Just a quick mail to say that I agree a lot with what Andreas said in his mail: I also think we need to do tech marketing a lot more (but it's everyone's duty to do so, not specifically Ludovic's):
* have xwiki talks at more conferences (by xwiki devs and by users) * have more blogs about xwiki out there * have more articles on xwiki * have books on xwiki ;) * have xwiki installs at more known forges (we're already on ow2): apache, codehaus, etc * have xwiki in standard linux distributions * move to github for easier forking/contributions * push xwiki artifacts to central * make xwiki more easily reusable by other projects to spread the brand: that's what we're doing with XWiki Rendering and XWiki Commons I also agree that I'd prefer to see way more stabilization of the xwiki platform (polishing, bug fixes, improvements of existing features) rather than add lots of new features. But I know Ludovic is aware of that and it's our collective duty (everyone here: devs, users, contributors) to balance stabilization vs new features. Thanks -Vincent On Mar 4, 2011, at 2:27 PM, Jerome Velociter wrote: > Hi Andreas, everyone > > On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 10:48 AM, Andreas Hahn <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I'm a bit surprised that you are just talking about features and not >> about moving from a niche product to get more mainstream. >> When I'm saying niche product I'm just referring to what google trends says. >> http://www.google.com/trends?q=xwiki%2C+foswiki%2C+twiki%2C+confluence > > "confluence" is a word of the English language, it makes this chart off by > far. > > This one would be a bit more relevant in my opinion : > http://www.google.com/trends?q=xwiki%2C+atlassian%2C+mindtouch&; but I > still don't think it means that much. > >> >> Well I think that almost all people on this mailing list like xwiki a >> lot and the hard and devoted work the developers are doing and all wish >> xwiki and its backing company all the best and a long and prosperous future. >> >> However I'm concerned when reading that the XWiki SAS 'Product >> Marketing' lead (and CEO) thinks that it helps the product to get more >> involved as a developer. >> IMHO a product marketing lead should have totally different priorities. > > Ludovic will probably answer this for himself, but as a quick remark I > think you've misinterpreted his mail. He doesn't say he will come back > as a developer, but only as a Product Marketing lead, thus working > close to developers and the community, because, well, that's how > (real) open source software is developed. > >> >> IMHO its a misconception to think that more features will help the >> product to attract a greater audience. >> >> Just a few things that come to my mind: >> >> * Push xwiki into as many linux distros as possible with 'one click >> installers' >> * Create ready-to-go images for popular cloud hosters (such as Amazon EC2) >> * Talk to as much hosters and push them to introduce XWiki as part of >> their offerings. >> * Make it simple and attractive for people currently using other >> software (Wordpress comes to my mind) to move to the more powerful XWiki > > I think this vision is not complete. > Cloud and hosted software got a lot of attention lately, but in-house > software is not dead yet. Maybe in a couple of years in-house will > mean "deployed on a private cloud", but we are still far from here, we > would have first to see a complete, mature, open source cloud solution > emerge, and have organizations deploy it on their infrastructures. I > think we are speaking of half a decade here, so we have time to try > and not miss that train :) > In the mean time, I think XWiki's greatest challenge is to become the > de-facto standard in the enterprise open source stack when speaking > collaboration. Right now we are not badly positioned when speaking of > "collaborative edition/redaction". We need to affirm this position and > push it further to "collaboration" in a larger meaning (without trying > to be the solution to everything or a social network tool, because > that's not what XWiki is). > > Now I agree with you, it would be of course a good thing to have the > EC2 distribution, the VMWare images and be present in more online > offerings etc. Just I think it's not absolutely critical versus making > XWiki a product so great that it just becomes a logical choice for > collaboration. > > I also agree having easy installs on linux would be great to increase > visibility. But as a I understand, the cost of packing java apps for > linux is quite high. This is why you don't see packages even for > popular java (web) applications. > Trying to replace all blogs out there by XWiki is not going to help > too much IMHO. Even if we geeks like it to use our toy for absolutely > everything, for the rest of the world, XWiki remains mainly a > professional software for doing collaborative edition. > > That was my 2 cents. Not trying to just "defend my turf" as one of the > developer of XWiki, but rather trying to balance the vision that says > we need to be very strong on the web / commercial clouds to win. There > already have been some success stories of open source end-user > applications (in the sense: not infrastructure apps) a la Alfresco, > Liferay, Zimbra, etc. I think XWiki is a candidate for such, even if > we are not there yet. The important part in my opinion is building a > great product, the rest will come naturally. That's why having strong > product marketing with Ludovic being active on features investigation > and design make sense and will be a good thing in my opinion. > > Jerome. > >> >> I may be paranoid but I wonder if we will see XWiki survive the next >> couple of years if its not gaining momentum in the big world. >> >> just my 2 cents >> >> Andreas >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Am 03.03.2011 14:21, schrieb Ludovic Dubost: >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> As many of you may know, 7 years ago, I created the XWiki Open-Source >>> software. A few years ago, especially when Vincent arrived, I took a >>> step back from development of the XWiki product to focus on >>> developping XWiki SAS which allows to support the XWiki development. >>> I've particularly spent my time making sure that the deployments of >>> XWiki our Customers have been doing are successfull. I've left the >>> product development work to committers who under the lead of Vincent >>> have done amazing work in the last few years. We have provided some >>> product marketing in addition through Guillaume's and lately Gregory's >>> work which allowed to bring some feedback from users and customers and >>> also bring a different less technical perspective to the XWiki Product >>> development. Cati also joined the team and allowed us to make huge >>> steps forward in product usability and design. >>> >>> Now, as XWiki SAS's project implementation team is doing great work on >>> it's own, I've decided to involve myself more in the future of XWiki's >>> product. I'm now the new XWiki SAS 'Product Marketing' head which >>> means I will involve myself in community discussions about the product >>> features actively developped, investigated for future development as >>> well as in general discussions about the XWiki Software's future. I >>> will try to bring the knowledge that XWiki SAS's customer, project >>> managers, support team bring us from using XWiki in production >>> environments to the community so that we make better decisions, more >>> focused on developments that will allow to increase XWiki's success >>> with end users. At XWiki SAS we have already done a lot of work to >>> organize this feedback so that we know more things that XWiki SAS's >>> developers and the XWiki community should work on. >>> >>> In the next few weeks you will therefore see me work on the >>> investigations of future features as well as work more closely with >>> developers whenever they feel the need on the features they implement >>> actively. I will also manage the different surveys we have done in the >>> past to gather feedback from our community. These surveys have still >>> been running on the xwiki.org web site although they are now quite >>> outdated. I will propose to review them and launch them again. >>> >>> If users or developers have any feedback about XWiki, about what we >>> should work on in priority, please do send that feedback on the list >>> (preferably). Although we have a much bigger list of great ideas than >>> what we currently can achieve, you can help us on helping us select >>> the most important ones that will make a difference. >>> >>> I would like to use this occasion to thank our great community of >>> developers and users who help the committers every day to make XWiki >>> better. We could not do this without all the suggestions, ideas, >>> patches that our community provides. >>> >>> Thanks >>> Ludovic _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
