Creating a buying group - User guide outdated?

Hey,

just getting started on OFN. It’s a very interesting project and sounds promising. Although apparently still a lot of work is required.

I’d like to use OFN with a buying group. It seems that currently only a centralized server architecture is supported (as in each country has their own server architecture where all users/hubs/producers are registered). It’s not really ideal as a decentralized architecture would allow much more flexibility.

However, I would like to try out setting up a buying group to test the features a bit. Following this guide (step 2) I’m an independent buying group) I ended up creating an account on both the AU and UK OFN:

  • The AU OFN asked whether I’m a producer or not a producer, but did not ask whether I’m a hub shop or a user, as is specified in the guide,
  • the UK OFN did not even ask anything upon creating an account.

Is the guide super outdated? Or are the local OFNs UK and AU simply customized? Meaning I would have to install my own local OFN to proceed?

Hi Timo

I am picking this up as part of OFN’s ‘global gardening’ process. I am involved with OFN UK and helping to co-ordinate progress on OFN Germany. There is a test instance set up in Germany here and you are welcome to play with it.

To answer your questions:
• In the UK we have one instance and set up discrete OFN groups within that instance.
• We are in the early stages of exploring a single global instance which would solve the issues of national boundaries. You are welcome to join the conversation here

Thanks for the reply, nick! It is a great project and I wish you guys all the best with it. Hopefully we’ll see some more of it in the future : ).

A global instance… Interesting. It would at least allow everybody to get on-board and help the community grow in that way.
In the future a distributed / decentralized approach would probably be better, though.