The Freedom of "Not Necessary"

In the first two days, Batavi V0.9b was downloaded around 365 times via sourceforge.com. That is a very neat kickoff for a below-the-radar open source solution. Interest is already displayed by developers in Sweden, Italy, Spain, the Benelux, UK and Germany. The first bugs are reported, and bug fixes are posted by users. This is what we all love about the open source approach: co-optation!

And this is what is making the Batavi Team so enthusiastic. Especially, the project leader Frank Heinen, who was an osCommerce core team member.
Slowly, all reservations with regard to the open source format are lost, and both internally and externally even the most staunch open source sceptic is warmed up. Business partners declare their intention to invest in connections or to include the software in their solutions. Sometimes wondering what is in it for us, as we (seem to) give away everything. Some are repeating the old partner mantra like "I want you to be your partner". Of course, that is nice and possible... But it is NOT NECESSARY.

And we feel it is not necessary, because ICEshop has more and bigger jobs to do than ever. The freedom of "NOT NECESSARY" (no customer lock in) is what feels so good about open source and making use of it. Especially, if the quality of the software is very good. In case of Batavi, around 20 men years work is invested over a two year period. Still, relatively small compared to what software giants are investing. But, already huge compared to the budgets available for the average open source project. osCommerce 3.0 today, for example, was developed merely by one man over a 3-4 year period. Also in case of Magento, which passed osCommerce in popularity this year, a larger development team was formed and the product is more mature than osCommerce. It will not take long before we will see the demise of the first generation open source solutions.

Batavi V0.9 beta now downloadable

Batavi V0.9 beta is now downloadable. Batavi's open source trader shop is based on ICEshop's extensive experience of more than 10 years in open source, ecommerce, supply chain management and content management. Batavi now delivers a full object oriented, flexible tool that can compete with the most professional tools worldwide.

The Batavi development team was formed by ICEshop in 2007, and incorporated disappointed members of the osCommerce core team. In fact, you could say that Batavi is the real osCommerce 3.0 (the version we were all waiting for but that never came). This resulted in a full packed standard version of Batavi, that is now available for download in the 0.9 beta version.