Advertising "open core" software

[Nelson Marques]

On Thu, 2010-04-15 at 13:02 +0200, Joerg Simon wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, 15. April 2010 11:41:39 schrieb Jan Wildeboer:
> > I am more fearful of an opposite possibility. That companies can "buy"
> > themselves in to Fedora marketing. Noboidy brought this up *yet* but
> > soonish someone will propose that companies could "sponsor" this. It is
> > a natural thing to think about but it would be so wrong to do.
> 
> We promote Fedora and EPEL to companies "as the possibility to have "their" 
> Software packaged/maintained along our guidelines on a stable enviroment with 
> a broad userbase - and that it is good to become a community member by 
> maintaining it together" - with all the benefits that are related - we get more 
> features, users and contributors and they get a out of the box working product 
> in Fedora and EPEL to have a better market penetration. This sounds like a 
> good symbiosis. 

It is strange someone pulls the issue "market penetration" when before
on this very same list the topic was aborded in a very different way. I
don't believe there is coherence here. So we are expanding or not
expanding? So our target is developers or mainstream users ? I'm getting
really loose of the real targets of Fedora once more...

> 
> > And with complete I mean that any fedora user must be able to use all
> > the features of a project in the repos. If whatever part of the expected
> > featureset needs external and possibly non-opne components, we cannot
> > promote it.
> 
> "any fedora user" is able to use all the features that zarafa provides to all 
> fedora-users!
> We do not care for proprietary windows-connectors that are out there to 
> connect to databases, frameworks, application ... in fedora!

Nice. But as Jan mentioned before, the issue is around: Should we
promote it or not? We are full of load, it's a waste of manpower to
support stuff that comes in a pesky way.

By the way, might not be the best metaphore, but what is Fedora position
regarding Tomboy ? why are we not highlighting Tomboy and instead going
Gnote way?

Shouldn't we be prioritizing FOSS ?

>  
> > Zarafa is not positioning itself on its own website as "All advantages
> > of Micrososft Exchange at 50% of the costs" [1]. The version we have in
> > the repos also seems to have a limit of 3 outlook users according to
> > [2]. 
> > So in this specific case I do have some pain in promoting it. I
> > would even go as far as saying that if the version of Zarafa in Fedora
> > really has this 3 user limit it is against the philosophy and spirit of
> > Fedora.
> 
> Jan, Zarafa in the Open Source version does not support outlook!
> And it is not about Outlook or Zarafa marketing!

So is it "open core" or "open source"? Mind to explain for dummies,
cause now I am confused. Is there two of them?

> 
> > But that is not my call. As Zarafa is in the repos, I am sure this
> > aspect has been throughly checked.
> 
> why mention it then ;)
> 
> > But as outlook integreation is a strong selling point for Zarafa, our
> > users will expect this functionality to work. If it doesn't do that, we
> > have a problem. 
> 
> It is about Fedora Users! The Users expect the Zarafa Open Source Framework 
> and this is what they get. With all features! 
> 
> > And that is why I am not supportive of promoting it
> > beyond the fact that Zarafa is in the repo.
> 
> We should not discourage the idea to have a good symbioses with other vendors.
> The Framework is working and can be used with all Features that a Fedora User 
> is able to use. 

It seems to me that this is a very grey area. 

> 
> We should be proud that we are the "first" and only who have zarafa build by 
> ourself in our own infrastructure and not from zarafa itself. It was the 
> community who felt the need to have it in fedora and they made all the work 
> together with Zarafa - and Zarafa even changed licences. 
> 
> Zarafa is in Fedora and it is a success-story and we should be proud, it 
> reflects perfectly 
> 
> freedom:
> freedom to use a Enterprise Groupware without the need to use probrietary 
> connectors or clients



> 
> features:
> the only real working FOSS Groupware with a perfect full featured FOSS 
> Webinterface


> 
> first:
> we are first and only who ship zarafa inside the distribution
> 
> friends:
> it is done by a close symbiosis between 
> Ambassadors (it was me who made started the effort two years ago) 
> Packagers (it was Robert and Jeroen who stand up and made the all the work)
> Vendor (it was Zarafa who helped and showed will to learn and even changed 
> licences for us!)
> 
> cu Joerg
> 
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