Comment 58 for bug 1160365

Commenting comment #46
I have first hand experience with MS CRM/Navision
(was in charge implementing largest ones here)

Please don't copy that model!!!
One of my main motives for OpenERP was frustration with M$ and their data models.
Please listen to Nhomar, Ana, Raphael, Therp, Guewen, Joel and others, they know better than M$.

To minimize noise I will not list bad designs in MS, but (as Nhomar said) few good ones in MS CRM:
 - separate address entity (+ easy GUI for 2 defaults)
 - separate relationship entity

1. I think there is unanimous consensus about partner_id.
    IMO It is stronger than "No schema change in stable"

2. There is will, interest, knowledge to improve and test partner entity before major release
     If it will be a change, let's make really good one or revert to 6.1.
     Ideally it should be clear to junior programmer what is what:
         Party, Organization, Person, Contact, Employee, Cust/Supp, Address, Location,...?
         What is a Contact?
             A) Not a Company that is 1 level child_of Company (and Address in the same time)
             or
             B) Person related to Organization having 'contact' role and possibly other roles. (+ Customer/Supplier for domains)
     While designing think about existing and future verticals and localizations, for example:
             Unique VAT no.
             School, training, medical verticals
                   How to extend Person object to be Patient and Physician in the same time not knowing what is a Person?
                   How to model a Family? (It is a kind of relationship between Persons)
     Can we model Departments, Sale teams... as relationship between Persons with a Role of employee, optional hierarchy?

Regards,
Goran Kliska