Robert Neuschul wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Organisation: Imagineering Technologies Ltd, UK
X-URL: http://www.imagine.co.uk
Rafiu
Correct. But then we didn't design and develop Openfiler to meet the
needs of a single person. Rather it meets the needs of a class of user.
Very well, in fact, I might add. What you should ask yourself is whether
you consider yourself to fall within that class. If the answer is 'no'
then continuing this debate would just be a waste of network bandwidth ;).
Then the web site and the docs need to make exceptionally clear what the
boundary conditions are in order that people *can* ask that question in a
meaningful fashion before they get as far as an installation.
It is plain impossible to predict every single "requirement" that a
person may have before they consider using a piece of software. My reply
above is taken out of context as it is in response to a specific point -
which was:
"I've found highly customized code to be a two-edged sword.
It's great if the author did exactly what you need and
the need never changes."
I don't see what marketing information we could put on our website that
would apply to this short of saying - and i'm being cheeky here ;) - "if
you find highly customized code to be a two-edged sword and you expect
us to do exactly what you need even when your needs change, then don't
use Openfiler". If you just stumbled upon Openfiler one day and saw this
page (http://www.openfiler.com/about/), I doubt you'd be under any
illusions as to what Openfiler is meant to do. Yeah the marketing is not
perfect. But after reading, there is only *one* other way to find out
whether it will meet your needs and that is to try it out. Even where
you have customer testimonials and what not, they can only go so far as
no two individuals will have identical perspectives.
We're saying ' here's the software, here's what it does. If you find it
useful then use it'. In the original responses to your posts, I had no
idea you were looking at this from a marketing perspective until you
said so explicitly. The original question was raised to users of the
software asking what the *software* was worth to them. Not how spiffy
our website was - so for a while we were talking above each other
completely. Of course we have plans to improve the site and the
marketing information on it. But I daresay that most Openfiler users
don't spend most of their time browsing www.openfiler.com - rather
they're more interested in what the software is able to do for them at
any given point. Our emphasis has always been on developing the product
and improving its functionality and that has borne out in what folks are
able to take advantage of now.
At the moment, they can only ask and answer that question properly /after/
they have installed and tested OF for themselves, which is a *very* bad
marketing situation:
Nothing you could ever say in a marketing document, video, presentation,
etc. would ever compensate for actually trying out the product yourself.
*Nothing*. You could in fact end up in a situation where you go OTT with
the marketing, raise the prospect's expectations to such a high level,
after which you are unable meet those expectations because the product
simply doesn't live up to the hype. You get that with movies all the
time - Da Vinci code anyone? ;).
it means that many of those who answer no and reject OF
after installation and testing are going to be pissed at the waste of their
time,
You mean as opposed to reading slick marketing docs, parting with their
money and then finding out that the thing doesn't do what they want it
to? Product demos are the only way to convince yourself definitively
that you actually have the solution (or as near as) you require at hand.
with unpredictable consequences for OF's reputation.
If you use OF and find it lacking in some way, all you gotta do is
request a bug fix/feature enhancement. When the developers are able to
get round to fixing/implementing it, they will. Nothing new there. Many
features in 2.0 came about *directly* as a result of what people
requested. Compared to other FOSS application software I've used (and
i'm a big consumer of and contributor to FOSS) I'd say OF ranks way up
there in terms of the ease with which you can determine whether it will
fit your needs or not.
I think we've gone off on a slightly different tangent from where I'd
hoped we'd be wrt to my question about pricing of the software. But the
debate has been useful nonetheless as it's focused on what the community
perceives to be lacking right now from the project and what you would
like to see happen.
KR
Rafiu Fakunle
Openfiler Project
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