A Couple of Interesting New Open Source Releases

If you're running a Linux desktop in some dark sub-basement somewhere, preferrably with the Gnome desktop environment, checkout GnoTime 2.2. A particulary propeller-headed buddy is using this, and it looked pretty good--for something that is very obviously designed with a programmer's concept of attractive UI. Still, so many product management features, it can actually do some good if you feel like worming your way up the learning curve. I'm wondering why nobody has put an RSS publishing feature in so the whole thing could be pumped out to a Web server: Insta-ProjectBlog.

TinyERP and Open for Business are two more worthwhile pings.

You can find TinyERP here. It's production level code now in version 3.0.3, and doesn't seem to suffer from the wow-that's-an-unbelievably-ugly-UI syndrome that plagues many open source projects. I searched hi-low but couldn't find anyone who reviewed TinyERP so my opinion is worth about as much as a lamb burger on a vegan's bedspread--I even missed it when I did my snippet on OS ERP here. The feature specs and the screenshots look good, however:

And the fact that it's in version 3 says it has more staying power than Tommy Lee's academic career. It's undoubtedly more work than a commercial package to implement, but it may be worth the sweat, considering the price tag. It's even got a small partner network, so with any luck you should be able to find some consulting-guru that hopefully doesn't look or talk like a sherpa to help with little things like deployment, training and support. That does cost extra, though; only the code is free. If any adventuresome soul has any experience with it, please post a comment here. A heart ping. Some sign of life in the universe. I'm begging now.

Open For Business is here and it's not quite fully production yet, but there are bits, pieces and modules that have managed to hit puberty. Overall, it's blossomed from a smoke filled coffee house dream project in last year's timeframe to something with real code behind it this year. So it's got an actual heart beat and some real bucks backing it. A gander: