[OOTB-hive] CE looking bad?

Richard Esplin richard.esplin at alfresco.com
Thu May 21 20:10:59 BST 2015


The JetBrains example is a really useful comparison.

I don't think very visually, so I find examples like that really useful. I'll 
share it with my team next chance I get.

Cheers,

Richard

On Thursday, May 21, 2015 21:06:41 Andreas Steffan wrote:
> Gabriele,
> 
> I am also very concerned about the situation, and believe me: I very
> much appreciate what you and the other strong community supporters are
> working on. I am sure nobody doubts that you guys are true open source
> guys at heart. I really did not mean to offend you. But there is
> something clearly wrong here.
> 
> A virgin prospect googles "alfresco community vs enterprise", clicks the
> top hit and ends up on that page. Now have a look at
> https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/editions_comparison_matrix.html
> in contrast. Don't you agree that your marketing colleagues make the CE
> look really bad?
> 
> In fact, the reason I brought it up this morning was that my girl friend
> Sandra googled exactly that and ended up on that page asking  me: "You
> said the Alfresco guys are working on improving the community (edition),
> right? That page looks  different." I hated it, but had  to agree. Seems
> we are not alone.
> 
> And no doubt you guys have not seen a whole lot of community
> contributions. The community is still small and there are further
> reasons which make code contributions difficult. You Alfresco guys are
> working on it, but there is quite a bit of road ahead.
> 
> regards
> Andreas
> 
> On 05/21/2015 08:03 PM, Gabriele Columbro wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have to say I am again very concerned of these discussion and once
> > more puzzled by the lack of data driven considerations but a lot of 'i
> > have the feeling', 'i think', 'etc etc etc'.
> > 
> > That page existed on the Alfresco website for years so it's surprising
> > to me all this fuzz now.
> > 
> > Alfresco is open source and there are strong supporters of it in the
> > company so I have to say I feel personally offended by some of the
> > unfounded claims done in this thread and in general the most annoying
> > thing is this continuous referring to Alfresco as 'them' vs. the
> > community being 'us’. How does this leave people like me who are in
> > both and working to build a lively collaboration? Do you really want
> > to work together to govern this ecosystem or just be the 'opposition’?
> > (both very valid positions, but let’s just be clear here).
> > 
> > My perception might be biased, although all of you know I am an open
> > source and community supporter at heart, but I want to just mention a
> > couple of data points:
> > 
> > - until 6 months ago, Richard was the only person looking after the
> > community and only from a marketing standpoint. Now we have him to run
> > Community as a Product, from Product Management, while a Community
> > Marketeer was hired to cover the marketing side
> > 
> > - until 6 months ago, there was no Developer Platform team, pretty
> > much only me developing the SDK in my free time (and BTW other than
> > Ole, with very very little contributions): now I run that in PM, Ole
> > was hired to help evangelize and bridge, Martin and and engineering
> > team are dedicated to it
> > 
> > - more and more projects are open in jira and welcoming comments and
> > with release agility I am trying to also get our codebase to a state
> > where a seamless contribution process is possible (on top of having a
> > better QA, not worse, on GA releases of Community). This is the trend
> > we are trying to set within the new PM organization, all around
> > validation and an orchestrated, repeatable feedback process and
> > valuing community through different feedback channels (jira, office
> > hours, etc)
> > 
> > - I do sincerely think we (and I mean everyone, no us and them) should
> > have built years ago a much more collaborative process to accept
> > contributions, which I think it's a key vehicle to have a lively,
> > unified and productive community ecosystem. I want to believe this is
> > the main reason why almost 100% of the Alfresco code is written by
> > Alfresco employees and why instead there's never been substantial
> > Community contributions to the core product (other than the HTML5
> > previewer, for which Loftux needs to be widely recognized). Honestly
> > though, from the lack of help I received over the years on the SDK, I
> > also have some doubts on the maturity of this community on the process
> > needing to be two-ways (comparing for example with very different but
> > much more mature communities I belong to, e.g. The ASF)
> > 
> > - I would really like to understand where you feel Alfresco is
> > becoming less Community friendly? Is that because of AOS? Yes, I
> > agree, that was not dealt with in the best way from an expectation
> > standpoint, but was a tactical choice rather than indicating a bigger
> > change of strategy. The admin consoles? Human mistake, now reverted,
> > and solved structurally by adding a Community PM to guard on these
> > topics. What else am I missing? Can you please show me some data here
> > provide the trend is going in a different direction? (as I said I
> > might be biased, as I have access to all the internal WIP strategies
> > and but also very familiar with the stress our sales have to cope with
> > to sell enough and keep on delivering for free a large amount software
> > to the community).
> > 
> > I guess what I'd like to see here is a more positive spirit, from a
> > Community who is receiving for the last 10 years copious amount of
> > software, rather than always having this confrontational / entitlement
> > sense. I mean if 'we' are so bad, why we are all still here?
> > 
> > I do think there's room for monetizing Community as well as Enterprise
> > and the target audiences are completely different. Don't forget that
> > even in Enterprise deals, the slice of services sold around Alfresco
> > is typically 3 to 10 times higher, and with Community you guys have
> > the opportunity to monetize that fully.
> > 
> > All I am trying to say is: keep the feedback coming but also keep the
> > spirit and attitude up, because there are people that work inside
> > Alfresco to build on that spirit and get a better product (Community
> > and Enterprise) in a daily basis.
> > 
> > For example, I am working a lot to fix the extension model and
> > supportability of our APIs so to build a lively ecosystem everyone can
> > leverage, and I am trying to be as communicative as possible on this,
> > otherwise I fear that if we keep with this disconnect (us vs them),
> > the OOTB will go off an build something (e.g. the honeycomb) which is
> > based on an obsolete model we all know needs fixing.
> > 
> > The net net is: help “us” (Alfresco) help us (the Alfresco + Community
> > ecosystem)  :)
> > 
> > Hope this makes sense to all of you, and comes across the right way,
> > as my objective is to have an harmonious collaboration generating a
> > dynamo of positive effects (rather than a vicious spiral), if nothing
> > else for personal peace of mind in my dual role of Alfresco employee
> > and long standing community member :)
> > 
> > Thanks for taking the time to read this,
> > 
> > Gab
> > 
> > Sent from my iPhone
> > 
> > On May 21, 2015, at 9:39 AM, Cristina Martín Ruiz
> > <cristinamartinruiz at gmail.com <mailto:cristinamartinruiz at gmail.com>>
> > 
> > wrote:
> >> I'm agree with you, Andreas but when I wrote "to us" was concerning
> >> to their strategy: The value of the community has become "us": We are
> >> the ones that are continuing and trying to maintain that value... In
> >> my opinion, Alfresco is changing a lot their strategy, and I can be
> >> agree or not (this is other topic), but what I know is that OOTB is
> >> doing a good work in the community of Alfresco.
> >> 
> >> Sorry if I haven't explained well.
> >> 
> >> Cheers,
> >> 
> >> Cristina.
> >> 
> >> 2015-05-21 15:26 GMT+02:00 Andreas Steffan <a.steffan at contentreich.de
> >> 
> >> <mailto:a.steffan at contentreich.de>>:
> >>     On 05/21/2015 03:18 PM, Cristina Martín Ruiz wrote:
> >>>     > ... I don't quite understand/where they are trying to drive CE./
> >>>     
> >>>     To US, Andreas ;-)
> >>     
> >>     The product? Really? I thought it's just the conference going to
> >>     the US. ;)
> >>     
> >>     May the future enlighten me.
> >>     
> >>     cheers
> >>     Andreas
> >>     
> >>     
> >>     Achter Billing 14
> >>     22399 Hamburg
> >>     Germany
> >>     
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> >>     
> >>     http://www.contentreich.de
> >>     
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> >>     
> >>     
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