[OOTB-hive] OOTB concepts: mission and code of practice
Heiko Robert
heiko.orderofthebee.info at ecm4u.de
Wed Aug 20 10:57:39 BST 2014
Dear bees,
I read the whole OOTB-hive emails and have some feedback:
MISSION
I think it is very important to have a clear mission which is
transparent, visible and published. I had so many discussions with
customers, developers, analysts about the Alfresco community
understanding. Most people mismatch Open Source with working all
together and for free. As for now the perception in the market is: there
is no real Alfresco community - there is only a free Alfresco Community
Edition which is maintained by Alfresco only - similar to Magento,
Sugar, Zimbra, ... The main difference to these other examples is the price.
I always say: don't blame for missing features and bugs in the Community
Edition - it's a gift! Love it or leave it ... we can help and support
you to create robust solutions. We (ecm4u) never make a recommendation
for EE or CE or bash on EE - this conclusion has everyone to find out
for itself - but what we can do is to clarify the facts. Sales (Alfresco
or Partners) very often tell tall stories and it would help if there is
a independant voice.
So I would be happy if this is a starting point to found a real
independant community pushing the Alfresco platform in any flavor and to
discuss models how to put professional work together to create better
solutions. It would be the best live insurance for Alfresco Community
Edition if Alfresco Inc realizes there will allways be the option to
continue as an independant fork if Alfresco changes its mind. Oracle can
can sing a song about this with libreoffice and mariadb. But for now the
community is not that far and we should clarify our position to this and
were we want to go. If some day a fork is an option we need to
understand that someone has to pay for all the required developers. But
as long Alfresco doesn't change its mind there is no need to follow this
idea.
I worked for Oracle several years and I prefer a mission similar to DOAG
(http://www.doag.org/en/ - the german oracle user group). This is a
registered association and their members have different roles: expert
members, members, professional members, employees, sponsors, ... Their
events have an excellent reputation and Oracle is doing well to promote
this oranisation.
If Oracle or Alfresco organizes and pays the party all the vistors know
what to expect. Both models have definitely its reason to exist but
noone would expect a presentation as mentioned by Andreas (the Magento
Enterprise bashing). This doen't mean that I follow this kind of
discussion but I appreciate a vital competition which is always helpful.
A reallity shower can help everyone from time to time ... ;-)
To make the long story short:
I would vote for:
* OOTB should be postioned as a independant, visible moderator and as an
organisation of Alfresco Experts, Customers, Partners. Alfresco
employess can contribute content, feedback, working time but should
never have an active role or vote - otherwise it will never be independant.
* the organisation should be open for comercial interests but this
should always be visible and shouldn't be mismatched. OOTB needs budget
for doing its job. So we we need an idea how to sponsor our mission.
* ECM and Alfresco is nothing just for fun. It would be great if we
could combine this but we should present ourself as a professional
organization which is also visible for the end users: the companies and
the ISVs - but these companies don't care about t-shirts, drinking beer,
they prefer solutions, expertise and skills - so the mission should have
also an answer to this. This should be also reflected in the
accessability of the organization (PR, internet presentation, official
speaker, ...).
* OOTB could be an excellent platform to organize and moderate the
requirement specs, creation, maintainance of missing features - no
difference if it will be open or closed source, if the result will be
for free or not. We have to be creative to find out working models which
work long term.
* I would prefer a better name which includes Alfresco in any way. OOTB
is complicated, long and nobody sees a relation to Alfresco and the
mission. The name could be a slogan but only insiders understand what is
the story about. Transparency should be also a subject for the name -
otherwise we will have allways the smell of geeks, nerds and complicated
people.
I think a clear mission is very important and should be documented as a
very first step to avoid misunderstandings, disappointment or
misunderstandings
Cheers
Heiko
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