZODB3 or in an SQL database.

Realistically, 99.999999999% of business run on either proprietary systems
that they created, or some form of COTS product.  In many cases it can be a
*substantial* investment.  I know at least 2 companies who have deployed ERP
solutions from SAP that have total deployment costs in the $10-20M range.
And these are not that unusual.

What I would recommend is to take a very "pluggable" approach.  Create
methods which access data (inventory, etc), and simply allow people to
over-ride those as necessary to integrate.  As for serious accounting data,
this is a good use for XML.

Chris
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| Christopher Petrilli        Python Powered        Digital Creations, Inc.
| petrilli@digicool.com                             http://www.digicool.com