Advertising "open core" software

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:01:39AM -0700, Robyn Bergeron wrote:
> 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 :)

I made appropriate changes to the talking points and the release notes
to change the name to 'Zarafa Open Source edition,' so it will be very
clear that what we're shipping is a 100% FOSS codebase.

No disagreement with anything you said here, Robyn -- just wanted to
note that I had made these changes so they're as transparent as the
rest of the process.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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