The purpose of this document is to present some ideas fleshing out the concept of templating for GNUe configuration. The basic idea of templating is to simplify the definition of GNUe configurations for various kinds of enterprises and vertical market industries. The concept is that each kind of enterprise will need certain configuration features, and that GNUe should make it easy for that enterprise to define those features and accomplish the configuration. GNUe is intended to be highly modular and not monolithic. Examples of configuration considerations for various kinds of enterprises include:
A small, home-based business does not need functions to manage numerous warehouses.
Some businesses maintain only selected subsidiary journals of their accounting systems and outsource maintenance of their general ledgers and other journals to their accountants.
Municipal governments, self-supporting municipal revenue authorities, and similar entities will need some functionality different from that required by businesses.
Utilities (such as electric power, communications, and water) will need extensive customer information functions linked to the systems that manage their service delivery operations.
Some businesses can use a system that displays and reports in only one language, but others will need to accommodate multiple languages.
Businesses that operate in international trade need a capability for managing multiple currencies.
In addition, it appears that a common set of infrastructure may be able to both aid in implementing the templating concept and provide other important functions needed in GNUe.
We will use the following terms:
GNUe-module - A nearly stand-alone unit comprised of focused business functionality and containing various kinds of information. The basic unit of the Enterprise Application is the GNUe-Module (which can be shortened to ge-module for convenience and referred to as just a “module” if there is no possibility of confusion). All ge-modules can be mixed and matched according to the dependencies (which should be minimized) and the need of the customer. Currently, a ge-module could contain the following kinds of information:
GNUe class definition files (GCD),
GNUe report definition files (GRD),
GNUe form definition files (GFD),
GNUe security definition files (GSD),
GNUe data definition files (GDD), and
documentation (DOCBOOK) files.
GNUe-Packages - An arbitrary physical grouping of Modules (primarily for development and functionality explanations). The term can be shortened to ge-package for for convenience and referred to as just a “package” if there is no possibility of confusion
GNUe-Template - An arbitrary physical grouping of Modules and Module modification instructions (GTD- GNUe Template Definition) focused on use by an industry or a type of enterprise and used primarily for distribution and configuration of GNUe software. A template may have its own GCD, GRD, GFD, GSD, GDD, and DOCBOOK files as needed for specializing standard GNUe-modules for an industry, type of enterprise, or environment.
Program-module and program-package - These refer to modules of Python, C, Java, or other programming languages, and packages that comprise groupings of the program-modules. These terms can also be shortened to p-module and p-package.
Business process - a business or enterprise-oriented view of the purpose for which GNUe is being used. A business process can be done in a single step using GNUe or involve multiple steps, some of which use GNUe and some of which are either manual or done using some other automated support.
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