Hi Jason I'm glad your meeting went well. I view this post of yours as a positive endorsement of the project and greatly appreciate your candour.
You hit several nails on the head; yes, we are overwhelmed with the response and it has taken quite some time to come to terms with what is expected of us both from a community standpoint and as a commercial vendor of support and services surrounding the project. The fact of the matter is that the project is too big for us to deal with on our own if we're to continue providing timely responses to general community user requests. We need further assistance from the community - not just in testing and reporting of bugs etc (which is great, however this requires resources to handle adequately), but actual contributions in the form of user help, code, bug-fixing, documentation etc... Otherwise, as has been the case, we have to focus resources more on paying customers... The forums have been a boon as I see quite a number of veteran users frequently providing help to newbies as the user base grows. So we need more of this. A great way to ease the burden on ourselves is to build a reseller / service provider network; to that end, we have been working behind the scenes on trying to get this up and running. I'm pleased to report that this is progressing at a rapid pace. The other point which needs addressing is to do with the technical direction of the project and what's happening with the release. For all intents and purposes the current beta release, updated to the latest package set, is production ready. There are a few, mostly minor, bugs here and there but for the vast majority of users you're pretty much good to go. We'll be making an announcement shortly WRT to Openfiler letting you in on changes that will greatly accelerate our ability to push out updates and releases at a better pace than has been the case. In the meantime any assistance to the project that community members are able to provide would be most welcome. Please subscribe to the openfiler-devel mailing list if you are able and willing ;). KR Rafiu Fakunle Openfiler Project ----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Several people have sent me emails about my meeting with Openfiler > and > have asked me to comment on it. > > At first I was reluctant to do so as the sales person from Xinit had > ask > me not to, and told me she would ask people at Xinit to post a > message > telling us all what was happening. > > I have to say I am both mystified and disapointed this has not > happend. > > Consequenly I am posting my understandings and impression from the > meeting I had. > > Firstly it seems fair to say that Xinit are overwhelmed by the > response > to Openfiler and are working very hard on the next version. The > developers are so confident of the products future that they are in > the > process of setting up a division in India with the express aim of > speeding up development. > > Xinit and Voluna are two legally seperate companies, Xinit and Voluna > share 1 common director, and Xinit have in effect been incubating > Voluna, Voluna will appear and will be offering all sorts of service > and > add ons. > > The staff, developers etc at Xinit are clearly very proud of what > they > have created in Openfiler and there are no plans to do anything other > than stay 100% commited to Openfiler. > > Commercial support is available, and is avaible for $300 per > installation per year. > > In truth the impression I have is of a small local even family > company > that has suddenly found itself playing a world wide game and not > being > an also ran, but a key player and frackly whilst overwhelmed they are > trying to step up to the plate. > > I continue to think that they do themselves and Openfiler > immeasurable > harm by not keeping their website up to date, and the continued > reluctance to engage with the community (and to answer simple > questions > about Voluna etc) make them appear dodgy. Also having checked with > Companies House both Xinit and Voluna are late with their filing, > which > for small privately held UK companies is not that unusual, but again > doesn't help with image making. > > However, it is my intention to move forward with Openfiler and > commercial support from Xinit. > > Hope this helps those that wanted to know > Jason > _______________________________________________ > Openfiler-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openfiler.com/mailman/listinfo/openfiler-users _______________________________________________ Openfiler-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openfiler.com/mailman/listinfo/openfiler-users
