High-Level Feedback on Project

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Comments on Doc:

Open source means

• Free to use for standard version (this is not necessary to be open-source though).
• We hold extension / plugin / online service / customized features in private repo and this is for sell.
• Sell premium support tier.
• Sell pre-configured device but if we aim to grow free/standard version, it should be really easy to setup.

Selling point

• Free to use for starters so we get feedback fast and expecting to grow fast.
• Support crypto-currency. Potential Threats
• This is (or likely) red ocean market.
• If we aim to be low cost system (including device cost), we will have to also fight with China.
• The more crypto-currency popular the more and easier interfaces/services to be available to use. Existing POS systems that already in the market would easily add this funcionality easily.
• There is no good open-source POS system I guess because open-source era is after POS. Developer would normally more contribute to the tool they will have to use or something brand new not just what language the project use. POS is quite too specific and less reason to contribute unless some good developer would want to sell they own then open source POS but we would for sure pick the license not to allow to be customized to use for commercial purpose. Personal visions
• To save cost, starter would looking for using something like iPad or even their own Andriod mobile to run their light POS system connecting to the small invoice printer. They can use hand-held version for this?
• Large company would more care about visualization/report and all-in-one system like including accounting system or at least super easy to interface with other service/program.
• If we enter the market now, we should have selling point(s) that those already in the market cannot easily replicate/migrate to their system.
• ...

Technical comments

• Language - if we really aim for open source, I think we should pick language in the market. And to avoid too high learning curve otherwise training cost and turn over will kill it quickly. We can split specific component/service that require high volume of execution.
• Timeline/resource - it is not something new, it already have a bunch of competitive in the market, like most of the startup that normally have MVP period and use small team to build for POC and pitching to the market.

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Comments on the above:

1) There are many different models in open-source. I've had that conversation here with people - why open-source? My thought on open-source is that if it is open-source it is easy to find (it's a marketing approach). There are other ways. Odoo https://www.odoo.com/ is the biggest, best open-source business suite that I can find. It's a huge download (most give-up) and has many important features disabled (unless you 'upgrade'). But, they get many commits from people who need something very specific for their business (tax calculation in Brazil). I discussed with K. and people like him would download and assess, but someone opening a restaurant is normally not on github. So, I'm not exactly sure on this. One point is that it can always go open-source later - but sounds like withholding some of the features might be the best approach now.

2) We can't avoid China. If we embedded some telemetry to ping a server outside the 'Great Firewall' with a public-private key... and shutdown if it failed. That might slow down copying.

3) Yes, definitely want it to be easy to use, even for a business without the ability to buy a stand-alone POS. It should work on Android and iOS.

4) Language. Agreed, if we want a lot of commits from outsiders, then we need a popular language. Odoo / Apache Biz and others are python or java. In fact, we should find a way to make writing the business logic even easier. Right now, I need someone with 2 years of programming experiences to change a tax rule in most systems. (x * y) I'm not sure how it could be simpler - maybe web assembly or embedded lua or a custom parser? On the lower-level, Rust might make sense b/c a) crypto-currency keys exposed in memory are a huge security risk, b) it can scale to small devices and compete with the 'embedded' systems like Micros-Fidelio you see in every high-end hotel and restaurant, c) if it's open-source, nobody can get it to compile. ;)

5) Large company is an important target (long-term). One of the problems with the existing systems is that they hack the accounting module and create a huge challenge for integration. We have to do it right.

6) We have Europe's largest POS reseller supporting, a new POS vendor in the U.S. automotive market supporting us, a large U.S. POS vendor in retail and hospitality (+ credit cards) supporting us, and about 50 years of experience in POS systems in-house, a market in SE Asia we can use for testing without too many regulations, and about 80 years of in-house POS knowledge.

[xenirio]

For 1) Do we need to open source for every module? About the core module is it build as the library and closed-source?. I think for customization open-source some module can let they modify for extensibility. There is an interesting open-source project of MS The Open-Xml-PowerTool (https://github.com/OfficeDev/Open-Xml-PowerTools) that let you easier to create Office XML document but you still need MS Office to be the editor.

For 3) I agree with an idea of distribution to iOS/Android devices. I just worry about If the iOS/Android version changed this will make much effort to support?