If you want to get Dave up to speed faster, loan him to me for a month and I'll show him this side of things. Free room and board :)
But seriously, if they aren't ready for what gets said here, maybe they shouldn't be making certain decisions, designing installers and implementing RBL's quite yet? I wouldn't expect even the best and brightest to pick up on that stuff so fast. Being sheltered from it for a period of time probably makes sense, just not what they are doing as a whole, or at least without more guidance. They will take years in isolation for them to recognize the need for some of the things that get discussed here, especially since as you accurately point out, most don't even get the basics and these are the people that they interact with the most. These people are a good segment to spend more time accommodating than you have been able to traditionally, but they are just one side of the business.
I'm all for your GUI because I know it will make your business more successful even though it will probably be of no use to me at this point. I certainly could have used it in the beginning and I would have probably bought Declude earlier than I did. I'll bet that Dave might even be able to teach you a few things in that regard, and it would keep them out of playing with the executable for that much longer :)
Matt
R. Scott Perry wrote:
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.
The way I see it happening, there would be a cute install program and GUI interface -- but everything could still be manually configured. FWIW, I would have added an install program and GUI had I had time. You would be surprised how many people ask support "I just bought Declude JunkMail and it hasn't blocked any spam, what is wrong?", simply because they didn't change the default configuration (with the WARN action for all tests) to block spam. For every person on this list (who tends to be quite knowledgeable about computers, or working to get to that point), there are several off the list that either don't have the knowledge or don't have the time to learn about the configuration. The install program and GUI interface don't necessarily need to take away from advanced features (some of which have been getting added to interims over the past few months).
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.
That is exactly how I see it being done. :)
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.
FWIW, at this point, I am almost completely in charge of adding new features to Declude. Yes, management could "veto" my decisions about Declude, but they know that could be very risky.
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.
I'm working on that one. :)
-Scott
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