I think if we had a "Help Wanted"
section on the website, where we could
"De-aggregate"/"Breakdown" requests such as this
it would help a lot too.
Cheers,
- Ole
Alex Karasulu wrote:
Hi all,
OK I'm joking a bit about the title but we need someone to keep and eye
out and start thinking about how to spread the word about Apache
Directory products. We've got a lot of good stuff here and we don't
market our goods. Other analogous products out there are being
plastered all over the place and many features are publicized when some
boast more about vaporware then existing software. Of course we will do
no such thing but marketing what we do have is a good idea IMHO.
We're not in the business of competing with others but just about having
fun. However I get a bit irritated when people put down our project.
Someone recently told me that a high level person at SUN involved with
OpenDS said at a major conference that they're going to plow right over
us because we have no marketing behind our product or no roadmap. I
wonder why they made no mention of features instead to be the deciding
factor :). The comments made were something to the effect of we're just
having fun building it: which is true in that respect. The product of a
labor of love goes much further IMO than something you just get paid to
do. Anyways it does not hurt to spread the word about ApacheDS, LS and
Triplesec.
We could post more on various mailing lists, forums like
freshmeat/slashdot, TSS, ldapguru, wikipedia and other sites not to
mention blogging about the features we introduce into these products. I
think all of us in the community have something we can do. No one
person can do it alone however it would be nice to have someone thinking
about and feeling out how we are doing it and keeping tabs on this
aspect of our project. We don't really have this kind of role at Apache
however IMO I think it's a shortcoming. Companies like SUN have
dedicated paid personal focused specifically on these aspects. It's
time for the role to emerge here.
So is anyone interested in volunteering to help us in these capacities?
(1) keep an eye on the pulse of Apache Directory products out there on
the Internet
(2) prodding us to blog more and spread the word more
(3) coming up with new ideas on how to increase Directory product uptake
(4) making sure every significant release has some press
(5) keep an eye out for new features introduced by other products that
will be worth while in ours
(6) tracking AD product uptake by users and getting their feedback
Thanks,
Alex
