Advertising "open core" software

[Robyn Bergeron]

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 8:17 AM, Paul W. Frields <stickster at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 01:41:47PM +0200, Jan Wildeboer wrote:
>> On 04/15/2010 01:02 PM, Joerg Simon wrote:
>>
>> > "any fedora user" is able to use all the features that zarafa provides to all
>> > fedora-users!
>>
>> s/Zarafa/Zarafa Open Source version/g
>>
>> I do fear that if we promote Zarafa in our marketing material (Press
>> releases etc.) that do not *only* target existing Fedora users, it could
>> create a wrong impression.
>>
>> Zarafa is a brand, the version we ship is a product with some diferences
>> from the "official" versions presented at zarafa.com. If we point out
>> that disticntion, I am relaxed about promoting it.
>
> I don't see any problem with correcting the wording we're using.
> We can change this to "Zarafa Open Source edition."  Robert, does that
> sound OK to you?

I think that one of the distinctions we need to make here is the
following: We are not promoting each of these Talking Points /
Features individually.  The release notes do not serve as a platform
to promote / advertise for Zarafa, or for the IntelliJ IDEA IDE.

One-page release notes, alpha and beta announcements, talking points
and feature lists exist (among many other purposes, of course) to
promote Fedora - not the individual features. What we're doing is
providing a compelling -list- of features - in the hopes that people
will maybe switch to Fedora, or that existing Fedora users will give
them a try.   We're informing the user base of what is available, and
interesting.

In the case of Zarafa - provided we enhance the wording - I have no
issues with leaving it in our materials.  I feel even more strongly
about the IntelliJ IDEA IDE feature - provided we also highlight that
as being a community edition - we should always, always, always be
highlighting new developer tools; I, for one would prefer to see
people developing and contributing using Fedora as a springboard than
any other distro.

FWIW - the beauty of open source is that where these two companies are
doing "open core" - other people may step up and fill in those
paid-for gaps with true, open source solutions.  I also feel that part
of our work is to work with these companies to get them to open-source
everything - and inform them as to why it would benefit them - rather
than to simply say, "You're not meeting our standards."  We should
always try to show people the light.

In closing - I propose that we leave these two features included in
the release notes- with different wording highlighting that they are
the "community editions" (or whatever their official community-edition
naming is).  They are compelling features, both with enough features
of their own to make them useful for the majority of the User Base.
They're not "teasers" with limits.

I also propose that we mark this issue as something to be resolved in
the F14 cycle - namely, that we figure out what we want to do going
forward with open core features, and have it written down and set in
stone so that we don't have any surprises in future cycles.  By "we,"
I don't mean marketing - just Fedora in general, BTW.

And unless anyone has any disagreements with either of those proposals
- I suggest we close this thread and get back to F13 beta and final
awesomeness :)

-Robyn


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