Welcome to the OFN Community
OFN is open source, released under GNU Affero licence
You can use the Open Food Network code for your project / business. It is released under a GNU Affero licence, which has been developed to ensure that modified code for online applications remains available to the community. It “requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly accessible server, gives the public access to the source code of the modified version.”
Our active community can help you get things done
You can access information and connect with the OFN Community using a variety of communications channels. Get connected.
We encourage your Contributions to the Commons
The OFN Commons is providing a lot of value to your potential business. We ask that you think about how you can best contribute and help strengthen the whole.
You can see more ideas / discussion about ways to do this in the Community Pledge, which we invite you to sign on to.
Advice / support on Slack, Discourse etc provided from the community generally is not being billed. As you progress with OFN, you may choose to give back to this community by supporting others and/or making financial contributions to the Commons and/or contributing to Co-Budgeted projects for big, priority feature developments.
If you are making code contributions and covering the costs of incorporating them as described below then you’re off to an excellent start and thanks
Making Changes, Contributing Code
Branding
If you are not an OFN partner and you are running your own, modifed OFN we request that you re-brand your instance so that it is clear you are not a representative of the Open Food Network. This is likely what you are wanting to do anyway
[NB. When we have a couple of these up and running it would be good for someone to review and consider whether we have any minimum/max requirements, whether we want any public attribution and where/how etc]
Which code to run
- the Master code on Github is the same as what is running on Australian production, as it is connected via our Build pipeline
- to get into Master it has been through our Aus staging server and actual functionality has been tested by the master @sstead
- We do periodic releases (see discussion here), and then other instances / developers upgrade their servers when they’re ready
- You can use either Master or the latest release, but if you’re wanting to contribute code it is best to use Master as there will be fewer changes to deal with to get your code merged
Code contributions
We encourage you to commit relevant contributions to the master code so that they build value for all users.
When you are developing features / fixes that are intended for the master code, we suggest you follow the following process:
- Write a short post on this forum describing the feature and proposed approach. This will enable the (very active) community to see, share experience and possibly shape implementation.
- You will likely get useful input, including rich knowledge of existing features which may enable you to save your money. See example here
- Clear communication of intended feature operation will also mean many eyes can test and let you know if it’s not working as intended
- Once you are working on code, please follow the guidelines in Contributing.md.
Review and Merge
We have an extremely small budget for reviewing and merging code contributions, which we prioritise for supporting non-profit and partner (branded) OFN instances getting started. If you are running or intending to run your own branded ‘white-label’ instance, we request that you cover the costs of reviewing and merging your contributions into master as part of your contribution. This will also mean they will be considered within an acceptable timeframe.
The Australian OFN team will currently charge $120AUD/hr for review, improvements and merge. Contact me (@Kirsten) for further discussion. The pool of providers able to provide these services is increasing . .