Software

From Cultivate.Coop

NEW! Cultivate.Coop is now just as easy to edit as Word and Google docs. Simply log-in, click “edit” on an article or resource page, and start contributing! See our explanation here.

This page is a glorified stub, and needs significant work, including an eventual name-change. Please see the discussion tab. Lippe 03:12, 28 December 2010 (EST)

Basic Definitions

Hosted software: Software installed on one machine, but accessible from other remote machines. Ex: gmail, cultivate.coop, etc.
Software-as-a-service (SaaS): Hosted software which is installed & maintained by one party, but is used by others - for free or in exchange for payment. Some software packages are available as a service, but also be downloaded for personal or commercial use. Wordpress sites can be hosted by wordpress.com, but the software is also available for download.
Free & open source software (FOSS): Software available free of licensing fees, licensed with permission to use, study, adapt and share. Some is copyleft or Share-Alike, which means it is licensed in a manner which perpetuates its re-distribution. See the Wikipedia entry for a more complete description.

General "Community" Software

A comparison matrix of software that can serve as a general hub, originally created by the Food Co-op Alliance of NYC.

Software	Open Source	Free	Platform	Language	Skill for Setup	Feature List	Demo Site	Custom / API	Plugins
Drupal	yes	yes	SaaS or LAMP	PHP	moderate	drupal.org	opensourceCMS	yes	yes
Joomla	yes	yes	SaaS or LAMP	PHP	moderate	joomla.org	opensourceCMS, joomla.org	yes	yes
Wordpress	yes	yes	SaaS or LAMP	PHP	moderate	wordpress.org	opensourceCMS	yes	yes
Wordpress MU	yes	yes
Wordpress MU + Buddypress	yes	yes			req. install		buddypress.org		yes
Meetup.com	no	no	SaaS		minimal			no
Ning	no	no	SaaS		minimal	ning.com		yes	"apps"
Elgg	yes	yes	LAMP	PHP	moderate	elgg.org		yes	yes
Wiggio.com	no	yes	SaaS		minimal	http://www.wiggio.com		no
Zoho suite
Crabgrass	yes	yes	SaaS or RoR	Ruby	Varies
Plone			Zope
Huddle.com	No	Limited option	SaaS		Minimal	huddle.com
Teambox.com - Github	Yes	Options	SaaS or RoR	Ruby	Varies	teambox.com
Big Tent	No	Ad supported	SaaS		Minimal	bigtent.com	Live demo, Screencast(Youtube)	No?	No?

Use-case Specific Software

Below are listed some software packages aimed at meeting specific needs. Before adopting single-use tools, a co-op should consider future needs, data portability, & tech capacity within the organization. Some lightweight tools (Etherpad, Mytinytodo) can be easily integrated into other workflows, but others (Mailman, Surveymonkey) can present difficult challenges in the future.

Will you want your discussion list members to use a single login to access their list subscriptions, and a future site?
Is your organization prepared to trust voting participants, or do you need specific measures to assure voting fairness?
Does your organization have the capacity to maintain software? Should you settle for a simple solution, or increase capacity in order to use a tool that can integrate multiple solutions?
Will you need the data to move to another system in the future? Is there a migration path?

Real-time Collaborative

Etherpad: List of public installations: http://etherpad.org/public-sites/
Richard's whiteboard thing: http://whiteboard.debian.net/

Site-based chat

I can't vouch for any of these, but I think this is a category of tool that has particular relevance to co-ops, particularly when using integration into mobile phone chat platforms. I've opted to list open source packages, and companies offering free plans, that while limited could prove valuable to startups or small organizations.

http://mibew.org (Free, open source)
http://www.zopim.com
http://www.olark.com (Drupal integration)
http://www.clickdesk.com
http://sitehelp.im

Mailing & Discussion Lists

Many cooperatives wish to maintain email lists to send out mass announcements to their clients and customers. Mailing list management software makes this easier and automates many of the processes. There are many options available and you should determine your cooperative's needs and capabilities and order to find the best match.

Also note that you can create and manage mailing lists using customer relationship management (CRM) software. CRMs offer more options and can scale better than general mailing list software, allowing things like targeting a specific subset of customers for an email announcement. They also have the advantage of integrating many different kinda of data about your co-op's customers. However, many cooperatives will find that CRMs have more features than they need and seem daunting to set up and use.

Mailing Lists (Announce only)

Mailchimp: "Email Marketing and Email List Manager" - http://www.mailchimp.com
TinyLetter: "It's the easiest way to start writing your own email newsletter." - http://tinyletter.com (Acquired by MailChimp, but probably worth listing)
Constant Contact: http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp
My Emma: http://myemma.com/
Your Mailing List Provider: http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com/
phplist: http://www.phplist.com/
Dadamail: "Dada Mail is a Contemporary Mailing List Manager." - http://dadamailproject.com/
iContact: http://www.icontact.com/ - Similar to Constant Contact, My Emma, etc.

Mailing Lists (Discussion)

Some discussion lists can be configured as announce-only. See discussion list software for more in-depth discussion.

Listen: "A mailing list management application" - http://www.coactivate.org/projects/listen/project-home
Sympa: "Sympa is an opensource mailing list manager" - http://www.sympa.org
Mailman: "Mailman, the GNU Mailing List Manager" - http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html
Groupserver: "Open Source Web-Based Mailing List Manager" (Free) - http://groupserver.org/

Q & A, Idea Generation

OSQA: Open Source (GPL) Q&A System. Based on CNProg (Chinese Q&A web application) Written in Python w/Django. Social Q & A with roadmap for extended features.
soclone: Stack Overflow clone based on CNProg, Django based, currently in development.
Get Satisfaction: "...friendly online environment '[created to encourage]' people to answer each others' questions, pitch in to help solve problems, and share all kinds of new ideas about how to improve their product and processes." Software as a service with paid monthly plans.
Uservoice: Helpdesk + Feedback. Software as a service with paid monthly plans & limited free options.
LampCMS: "...full-featured Open Source (LPGL v3) Social Q&A web program. Deep integration with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger and soon LinkedIn APIs."
Openmind: Open Source (GPL) product feature discussion system. Users create, discuss, and vote on potential features. Product managers assess discussion, manage release and publish a roadmap.
VoxPopuli: Closed Source under a [free license.] "VoxPopuli lets your web site visitors submit ideas and suggestions regarding your web site, your products and services right on your web pages. Other visitors can vote for or against submittions."
Idea Torrent: Open Source (GPL) Drupal (6.x) based idea generation, discussion & voting platform. Apparently minimally maintained. In use by [Ubuntu.]
Google Moderator: Software as a Service. "...create a meaningful conversations from many different people's questions, ideas, and suggestions..."
Idea.Informer.com: Software as a Service. Free? "...Idea informer creates the feedback system, which encourages discussions of good ideas, ensuring a better quality instead of a greater quantity."
bettermeans: Open Source (GPL v2) idea generation, discussion, voting platform, with estimation and project management features. Ruby.
BBIDX: "BBYIDX is a free and open source idea-gathering application written in Ruby and distributed under the GNU Affero General Public License."
Shapado: Free and open source Social Q&A software, written in Ruby. Also offered as free Software as a Service option.
User Rules: Software as a Service with limited free option. "UserRules empowers your users to submit, discuss, vote and follow on feedback for your company and gives you single interface to manage your community forum, customer-support platform and user analytics all in one place!"
All Our Ideas: Open Source (Modified BSD License) idea generation, discussion, prioritization platform.
Use Response: "UseResponse is a self-hosted customer service satisfaction, community solution and feedback software that you can place on your server. It is fully customizable (open-source) and can be used at your full disposal." Scheduled for launch December 2011.
django-voice: Open Source (New BSD License) simple Django based user feedback management system.
ideascale: Software as a Service with limited free option. "Bring out the best ideas from your customers and stakeholders by giving them a platform to share, vote and discuss feedback."
userecho: Software as a Service with limited free option. Idea & feedback management.
Question2answer: Open Source (GPL) Q&A. Standalone, single-sign-on, and OotB integration with WordPress 3.x
WordPress Q-A plugin: Wordpress specific Q&A plugin. "Q&A Lite allows any WordPress site to have a fully featured questions and answers section - just like StackOverflow, Yahoo Answers, Quora and more"
WP-Answers: WordPress based Q&A plugin.

Some other alternatives at alternativeto

Forms: Scheduling, Polling & Voting

Doodle.com: Lightweight collaborative appointment making. Simple, fast.
Moreganize.com: Collaborative appointment making. Also offers polling and to-do lists, slightly more robust and complex than Doodle.
pleft: FOSS installable scheduling.
Ballotbin
Surveymonkey
Wu-foo: On line forms. Primarily useful for collecting data. Free plan available, with some limitations. Slightly more robust than Google forms.

Commerce: Point of Sale, e-commerce

Localfoodcoop.org: Free open source (GPL) buying club management software, developed in collaboration with the Oklahoma Food Cooperative.
xTuple POS: The xTuple Point of Sales (xtPOS) system is an extension package that can be run on any edition of xTuple ERP (including the free PostBooks Edition) to add Point of Sale / Cash Register capabilities to the software.
Foodclub.org: Free hosted buying club management software.
Buyingclubsoftware.com: Buying club management software.
Foodsoft: Free open source (GPL) buying club and/or coop management software.
OpenBravo POS: Open Source POS system meant to integrate with OpenBravo ERP
IS4C: Free open source POS system created at the Wedge Community Co-op in Minneapolis.
infoshopkeeper: Point-of-sale and inventory management software designed for bookstores. Should also work as a general point-of-sale software as well. Free/open source, developed and distributed by Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse worker collective.
CoPOS: In use at several US food coops.
PHP Point of Sale
Lemon POS
UberPOS: Drupal based POS system. Currently lacks support for scale use, but is in active development. There's a video demonstrating it in action. The developers list the hardware they use, and how it works in the faq. The card reader they use requires an Authorize.net card present account.
uc_buyingclub: A Drupal module maintained by ebrelsford that uses Ubercart to manage Greene Hill Food Co-op's buying club.
uc_civicrm: A Drupal module which integrates Ubercart with CiviCRM.
WP-Ecommerce: Free Wordpress e-commerce plugin to facilitate selling of physical and digital products, utilize a shopping cart, and so forth.
Floreant POS: "Floreant POS is a platform independent Point of Sale application that greatly benefits Restaurant business simplifying order management, automation of kitchen and keeping control of cash." Open source - MRPL license. Official floreant pos developer are no longer active. I am volunteer of floreant pos who is doing bug fixing, customization service from 10th oct 2009. Please contact me at indokely@gmail.com

Software	Open Source	Free	Platform	Language	Purpose	Feature List	Demo
Localfoodcoop.org	yes	yes	Unix	PHP	Buying club order management	localfoodcoop.org	screenshots
xTuple POS	yes	for one site	Unix, Windows	C++	Retail POS/ERP	xtuple.com	demo
Foodclub.org	no	yes	SaaS	PHP	Buying club order management	foodclub.org	demo
Buyingclubsoftware.com	no	no	SaaS	-	Buying club order management	buyingclubsoftware.com	demo
Foodsoft	yes	yes	Unix	Ruby	Buying club order management	foodcoops.net	demo
OpenBravo POS	no	no	Unix/SaaS	Java	Retail POS/ERP	openbravo.com	openbravo.com
IS4C	yes	yes	Unix	PHP	Retail POS/ERP	wedge.coop	wedge.coop
Rattail BONE/POS	yes	yes	Unix	Python	Retail POS/ERP	-	rattail.edbob.org
infoshopkeeper	yes	yes	Unix	Python	Retail POS/ERP	redemmas.org	-
CoPOS	no	no	Windows	-	Retail POS/ERP	thecoposcompany.com	thecoposcompany.com
PHP Point of Sale	yes	no	Unix/SaaS	PHP	Retail POS/ERP	phppointofsale.com	https://demo.phppointofsale.com/ phppointofsale.com]
Lemon POS	yes	yes	Unix	C++	Retail POS/ERP	lemonpos.org	-
UberPOS	yes	yes	Unix	PHP	Retail POS/ERP	-	uberpos.com
uc_buyingclub	yes	yes	Unix	PHP	Buying club order management	-	-
WP-Ecommerce	yes	yes	Unix	PHP	Online Retail	getshopped.org	-
Floreant POS	yes	yes	Windows	Java	Retail POS	floreantpos.com	For Demo, Please mail me at indokely@gmail.com
ShopKeep	no	no	SaaS	-	Retail POS	-	-
imonggo	no	no	SaaS	-	Retail POS	imonggo.com	-
Cash Register Express	no	no	Windows	-	Retail POS	-	-

Commerce: Lightweight Point of Sale

ShopKeep: Lightweight web/iPad based POS system. Currently (July 2011) does not support scale integration.
imonggo: Free + premium web-based point of sale, inventory management, sales analysis, customer relationship management, etc.

Accounting & Bookkeeping

GNUcash: Open source cross-platform accounting application created by the GNU Project. Runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. (Free)
QuickBooks: Business accounted software developed and sold by Intuit. Runs on Windows and Mac OS X.
SQL-Ledger: Cross-platform double-entry accounting software. Licensed under the GPL.
Frontaccounting
Wave Accounting

Member Management (CRM, AMS)

CiviCRM: CRM that can be deployed alongside your co-op's Drupal or Joomla website.
MESS: Used by Mariposa Food Co-op to track members and shifts. Python and Django.
Red Hen CRM: Drupal 7 native CRM module. In early development phase.
vtiger CRM
Big Tent: See above in general community software.
Tofu DB: Simple perl/mySQL membership database created at the 4th street Food Co-op. Available for free on inquiry.

Analytics

Mixpanel: Powerful web analytics, free options available, free plugins available for Drupal & Wordpress.
Piwik: Free open source (GPL) real time web analytics software. Self-hosted.

Training & Courseware

Moodle: Moodle "is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites."

Teambox: Online project collaboration software for project managers, contractors, freelancers and teams. (Open source and free for up to three projects.)

Enterprise Software

WebERP: webERP is an open-source web-based ERP system.
OpenERP: Open source business software, covering: CRM, Accounting, Point of Sale, Project Management, and more.
Open Bravo ERP: Web-based ERP, covering: Procurement, Project Management, Sales, CRM, Finance, Point-of-Sale, and more.

More Open Source ERP and CRM Projects

Warehouse Management Systems

Software for managing inventory

MyWMS: Powerful, Enterprise-Strength Warehouse Management System

Sensing & Reporting

Software + hardware for sensing, reporting and recording data. Could be used for integration with checkout lanes, store environment, equipment.

OpenRTMS: "Our open source platform has applications in many areas including health, fitness, the environment, social networks, and education." Hardware, software, mobile & web interfaces.

Timeclocks

Some timeclock systems mentioned on CGIN list as currently being in use at Co-ops.

Novatime
ADP WorkforceNow solution
Kronos
TimeClockPlus
Time Force from QQEST
Virtual Time Clock by Redcort Software

Conferencing, chat, and screen sharing

Tinychat, and Google+ Hangout

anymeeting.com: Free (reg. required to initiate, anyone can join @ static url), Java w/flash video. Polls, screen-sharing, hand signals.

...tinychat because it doesn't depend on someone initiating the meeting, so the room exists when the first person appears.. ..no additional downloads beyond flash.

freeconferencecalling.com: Easy, works. Slight edge on freeconferencecall.com freeconferencecalling.com has a good web interface for facilitating a call, including the ability for participants to raise their hand by pressing 5* It's a small difference, but can really help keep a call on process. Lowish quality audio, suitable for standups.

freeconferencing.com: Easy, works. Slight edge on freeconferencecall.com freeconferencing.com is almost identical in features to freeconferencecalling.com, but with an inferior web interface. It also has a (horribly implemented) "hand raising" mode. It gets big points for having a skype "bridge," so people can call in for free via skype, using the contact name format "freeconferencecalling.<call in number>" - which would allow for the local meeting to have the conference call on using a hardware speakerphone. Lowish quality audio, suitable for standups, suitable for bringing in remotes via audio.

Skype: Not sure of the linux status these days.

Brosix

Tru-App

Mumble: X-platform, high quality, kinda confusing.

wiki.debian.org/MeetBot: IRC bot that facilitates more structured IRC meetings, puts out formatted logs & HTML files.

incubator.apache.org/openmeetings: "Openmeetings provides video conferencing, instant messaging, white board, collaborative document editing and other groupware tools using API functions of the Red5 Streaming Server for Remoting and Streaming."

Hipchat

www.mikogo.com: Free, simple, one to many screen-sharing. Significant lag in display.

Todos: Some XMPP discussion.. Sections on conference strategy, dependability, some hardware, mention business model of freeconference clones ?

File Sharing

Many project management and collaboration platforms have integrated methods for sharing files, but there are also dedicated products which may be preferable.

Task-lists

http://chandlerproject.org/ (This is really much more, see the docs

===