OpenPapyrus: [yet another] ERP-system open source

Good day.

We published the Papyrus enterprise management system in source code under the name OpenPapyrus . The project is also published on the sourceforge server.

I will paint the technical aspects in a separate article, and here I will briefly describe what OpenPapyrus is and why this system is worth being read with it and start using it.
OpenPapyrus is an infrastructure management system for business, on which we have been working for more than 20 years (since 1996), having developed in it an extensive functionality for managing a business in a wide range of segments.
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Until now, we have sold the Papyrus system only as a proprietary product. In the future, we will develop both products at the same time - proprietary and open (especially since this is almost the same thing).

We consider (Open) Papyrus one of the best systems of this class in the Russian market. The statement is, of course, strong and subjective, but now that all the cards on the table are all source codes in github, it can be checked by anyone.

Here, perhaps not complete, the list of business segments in which OpenPapyrus works perfectly:

• Retail
• Pharmacies
• Wholesale
• Cafes and restaurants
• Beauty Salons
• Fitness clubs and sports centers
• Small production

OpenPapyrus can do very, very much a lot of things and almost everything, of which a lot, does well. An attempt to list the functionality of the system lies in the same place on github . We tried to classify all the functionality and make a list by which it would be possible to compare the system with competing solutions. But in my opinion, the attempt was not very successful (although we, if possible, keep this document up to date).

A very telling column of functional blocks is as follows:

• Accounting
• Procurement Management
• Sales management
• Management of settlements with counterparties
• Retail Sales Management
• Point-of-sale
• Production Management
• Personal Event Management
• Project and Task Management
• Infrastructure functionality

It would probably be appropriate to note that we have a solution for mobile sales agents (StyloAgent), a mobile waiter for restaurants (StyloWaiter) and a module for data collection terminals (BHT). We do not lay out these products in open access, but not because it is a pity, but because of technical obstacles.

The system is developed and developed in accordance with several not complicated principles, which, basically, determine its appearance:

• Conceptual integrity and consistency. If it is human, it means, for example, that we do not patch to satisfy any client request, but we apply and / or expand existing concepts for this. If the development of a new concept is still necessary, then we plan and work it out with the expectation of future use.
  
  
• Maximum unification. It is a pity that the term "Occam's principle" was exhausted by application to the place and not to the place, otherwise it would fit here. But in general, the idea is the same: if a certain entity can be reflected in the system once and then reused, then there is no need to multiply it.
  A simple example: personalities, as subjects of civil law, are represented by a data object of the same name, and not by a set of "buyers", "suppliers", "physicists", "ericians", etc. The issue of classification in use is a technical problem.
  
  Similarly, the concepts of "warehouse", "address", "warehouse cell" and "division of the organization" are all represented through a single functional object "location".
  
  Similar approaches are used in the development of system code - most of the blocks are built on template methods with extremely unified interfaces. The result is easily noticeable by the size of the distribution kit - it is very modest.
  
  
• Primate cost reduction support. To put it in Russian: if two or more clients applied for one reason, then it is cheaper to change something in the system than to respond to the same messages in the future.
  
  
• Defect elimination has the highest priority over all other problems and is performed without any conditions. Everything is more or less clear with this. Obviously, this principle is tightly connected with the previous one.

Given the age of the system and the fact that some companies use it for 10–20 years, it can be assumed that these principles work. They have a side effect: the system in the end turned out to be not very obvious in the setting, which, however, is overlapped by ease of use for end users.

There are no functional differences between Papyrus and OpenPapyrus. We, however, do not yet fully understand how both of these options will get along from a marketing point of view.
Support remains paid, but we very much hope that there will be enough people and companies who themselves will be able to figure out what and how, and moreover, will be able to sell their consulting services to other companies.

Installation instructions are available on both github and sourceforge. Installation for review is very simple. There are no instructions on how to build from source codes, but the source code clone is exactly compiled - we checked this carefully.
Documentation (large, but still not complete) is there.

Before you round up, here are a couple of interesting facts:

• Papyrus is able to manage web content. We do not position this feature as replicable, but the content of the Petroglyph company’s website and the Universe-HTT site (for example, there is one of the best barcode directories on the network) is managed by the Papyrus server covered with Java bindings from etc.
  
  
• Protocol versions of Papyrus is from his birth. In a digestible form, it is available on the website of the Petroglyph company. Conversion to html is performed automatically by the same Papyrus. In releases on github we give the corresponding link.

And finally. For what? The main reason is existential: it is worth sharing what we have been doing for more than 20 years with the rest of the world, especially since we ourselves use the results of the work of the open source community. The remaining reasons are minor and boring - you yourself know about them.