You might find odoo interesting, it's an Enterprise Resource Planning system and open source in Python. It has its own ORM.
You can also build websites with it.
Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
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Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#112Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.
You're right, amazon is a logistics company first and foremost. But if you can replace the website with something like this and then let all the other logistics providers (ups, USPS, FedEx, dhl unfortunately) handle the logistics you can re-enable competition in this space.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#113You are trying to solve a real-world problem experienced by a lot of profitable companies, so there is already a market of paying customers waiting for this. One of my clients is actively trying to reduce their dependence on Amazon and instead integrate with other marketplaces.
I see it's just Shopify-to-Shopify for now - bravo for starting with probably one of the most costly integrations. I'm working with a client right now who had to build these integrations using a low-code drag-n-drop platform which allows a quick MVP but has slow job processing, so isn't great for high order volume.
The "amazon" comparison is good for marketing - sure you're not doing all their marketing, or having their reach but you are connecting suppliers, buyers and fulfilment which is a genuine problem.
The companies who would use this often have developers on board already, so providing open source, accepting contributions and turning this into a useful dev-friendly service will almost certainly find paying customers.
Following :)
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#114Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.
18 hours is a pretty stupid selling point IMO. You either need something immediately or you can wait. Rarely do I need anything 18 hours from now.
I think many sellers would love to not be locked into Amazon and at least use something like this as an additional alternative. I'm on the other side of the table where I avoid buying from Amazon as much as possible.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
MongoDB is effectively licensed under the AGPL and seems to have no problem being used by corporations of all sizes.
MongoDB - the application is. MongoDB - the service isn't. You can use an Oracle database (however ugly its licensing is) without having an oracle license on every piece of data you expose. The same is true of Mongo license and the data it exposes as a service. The AGPL in this case is "you use MongoDB - someone wants to know about it, the source for MongoDB is over there." MongoDB AGPL doesn't 'infect' the applicati…
Yes, that's the entire purpose of the AGPL. If that's the outcome this person wants for their project, they should consider the AGPL.
I'm attempting to counter the narrative that no corporation would touch any AGPL software, because it's clear that how you are using the software is an important part of the equation.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can always do what bookshop.org did and appeal to social justice and hipster oppression. Talk about supporting "small business" and pretend that everyone's not just dropshipping from asia.
I don't think you know too much about how the book retail industry works. If people are dropshipping from anywhere, they're dropshipping from Ingram, which is in the US. Some of the stuff they carry might be printed in Asia, but it's not shipping directly from there to individual US customers. If I had to guess, this is how I'd expect bookshop.org to be fulfilling orders that they fulfill themselves. I can't remember…
I was referring to OP's product. The non-book part of Amazon sources the majority of their products from asia. Bookshop was just a point of comparison. Their schtick is to complain on media (said media is conveniently on an anti-big tech crusade right now) about small indie book stores being oppressed by Amazon while ignoring the fact that most publishing is centralized upstream.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#117A few points I'm skeptical of: simply connect to the seller’s infra instead of locking them in. One of the value-adds of Amazon is there's a whole bunch of tech sellers don't need to know how to write, run, and maintain. You'd need to understand how big the niche "technically literate to run their own e-commerce business, but selling on Amazon for other reasons" is, then how your operation would answer those "other r…
i think the branding "open source Amazon" is just way too ambitious/big. invites a lot of confusion/criticism if Amazon is different things to different people.
For some blissful seconds I thought this post would be related to reforestation efforts.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#118Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.
getting stuff that fast is very stupid 98% of the time. people may like it and want it and sing its praises, but its mostly stupid. and i think stupid things generally tend to die out. that is all to say that maybe that edge that amazon has is not that important.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#119Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.
Amazon.com is likely the most a/b tested piece of software on the planet. It is ugly and clunky because that's what _works_ - same with Alibaba and Yahoo JP.
its not what works, its whats good enough, or not bad enough to cause an obvious problem. well maybe thats what you mean by "works" i dunno
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#120Love open source projects in the eCommerce domain, especially ones that are JavaScript instead of PHP! Two pieces of feedback: - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. - You've really built an Order Management System for marketplace us…
> - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. What makes the AGPL unattractive? I thought it was basically just the GPL with a limitation on using the software to provide a SaaS product. You don't even have to contribute unpublished chang…
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