Compiere
Encyclopedia
Compiere is an open source
ERP
and CRM
business solution for the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) in distribution, retail, service and manufacturing. Compiere is distributed by Consona Corporation
and through a Partner Network, a collection of trained and authorized business partners.
Compiere was founded in 1999 by Jorg Janke and was a top 10 project in Sourceforge from 2002 for 4 years reaching one million downloads and 100 partners in 2006.
In 2006, Compiere, Inc. raised venture capital from New Enterprise Associates
with the goal of transforming the successful open source ERP project into a growing and sustainable commercial open source business. In 2007, the company added new executives, revamped engineering and support processes, and expanded its sales and service channels
. The Compiere product line expanded to include Professional, Enterprise and Cloud Editions while the company continued to maintain the open source foundation as Community Edition
.
Like many commercial ventures built around open source projects, there was a degree of contention between company management (who sought to monetize the investments in R&D, Services and Support) and voices from the Adempiere
community (who desired that Compiere source code and business processes remained free and open). On June 16, 2010, Consona acquired Compiere, Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed
.
The application and source code
is provided on the basis of the GNU General Public License
version 2; this comprises the Community Edition. Also available for a fee is a Professional Edition with more features, a commercial license, documentation and support contracts.
, Requisition-to-Pay, Customer relationship management
, Partner Relations Management, Supply Chain Management
, Performance Analysis, Warehouse, Double-entry Book-keeping, Work-flow-Management and Web Store. A manufacturing module is being developed within an independent project CMPCS (see external links section).
architecture), they can be changed to meet the needs of the business.
Compiere is entirely based on the concept of Active Data Dictionary (ADD). Compiere Data Dictionary
contains definitions of a data entity (type, validation, etc.), how it is displayed (label on screens and reports, help, display sequence and position relative to other fields), and the display rules. It also contains security and access rules.
Compiere has been developed with Java EE
.
(including the free Oracle XE); this is changing now, since version 2.5.2 Compiere is database independent to some extent. The project has released a Database Kit for porting Compiere to multiple databases. PostgreSQL
, MySQL
and Sybase
ports are in Beta status. Compiere can also be run under the Firebird database
using the Fyracle
extensions, without porting.
Taking advantage of the Database Kit to create a port for the Apache Derby
database the ER/Box project provides an integrated all-Java, all open source Compiere distribution. In addition to the Apache Derby database port ER/Box is also capable of running on PostgreSQL
.
Compiere also works with the open source alternative to Oracle database, EnterpriseDB
. User documentation is still offered on a fee-based accessibility.
, was established at SourceForge
in September 2006.
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
ERP
Enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application...
and CRM
Customer relationship management
Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
business solution for the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) in distribution, retail, service and manufacturing. Compiere is distributed by Consona Corporation
Consona Corporation
Consona Corporation is a software company delivering software solutions to automate business critical tasks, ranging from marketing, service and support to planning and scheduling, material requirements planning , accounting, product configuration, and business intelligence.-Company History:Consona...
and through a Partner Network, a collection of trained and authorized business partners.
Compiere was founded in 1999 by Jorg Janke and was a top 10 project in Sourceforge from 2002 for 4 years reaching one million downloads and 100 partners in 2006.
In 2006, Compiere, Inc. raised venture capital from New Enterprise Associates
with the goal of transforming the successful open source ERP project into a growing and sustainable commercial open source business. In 2007, the company added new executives, revamped engineering and support processes, and expanded its sales and service channels
. The Compiere product line expanded to include Professional, Enterprise and Cloud Editions while the company continued to maintain the open source foundation as Community Edition
.
Like many commercial ventures built around open source projects, there was a degree of contention between company management (who sought to monetize the investments in R&D, Services and Support) and voices from the Adempiere
Adempiere
ADempiere is an Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP software package released under an open source software license. The word ADempiere in Italian means "to fulfill" or "to accomplish".The software is licensed under the GNU General Public License....
community (who desired that Compiere source code and business processes remained free and open). On June 16, 2010, Consona acquired Compiere, Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed
.
The application and source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
is provided on the basis of the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
version 2; this comprises the Community Edition. Also available for a fee is a Professional Edition with more features, a commercial license, documentation and support contracts.
Functionality
Compiere encompasses ERP functionality, but in order to avoid the duplication of information and the need for synchronization, it's organized in a different way. Compiere modules are: Quote to CashQuote to cash
Quote to Cash is an information technology term for the integration and automated management of end-to-end business processes on the sell side:* Pricing* Quote creation for a prospect or customer, and negotiation...
, Requisition-to-Pay, Customer relationship management
Customer relationship management
Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
, Partner Relations Management, Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management
Supply chain management is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by end customers...
, Performance Analysis, Warehouse, Double-entry Book-keeping, Work-flow-Management and Web Store. A manufacturing module is being developed within an independent project CMPCS (see external links section).
Architecture
Compiere is a Model Driven Architecture development, deployment and maintenance framework designed with the intention of following changes as business evolves. At any time, customers can change the information structure, adjusting to new information needs. Compiere provides multiple views of business information based on the detail of the actual transactions. This structure allows flexibility and integration of supplemental external information. And since information is presented as views (using Compiere's MVCModel-view-controller
Model–view–controller is a software architecture, currently considered an architectural pattern used in software engineering. The pattern isolates "domain logic" from the user interface , permitting independent development, testing and maintenance of each .Model View Controller...
architecture), they can be changed to meet the needs of the business.
Compiere is entirely based on the concept of Active Data Dictionary (ADD). Compiere Data Dictionary
Data dictionary
A data dictionary, or metadata repository, as defined in the IBM Dictionary of Computing, is a "centralized repository of information about data such as meaning, relationships to other data, origin, usage, and format." The term may have one of several closely related meanings pertaining to...
contains definitions of a data entity (type, validation, etc.), how it is displayed (label on screens and reports, help, display sequence and position relative to other fields), and the display rules. It also contains security and access rules.
Compiere has been developed with Java EE
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition or Java EE is widely used platform for server programming in the Java programming language. The Java platform differs from the Java Standard Edition Platform in that it adds libraries which provide functionality to deploy fault-tolerant, distributed, multi-tier...
.
Database independence
Compiere has long been criticized for not being a pure open source product because of its dependence on Oracle databaseOracle database
The Oracle Database is an object-relational database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation....
(including the free Oracle XE); this is changing now, since version 2.5.2 Compiere is database independent to some extent. The project has released a Database Kit for porting Compiere to multiple databases. PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
, MySQL
MySQL
MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
and Sybase
Adaptive Server Enterprise
Adaptive Server Enterprise is Sybase Corporation's flagship enterprise-class relational model database server product. ASE is predominantly used on the Unix platform but is also available for Windows.-History:...
ports are in Beta status. Compiere can also be run under the Firebird database
Firebird (database server)
Firebird is an open source SQL relational database management system that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix. The database forked from Borland's open source edition of InterBase in 2000, but since Firebird 1.5 the code has been largely rewritten ....
using the Fyracle
Fyracle
Fyracle is a special version of the open source Firebird database which supports Oracle PL/SQL syntax, to ease porting of Oracle applications to open source.Fyracle comprises three parts:...
extensions, without porting.
Taking advantage of the Database Kit to create a port for the Apache Derby
Apache Derby
Apache Derby is a relational database management system developed by the Apache Software Foundation that can be embedded in Java programs and used for online transaction processing. It has a 2 MB disk-space footprint.Apache Derby is developed as an open source project under the Apache 2.0 license...
database the ER/Box project provides an integrated all-Java, all open source Compiere distribution. In addition to the Apache Derby database port ER/Box is also capable of running on PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
.
Compiere also works with the open source alternative to Oracle database, EnterpriseDB
EnterpriseDB
EnterpriseDB is a privately held company that provides enterprise class support for PostgreSQL through its product Postgres Plus Standard Server, which is PostgreSQL with extra bundled modules...
. User documentation is still offered on a fee-based accessibility.
Adempiere spin-off
Disagreement between a component of the Compiere user community and Compiere, Inc. resulted in the creation of a spin-off Open Source project. The primary point of dispute was a belief by members of the user community that Compiere, Inc. had ignored the contributions and concerns of community members. More directly, their claim was that the continuing direction of the product was driven mainly by Compiere, Inc.'s venture capital partners and not the user community at-large. The new fork, named AdempiereAdempiere
ADempiere is an Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP software package released under an open source software license. The word ADempiere in Italian means "to fulfill" or "to accomplish".The software is licensed under the GNU General Public License....
, was established at SourceForge
SourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
in September 2006.
Translations
Language Available Through
Arabic Community
Bulgarian Community
Catalan Community
Croatian Community
Chinese (simplified) Community
Chinese (traditional) Community
Danish Community
Dutch Web Store
Farsi Community
Finnish Community
French Web Store
German Web Store
Indonesia Bahasa Community
Italian Web Store
Malay Community
Romanian Community
Russian Community
Spanish Web Store
Thai Community
US English Included
Vietnamese Community
Releases
| Version | Release Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0.0 Beta | 1999 | Preview version |
| 2.0.0 Beta | 2000 | Initial version of Compiere ERP + CRM |
| 2.3.1 Beta | 2001-10-10 | Compiere ERP + CRM Business Solution for Linux And Windows |
| 2.4.0 Beta | 2001-11-12 | Compiere ERP + CRM Business Solution for Linux And Windows |
| 2.4.2 | 2002-03-05 | Major release, for Linux And Windows |
| 2.4.2b | 2002-03-14 | Minor release, for Linux And Windows |
| 2.4.2d | 2002-06-17 | Minor release, for Linux And Windows |
| 2.4.3b | 2002-11-18 | Maintenance release, non-specific OS |
| 2.4.3c | 2002-12-12 | Maintenance release, non-specific OS |
| R2.4.4 | 2003-02-24 | Maintenance, non-specific platform release |
| R2.4.4a | 2003-03-21 | Maintenance, non-specific platform release |
| R2.4.4b | 2003-04-30 | Maintenance, non-specific platform release |
| R2.4.4c | 2003-05-15 | Maintenance, non-specific platform release |
| R2.5.0d | 2003-10-10 | Maintenance, non-specific platform release |
| R2.5.0d | 2003-12-03 | Maintenance, non-specific platform release |
| R2.5.0e | 2004-01-31 | Maintenance release for non-specific OS, Platform Specific releases were discontinued from now |
| R2.5.1 | 2004-02-18 | Major release |
| R2.5.1a | 2004-05-03 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.1b | 2004-05-09 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.1e | 2004-08-28 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.1f | 2004-09-10 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.1g | 2004-11-09 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.2 | 2005-02-14 | Major release |
| R2.5.2a | 2005-02-27 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.2b | 2005-03-19 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.2c | 2005-05-09 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.2d | 2005-06-02 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.3a | 2005-10-29 | Maintenance release |
| R2.5.3b | 2006-02-25 | Maintenance release |
| R2.6.0a | 2006-11-04 | Maintenance release |
| R2.6.0c | 2007-02-11 | Maintenance release |
| R2.6.1 | 2007-05-14 | Major release |
| R3.0.0 | 2007-12-04 | Major release |
| R3.1.0 | 2008-08-06 | Major release |
| R3.2.0 | 2010-01-19 | Major release for Community |
| R3.3.0 | 2010-06-01 | Major release |