R. Scott Perry wrote:
This doesn't affect me at all, but it causes me pause. If that's the way that they and you want to run their business, that's your prerogative.
I personally think that it is the best way to transition a business. Again, we should focus on the *next* project, rather than this one. The most important question is whether the issues that are being brought up here are addressed in the next project. If not, there is serious cause for concern; if so, this project has helped bring the new management to the level we all want to see them at.
In this case I'm mostly concerned that this got out the door and the environment that allowed for that. The idea is very honorable, but using the data that you have, I'm pretty sure that it's impractical to implement without spending much more time on it. There are other issues such as privacy that I'm not comfortable with either. If you are going to gather information from our systems and use this information for other purposes such as this, you should put a strict privacy policy in place and allow people to opt-out without turning off their forging virus detection capabilities. In this case, I worry that any of my clients that might have sent a virus is now listed in your database and potentially being blocked by other admins, and I would prefer that my data not be used in this test since it is not accurate and could cause issues for my customers. I think that it's my responsibility to look after this data since it came from my service, but I have had no input on how it is used. The new management should be more conscious of such things, and I think this would be expected in this industry to have an opt-in policy with a disclaimer about it's use. I share my data with Sniffer, although it is not personally identifiable, and it's my choice as to whether or not to share it.
As a customer, I'm taken back by not only the release, but also by your response, and I'm very disappointed that there now seems to be a large disconnect between those that are calling the shots, and your customers.
Would you mind elaborating on this a bit? What do you think could be done to improve the situation?
I would recommend pulling the test by emptying the zone. Like you said, there are a lot of admins that don't know how to actually administrate, and they are likely to just install this test and forget about it. I'm a bit alarmed by the lack of corrective action here, and personally I don't believe that you can make accurate use of this data without a process such as the one used by CBL that limits nominations by way of reverse DNS patterns, and that will take time (proving me wrong would also be fully acceptable). So while I believe that it was a mistake that it got out the door in the first place, I think it's also a mistake not to react to it more aggressively. This doesn't affect me, but it is telling so far as how well the new management understands the environment, and how responsive they are to their customers needs. I believe the proper recommendation would be to not install this test at this time, am I incorrect about that?
As far as improving the situation goes, there are a lot of things that make me feel uncomfortable, primarily because it seems like we're still talking to you, but other people are calling the shots and doing development with seemingly little interaction from this community. If you look at the features added to Declude in the last year or so (my history here at least), it appears that all the major developments except for CMDSPACE came from interacting with people in this group, some of course more obvious than others, and given the new owner's inexperience in this market, it would make sense that they at least read the list and maybe ask questions. The isolation from the wealth of knowledge that exists here makes no sense to me.
I'm very much unsure now if the new owners are concerned enough about people like myself that are operating gateway services and seek a higher level of flexibility. I am guessing that they see more potential in the single domain/ISP type implementations and have bought into the idea that one must provide a GUI so that less experienced admins can make better use of the product, and that the power users needs may not justify to them the commitment or resources necessary to keep us happy. I wouldn't blame them for that choice if they made it, although I think that the brain trust of Declude to date has evolved as combination of yourself and those that participate on this list, and that represents both goodwill and intellectual value which is hard to measure in terms of revenue. If they are going to refocus their efforts on building a brainless application over a configurable application, I would really want to know because that will probably end up affecting my business. I'm completely in the dark about what the new management is thinking, and you have even started to give a lot more non-answers for one reason or another which worsens the anxiety that I have for the situation. Put that on top of making a series of bad decisions dealing with this one new feature, and I become even more uncomfortable. Do I want my system's capabilities to rely on the decisions being made in isolation by people that are less experienced with the technology than I am? I'm all for them learning on the job, but I think that you need to step up and provide them with more guidance, and get them involved with more of us so that they can learn more quickly, or learn from a group that is different from the ones that don't use this list for support as there is a big difference.
I can't disagree with a GUI going forward because it makes business sense, but I think they are putting the cart before the horse. Wouldn't it be much better to work on creating a new format for the config files that lends itself to a GUI and then create a GUI on top of that? You could add new features by releasing a combination of executable and a separate GUI application, and still allow power users to avoid the GUI system all together. ORF, although it is a crappy spam blocking product and probably always will be that way because they lack the experience at this level, does in fact have a good GUI that you might want to check out their free download. They use INI files for storing the data and have a standard type of Windows interface for this. If they are thinking about developing a gateway product and targeting a different platform, that information would be nice to know for a select few of us once the commitment has been made so that we can make better choices going forward. Same thing goes for any dramatic change in the way things work.
In the mean time, it would make sense to also spend some time tightening up loose ends which have not been getting that much attention. If you asked for everyone's top 5 list from around here at least, I'm pretty sure that it would include things besides a new DNSBL test on virus data with a GUI installer, or the GUI itself. Declude is very capable at the moment, but there are some loose ends that could be tied up over a short period of time that would really help finish the foundation. Voicing what those are in this list however would be a waste of time if those that are calling the shots aren't listening. Declude is very capable, but these loose ends I think would make the system tight and allow you to concentrate on building one feature at a time after that. I think that most of these things are related to better management of the application and obvious omissions as opposed to totally new functionality with the exception of URBL capability. If you want a list, I'll draft one for you, but I don't wish to bogart your time, and I have one request outstanding that I feel is my #1 wish and is widely sought by your customer base from what I can tell.
Since most of my messages need a summary, here it is...The new management has scared me with their choices so far that I am aware of, and I'm worried that they don't have enough experience in this market nor direction from you, and I'm very disappointed with the lack of involvement with the community here which I perceive as being a major component of what has shaped Declude to date. I expected some of this, but not to this degree.
Thanks,
Matt
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