Italo Vignoli <italo.vign...@gmail.com> wrote on 06/05/2011 07:30:43 AM:
. . . > So, after having read hundreds of emails discussing the merits of > different licenses and processes, concentrating on the geography where > the code should live (basically, US vs EU, or Delaware vs Germany), I am > asking a very simple question: what about end users? > > OOo has over 100 million of end users, who use the SW for their basic > needs (write a letter, produce an expense note, build slides, manage > their address book, and so on). > > What is going to happen to these guys, apart from the fact that if they > prefer to use OOo over LibreOffice - which is perfectly acceptable - it > is still not clear (but here I might just have missed some bit of info) > if and when they will be able to install a new version of the SW? > > I understand - but I might be wrong - that ASF is not used to deal with > such a huge end user base (actually, the third in terms of absolute size > after MS Windows and MS Office). > I'd like us to think beyond the user base of OOo/LO today. I'd like us to think of the entire market for personal productivity editors, including users of MS Office, Corel WordPerfect, etc. Today, the vast majority of this market uses commercial office suite, e.g., MS Office. They pay for software licenses and get a supported product. A smaller number uses a pure open source office suite, e.g., OOo/LO. And some in a middle tier use a proprietary office suite built upon open source, e.g., StarOffice, Symphony. So three tiers: 1) Purely proprietary 2) Mixed 3) Purely open source The role of an Apache project is in that 3rd tier. There will be users who consume Apache product deliverables directly, and we'll have user forums, and documentation and FAQ's and various other resources to help them, just as OpenOffice.org has always done. There may also be third parties to take the tier 3 packages and bundle them with support packages, migration/deployment consulting services, training, etc. The mixed tier will consist of those products that take Apache OpenOffice and combine with it proprietary code and license it commercially. This might be for free (as in beer), like Symphony, or it might be sold. The entirely proprietary tier is not really any concern to this project. So my guess is what we're going to see over the next 5 years is that the middle tier will grow at the expense of the purely proprietary tier. Although there are certainly many individuals who are happy to get 48 hour turnaround on questions posted to a user forum, there is also a class of user, generally the enterprise user, that needs a phone number to call for immediate support, who needs to have a critical patch delivered to them on short notice, who needs additional customization services. All of this should be familiar to Apache members. This kind of ecosystem to support users is common with many Apache projects. This market-driven approach works quite well in practice. The users who need premium support have ways of getting it, and those who invest their time in the project and gain great expertise have a way of earning some money from that expertise, by developing products and services in the middle tier. So I agree that supporting end users is critical, but I think the way that this is done in practice, does not necessarily require great centralized planning. We're not a proprietary product that requires that we do 100% of the support. We can allow and encourage the ecosystem to fill in some of these pieces. So net, I think the level of end user resources we have currently on OpenOffice.org web site will be our start. And we'll expect that mixed tier offerings will offer premium support/services. Regards, -Rob --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
