Everything I see talked about are just tools. Tools don't run businesses, apps do. The task of creating an app to run a business is so large that only the OSS community can think about competing with the likes of SAP and Oracle.

One such app is Compiere, but it "owned" by a single company and its framework tools are not the best.

The Apache Open for Business project (ofbiz.apache.org) has the backing of the Apache Foundation and is truly a community supported app. In addition to having a complete suite of apps, it has an ingenious, lightweight framework that greatly increases the efficiencies of developers.

It is not an easy application to get your arms around, but what true enterprise app is? If I were going to invest time and resources in an OSS enterprise app, I would not allow my company to roll its own or use some small market gesture by some optimistic dreamers; I would go with the one organization that has the critical mass to pull something like this off - the Apache Foundation.

These are pieces to a solution - albeit valuable ones. But why ignore apps that address the total needs of an enterprise in one cohesive package instead of having to bear the cost of multiple apps with their associated integration costs and learning curves? I am referring to Apache's Open for Business Project (ofbiz.apache.org) and Compiere.