[OOTB-hive] Office Hours Questions

[Richard Esplin]

Thank you for your great suggestions! This is the list of questions I am going 
to send Doug in preparation for Friday. I tried to include all of the 
questions you asked here.

* I removed most references to Order of the Bee. I have no objection to the 
order coming up during the conversation, but I don't want it to become a focus 
of the session; I have already introduced it to Doug. I want to focus on the 
issues behind the Order, and I tried to preserve those bigger issues in the 
questions.

* The email gate for downloading community edition will include an opt-out 
before Summit (our web team is on a big project that will take through the end 
of the month). I left the question because I think it is good for him to hear.

* My focus has been internal education of  both the management team and other 
staff on open source and how it assists our business model. I agree with the 
concerns listed here, and am working to correct them.

* Due to your efforts, we haven't missed a tech talk live yet (we are planning 
to skip September and October in favor of Summit, as in previous years). But I 
am certainly doing less in the forums, mailing lists, office hours, etc. So I 
re-worded that question.

Let me know if I missed any questions, or mis-characterized anything.

Thanks,

Richard

----

DOUG'S BACKGROUND:
* What did you know about Open Source before you joined Alfresco? What have 
you learned since then?

COMMUNITY:
* We sometimes get the impression that Alfresco management does not recognize 
the contributions of the Alfresco community. What is your overall impression 
of the Alfresco community? Do you think it is useful?

* How do you think members of the Alfresco community can be a driving force to 
organize and promote the Alfresco Community?

* How can we encourage Alfresco partners to support the Alfresco community, 
including those who use Community Edition?

* Can we invite Alfresco engineers to give talks, with their participation 
being sponsored by Alfresco Inc? It seems that recently Alfresco has not 
approved employees traveling to meet-ups as often as they used to.

COMMUNITY TEAM:
* What is in the future for the community team? Jeff left, and his tasks were 
spread out between existing people or put on hold. Richard is more busy than 
ever. 

* Since the community team was reduced by 50%, we have seen that the frequency 
of Office Hours drop, and there is less of a presence in the forums and other 
properties. Are there any plans to get more people in the community team?

*  Why is Richard "Head of Community" instead of "Chief Community Officer"?

* Richard and Jeff were both in the US, so unable to focus on  Europe as much 
as desired. The community is much stronger in  Europe than it is in the US, so 
this was a gap. Would be nice to hire someone on the community team in Europe.

* How can Alfresco support local communities? Can Alfresco support communities 
in countries other than the US and Western Europe?

* Can we get more Alfresco swag?

OPEN SOURCE:
* Another subject is the worry that is in the community. We fear that Alfresco 
will be closed off, or that we see critical features being enterprise only. Why 
does the community users have to live in fear of these things?

* Do you see Alfresco Community Edition as a threat to Enterprise Edition 
sales?

* What sort of ecosystem would you like to see around Alfresco Community 
Edition? What do you think of efforts by the Alfresco community to self 
organize and provide governance and support for Alfresco Community Edition? 
(This is Order of the Bee: http://orderofthebee.github.io/)

* Many of us are interested in guaranteeing the existence of Alfresco 
Community edition as a free/libre open source solution for document 
management. Does Alfresco see this as a threat, or does the company recognize 
how our efforts benefit them?

* Peter Löfgren (Loftux) requested a public promise about the future of 
Community Edition:
"I'm therefore looking for a Community promise from Alfresco Software Inc.
- Any features/functionality available today will remain available
- Any features/functionality available today will remain on par with
Enterprise
- Any new features/functionality added to Community will be bound by the
Community Edition promise”

* It seems all engineers we talk to support the open source strategy. They 
live and breathe open source. However, when hearing from sales and management 
I get the feeling that “open source” is just a thing that looks good on paper, 
but they really don’t care, and they would *never* even talk to the community 
users and they really don’t know what that “open sauce” is all about. Does 
open source matter to you personally? And how do you think that opinion 
propagates down the ladder in the company?

* What is up with the email gate for downloading Community Edition? If users 
and potential new customers want to try out your product, you do not need to 
stalk them by requiring their contact info. Fine, if they want the Enterprise 
Trial, but for Community Edition?