Hello everyone, you may remember I dropped by a while back concerning my cooperative management project.
The idea has evolved to building an open-source Enterprise Resource Planning application specifically for worker’s cooperatives. While most ERP software focuses on driving top-down directives, the goal of this project is to enable the cooperatives to work, make decisions, and resolve disputes more efficiently than basically any other type of company.
Current tech stack: Docker, postgres, nginx, SQLAlchemy, gunicorn, jinja2, Flask, Alembic, and Redis.
Please check out the repository documentation if this sounds like something you may be interested in. The docs include the foundational philosophy document called “Hierarchy by Consent” and there is also a template for an Articles of Incorporation that I intend to include as the first default document template in the software.
I’m still pretty early in the process but most of the tables are set up and I’ve made notes in the the classes explaining the requirements and workflows.
I’ve also got some issues started on Codeberg, mostly related to the front-end, which is where I need the most help at the moment. I will certainly be glad for help elsewhere as well.
It’s an open-source project so there is no immediate financial incentive. Part time contributors are certainly welcome.
There’s a discussion room on Matrix and here is the Repository.
Thanks folks
This looks interesting, though a mighty undertaking. Any reason why not take an existing project and fork it? Or even just an ERPNext module? Would help cover a bunch of potential issues rather than start from scratch. Alternatively, have you thought of what would the MVP be to test it out? That way won’t fall into the do-everything-now trap (been there, done that, don’t recommend). Also, it looks very US-centric, so not gonna ask about GDPR, data security, etc. Instead, re: FE - for prototyping, don’t need design, just functional HTML + forms. Or, can try and poke at some premade or quick-assemble templates. Have you thought about functional (not design) requirements for the user experience, AKA how you imagine the users of this would use it? That is, full day in the office VS checking it once-monthly VS yearly for taxes, etc.
Why not use existing projects? A combination of my specific design requirements not existing anywhere else and my lack of software architecture experience. My background is in systems and organizational theory, and while I have experience in mathematics related programming, this is my first server architecture. So that being said, I’m certainly open to ideas as long as that doesn’t stop it from working right. I am planning on integrating different tools like messaging, and I’ll certainly use something like Continuwuity for that. It’s just that for the core database design it really needs to have a specific integrated schema, at least that’s my opinion. Like I said I’m open to ideas, my goal is to get the project done.
I’m not familiar with ERPNext but it looks interesting. As you pointed out this is US based, so it looks like I would have to take that into account as well.
In terms of sensitive information, the US does have laws about Personal Identifying Information, so the “Party” table has a corresponding “PartyPii” table with information that isn’t subject to audit and can be deleted. Home address, email, phone, etc. It is also stored encrypted, so while I’m sure I don’t have it all figured out yet, these things are on my radar.
In terms of MVP, I will certainly be testing out front-end funtionality as I build it. Start with a login page that accepts a default user and brings you to a dashboard page. Get the accounting going so you can make Journal Entries, etc. Prettymuch going by the “Core Design” section at the start of the README and testing in chunks. But in terms of actually seeing if it meets it’s intended function, unfortunately that comes down to an actual beta version I think. I will need to host it and invite people to participate with “points” instead of money.
Someone over on beehaw suggested Svelte for front-end mock-up so I’ve been playing around with the tutorial. It’s certainly neat. I should be able to get demo pages going without too much trouble, they just won’t look too special.
And yes, I have begun thinking about the day to day. I think non-management members need to have a pretty significant capability with just a mobile version of the pages, since not everyone has an actual computer. But either way I want the information to flow smoothly through the organization.
Thanks for your input!