Hi
It's good to hear some community feedback on this, so thanks for the post.
> One could follow an example from mailborder or mailarchiva or magento they
> placed their ee edition under a beta with a trial license (free) once the
> product reached stability and a complete feature set +/- 12months the
> product became commercial only.
This is not our experience with our present vendor. We have been repeatedly
pushed onto newer releases only to find that entirely new bugs are introduced
along new features, which although nice to have, we would happily do without
in favour of maintaining application stability. Consequently we have yet to
experience a "stable" version, even though we pay a premium to use it.
I have experience with Mailarchiva, and it's trial versions are not "free". You
have a limited time in which to use the product, where after it's features are
locked and you have to pay to unlock the features you want. Thereafter you find
yourself hopping from one broken version to the next, trying to fix bugs by
upgrading to the "latest stable release" complete with it's own broken code.
This is the kind of scenario I would like to see Piler avoid - where features are
more important that application stability.
I agree with your example though, that the EE edition could be "free" in beta
until the features required by an EE edition are stable and enterprise ready.
We are not looking for a free ride - we just want a reliable, stable, scalable
enterprise quality solution and are happy to pay to use it - as long as it is
providing a stable, well tested code base.
On your Di-Data observation, it doesn't work that way. Synaq has to generate
it's own funding and therefore has much tighter budgetary constraints than you
imply. That being said, we are open to discussions around funding of Piler
development.
Like I said, we are not looking for a free ride. We know developers have to make
a living and are prepared to accommodate that.
> The only real people that get hurt buy the ee edition are smaller companies,
> however the ce edition would still offer enough value at the price point even
> if it lacks features.
I wouldn't like to see anyone getting hurt by the EE edition, which is why
I would like to see Piler retaining a free to use (CE) edition. Right now,
Piler's availability is one of the things it's got going for it. I think piler has
the potential to be a game changer and would like to see it going mainstream.
I wouldn't like to see it being pushed into a exclusive niche at all.
Regards
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: "Darryl Sutherland" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Janos SUTO" <[email protected]>, [email protected], "Sam Gelbart" <[email protected]>, "David Jacobson ([email protected])" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, 17 February, 2014 2:02:32 PM
Subject: Re: some future plans for piler, and a 10 question long survey
Well I look at it an entirely different way, can't compare the redhat/fedora model, and if you want to ... Ask yourself what happend to RedFlag Linux.
The majority of software solutions has an ce and ee edition, the developers need to make money and you guys and providers want a specific set of features.
One could follow an example from mailborder or mailarchiva or magento they placed their ee edition under a beta with a trial license (free) once the product reached stability and a complete feature set +/- 12months the product became commercial only.
Let's look at dimension data (parent company of synaq) a company that makes and spends many millions on mail archiving, surely it's only fair for them to be able to pay for an ee edition which they would rebrand and resell to their clients and be making money from ?
This cash injection would allow the mailpiler project to hire more developers and grow.
The only real people that get hurt buy the ee edition are smaller companies, however the ce edition would still offer enough value at the price point even if it lacks features.
> On 17 Feb 2014, at 1:24 PM, Darryl Sutherland <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Janos
>
> Your announcement to introduce a commercial edition of Piler is exciting.
> However, I would like to offer some observations on this subject.
>
> If you look at many mainstream open source organisations, you will find
> that they do successfully offer OSS and Commercial packages. However,
> the CE packages tend to be more bleeding edge and feature rich than the
> commercial versions. This is because the commercial users are prepared to
> pay for package stability and commercial support as opposed newer features,
> many of which have not yet completely finished testing and development. So
> the CE versions are where new features are developed and tried out, in return
> for which the CE usage is free. Mature code from the CE edition is then
> incorporated into the EE edition - which offers enterprise features,
> package stability and commercially licensed support.
>
> As such, I would recommend that we consider the existing changes as initial
> development of the CE edition. Once CE multitenant has reached a reasonable
> stage of stability and development, we can take the stable code and package
> it as the EE offering which will generate revenue for you.
>
> Having to already pay for an "EE" solution which is constantly changing,
> always in development and consequently fraught with buggy behaviour is
> actually the main reason why we are investigating Piler right now. I think
> forking Piler into a commercial package which has it's own development path
> will also inject the same problems we have with our current commercial vendor.
>
> What we, and most other commercial institutions want from an EE model is stability
> first of all, and commercial support second. An off the cuff example of the
> above would be Redhat Fedora vs Rehat Enterprise Linux.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Darryl Sutherland
> Senior Linux Administrator
> <logo-image.png>
> E: [email protected]
> T: +27 (0)11 262 3632
> F: +27 (0)86 637 8868
> W: www.synaq.com
> <pic-1.png> <pic-2.png> <pic-3.png>
>
>
> PS: Download our free whitepaper on email archiving best practices here!
>
> Support: +27 (0)11 262 3628 | +27 (0)861 0 SYNAQ
> Block D, Sandhavon Office Park, Pongola Crescent, Eastgate Ext. 4, Sandton
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Janos SUTO" <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Sent: Sunday, 16 February, 2014 12:17:07 PM
> Subject: some future plans for piler, and a 10 question long survey
>
>
> Dear piler-users,
>
> piler has started as an open source email archiving project, and I
> believe
> that it's a worthy candidate from the short list of the available open
> source
> solutions.
>
> Recently I've been working on adding an improved multitenancy support
> for piler,
> and in the meantime I've been thinking whether to release a commercial
> version
> of piler, an enterprise edition or similar as well.
>
> If I succeed with this, then piler will have two editions, a community
> edition
> (CE), and an enterprise edition (EE).
>
> The plan is to keep improving the CE version, as well as to create a
> value added
> version (EE) with some useful features for enterprises or service
> providers.
>
> I'd like to clarify that I don't want to disappoint you by dumbing down
> the next
> CE version, and moving most of the attracting features to the EE
> edition.
>
> However I'd like to get a better understanding of your needs,
> expectations, and
> how you use piler, so I fabricated a 10 question long survey, and I'd
> like you
> to provide some feedback.
>
> Please find the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W7WRG7C
>
> If you think that some questions should be discussed on the list, then
> feel free
> to share your comments here.
>
> Thanks for completing the survey,
> Janos
