A few points on this very interesting thread:
- competition: competition is good and it should be
maintained. I don't see a need to segment the market through
some sort of agreement between OpenACS vendors. First it
would be bad for clients because they would lose choice, and
the whole point of open-source is choice of vendor. Second, it
would be horrible for all of us because it would make us look
like there is a hidden conspiracy between OpenACS vendors.
That is the last thing clients want to see. Sometimes we'll
compete (Furfly, OpenForce, Ybos, MuseaTech have competed
at various points). Sometimes we'll work together (MuseaTech
and OpenForce have made one joint proposal, and Furfly and
OpenForce will soon work together on a project.... stay tuned).
This is healthy.
- documentation: lots of talk about this. Let's write it! You don't need to ask for permission or put forth grand plans of what needs to be done: go ahead and write it. Take example on Don and Roberto who have just gone ahead and written significant documentation because they knew they had specific knowledge to share. If you know you can do something that's not explained
clearly on openacs.org, write it and send it in!
- marketing: our biggest mistake so far is that we pitch
OpenACS as the product. ecommerce? use OpenACS. KM? Use
OpenACS. eLearning? Use OpenACS. We know OpenACS can
solve these problems, but it's bad marketing. Instead, we should
have specific solutions for each vertical, solutions which can be
footnoted as "powered by OpenACS." This will allow each vendor
to focus on and develop marketing materials for each vertical
that they are specifically interested in. Companies should
develop marketing materials, not some volunteer organization.
- more frequent news updates: just submit news and I will
approve news items that are relevant!
