“RE: Help with Macrobyte's Future”

On 3/20/02, Brent Simmons said:

>1. Hosting is evil. Maybe that's just me. But people expect hosting
>to be very low cost if not free and they expect performance and
>uptime and quick response to trouble (or perceived trouble).
>
>When you're hosting you're also answering people's questions about
>the software -- How do I?... kind of questions. So you can't do
>hosting without software support.
>
>It seems to me that people (in general) don't value a CMS when they
>can't see it. If they interact with it only via the Web, they sort
>of assume that it must be very cheap to run. It's not, of course.

We're doing a lot of hosting already... some people haven't been paying attention to us, I know, but we have a number of servers all running paid Conversant sites, hosted at Macrobyte.

>2. That Conversant runs in Radio is of huge importance. That means
>people only need $40 for the platform. Excellent.
>
>But you run into this serious issue -- you're competing with two
>UserLand CMSes, not just one. Radio contains a CMS. And of course
>UserLand wants people to buy Manila/Frontier.
>
>With such a small community, having the support of UserLand is
>important. What would selling Conversant for Radio do to your
>relationship with UserLand? I won't guess, but if I were you I'd
>probably want to have a good idea in advance.

I agree that this could be a problem.

However, Dave already knows, and he didn't seem to upset about.

>3. The Zope guys had funding. If I recall correctly, it was their
>VCs that convinced them to open-source Zope.

That definitely fits the "random comment" description. ;-)

>4. When attracting developers, consider in advance how you'll
>answer the following questions that might reasonably be asked:

First, please understand that the developers we're trying to attract, first, are Frontier developers like you, Emmanuel, Sam Taylor, Bill Kearney, David Bayly, Jim Roepcke, etc., etc.

>a. Can I write in Perl/Python/Java -- some language I know already?

You could certainly write plugins which uses those languages, yes, but they'd have to be called by something written in UserTalk, via COM, AppleEvents, or TCP.

>b. Does the database support transactions?

Depends on which database you're using.

>c. Why tie up my data in a proprietary database format?

So don't, use mySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, PostGRES, or text files in the file system, if you want to. Conversant doesn't mind.

I told you this already, but I guess you forgot.

>d. Why use a database that doesn't understand SQL? SQL is totally a
>standard.

I happen to agree. So, use a SQL database, that's fine.

>e. Ummmmm, Linux?

Nope.

>f. Can I run it behind Apache?

Not at the moment, so, no.

>g. Is the SAX API available? I'm a SAX fan.

Not yet, so, no. Plugin! Somebody write a plugin!

>h. My boss says we have to do XSLT. Does it do XSLT?

Sounds like a good idea for a plugin.

>i. How many connections/second can it handle?

Yeah, I've been faced with that one before.

>j. Are you going to disappear? Is UserLand going to disapper?

No. (I really hate that question. Last year a customer was partnering with another company, and they decided to use someone else's services because Macrobyte might not be around in a year. We're still here, the "bigger company" they went with isn't.)

>k. Why should we pay anything at all when the stuff from the Apache
>group (or whatever) is so damn good?

Because the stuff from Macrobyte is that good.

>l. Does it import from Quark?

Sounds like a plugin.

>m. Can I create PDFs from my Conversant websites?

Sounds like a plugin.

>n. Does it do document management, not just content management? In
>other words, everyone at the office writes in Word, and we want to
>serve those files and be able to discuss them. We want the Word
>docs to be readable as HTML in a Web browser.

Actually, we started on a plugin for that, but never got there. So the answer is no, but it's a plugin which I know could be written.

>o. Isn't Manila easier to use for the novice? We have a bunch of
>less-than-savvy folks here at the office.

Nope. It might be at the moment, but we're working on that and I'm hoping it'll be at least partially solved by the time Conversant is released.

>p. Would you consider changing the name to something sexier so I
>can convince my boss to buy it? He would like "Vignette
>StoryServer" as a name better than "Macrobyte Conversant."

Sure, we'll do up a special version for you with whatever name you want, and we'll be happy to give you a break on the cost compared to that other Vignette StoryTeller, too.

>q. What the hell's the difference between an "object database" and
>an "object-oriented database" and which do you use?

The ones are all the same, but the zeros are rounder in object-oriented databases than they are in object databases, because the former have more "oh's" in the name.

Seth