“RE: Help with Macrobyte's Future”

On 3/21/02, Duncan Smeed said:

>Perhaps a sliding (upward) scale of subscription for self-hosted
>(ISP) sites that resell their Conversant cycles.

This has been suggested a number of times.

The nature of Frontier-based scripts is that they're very difficult to put "controls" on, as I'm sure you know. So, we'll either have to dependon on the honesty of the users, or do something difficult and awkward.

I prefer the former.

Regardless of which approach we take, the sliding-scale issue fits with the plan to get the software into the hands of the developers very cheaply, and charge more for production servers. I think this is going to happen.

>I think some form of educational discount would be a very good idea
>- but then I'd say that wouldn't I?

Though nobody else from Macrobyte responded to this comment, I think a few probably smiled or nodded their heads in agreement. This was already decided, and in fact I'd like to really support the educators.

>>So how do we make a living? That's the question.
>>
>>Sales of our software. Support constracts? (How much?) Non-free
>>developers program? (How much?) Hosting services? Consulting
>>services for continuing to improve our software?
>
>I suppose some of this depends on the overheads of keeping
>Conversant going on on your own server rather than hosted with
>you. I have no idea how much babysitting Conversant requires for
>example. Since it's built on Frontier/Radio you have both the
>advantages and disadvantages of that particular platform.

Very little babysitting, but of course that depends on what else you have "going on" with your server.

>Does Digital Creations, for instance, actually make money with Zope
>consultation now they've 'open-sourced' Zope?

I don't think there's any way to get an honest answer to that question.

>Can Conversant 'compete' in the same space as
>Radio/RCS/Frontier/Manila?

First of all, I truly believe that those are all very different products and in very different spaces.

We don't compete with Frontier or Radio. Well, I suppose if you were considering Conversant-the-groupware-platform for ONLY a personal weblog running on your own server then it might compete... but that's a bit like swatting flies with bazookas. If you ONLY want to do one thing, there are always tools for doing exactly that one thing.

RCS? I'll comment on that below.

Manila? Yes, it's true, we compete with Manila. I don't like that fact, but people view us as living in the same space and that's all that matters.

Hopefully that'll change when the developers get a chance to look at the code and start developing more specialized applications in Conversant.

>There's no doubt that Macrobyte (and friends) have an excellent
>reputation for support and responsiveness to user requests.  Can
>this be scaled and still maintain that excellent reputation. I
>doubt it unless a supportive community develops.  Perhaps that
>community is Script Meridian?

Perhaps.

>You may recall a private e-mail I sent some months ago in which I
>questioned the long-term viability of UserTalk and other Userland
>proprietary technologies.  To a great exten that's been resolved by
>the Userland and their aggressive push based on the $0 RCS (and the
>pricing of Radio).
>
>Rather ironically, it's the $0 mindbombshell that looks likely to
>do most collateral damage to Conversant's prospects.

I disagree about RCS, but not Radio.

Radio's been a huge boost to the UserTalk community.

What has RCS done? Fine, it just came out this week, but it doesn't have nearly the buzz that Radio has/had. Why is that? Has anyone looked at what it actually does?

1. It replicates an FTP server
2. It provides notification features, hit tracking, logging, bottlenecking, etc.

It installs very easily and is very simple to run, but does it do much more than what I've listed? No. It doesn't provide any sort of groupware functionality, at least nothing in the traditional sense of groupware.

On the other hand, I *like* RCS, for the same reasons that I like Radio. It does just a few things, and it does them very well and is very easy to use. But it's not a developer's tool, and it's not groupware.

I can imagine scenarios where we'll either recommend running RCS on the same server as Conversant, or where an RCS-like plugin would be a good feature to have on a Conversant server. (The latter has some very interesting possibilities for deeply integrating Radio with Conversant.)

>If I interpret correctly what you've said elsewhere, you are less
>reliant on some of these technologies than we might imagine.  Some
>sort of exit/port strategy would be good insurance - both for
>Macrobyte and its customers.

We've kicked around porting Conversant to JSP or WO a number of times, but there's still so much we can do with it on UserTalk. We still haven't implemented a caching engine or static rendering, for example... both of those ideas *really* get me excited. I have to stop thinking about them or I won't get any of the short term work done.

Plus... I love Frontier. It's true, I do. I love the community, too, and I want to help it succeed. UserLand doesn't work directly with the developer community very much, but I think that it should be possible for the developer community to work with itself, if it has some more great products to work with.

People often ask me what we'll do if UserLand shuts down or Dave Winer decides one day to just close up shop. Well, first of all, it's not like Frontier will stop working if that happens. We'd have time to do a port to another platform. But I don't think it's going to happen. UserLand has been at this for a long time now, and while Dave's direction isn't always clear, he's never indicated that he would abandon his life's work.

>Does/can Conversant compete with and/or augment Manila/RCS?

Compete? Uh, yes.

Augment Manila? Not really, no... it's like asking if one car can augment another.

Can it augment RCS? Other than providing the comments feature, I can't imagine how. The other way around, definitely.

>Would you want it to?  As has already been pointed in other
>replies, the pricing of Radio and RCS places constraints on the
>pricing of Conversant.  But these questions aren't helpful to you.
>I'm sorry for digressing....

Actually, I would say that it REMOVES constraints on the pricing. Radio is very inexpensive, essentially free, so that means that the cost of Conversant is just the cost of Conversant, not Conversant + the scripting engine.

[SNIP]

>How Conversant fits into a developer's portfolio is an interesting,
>and thorny, question. I don't know, not being a developer, but here
>are some suggestions:

I'm not sure why you said it's a thorny issue.

>* Developers adopt Conversant as their primary support tool to
>support bug-tracking, feature-requests, internal team coordination,
>documentation, etc.  Any developer worth their salt will be able to
>host their own Conversant site(s).

Any developer with a server. If server == salt, then I agree.

It sound slike you're talking about project-based extranets, which is definitely one of our primary uses.

>* Introduce some sort of sliding scale price structure that

[SNIP]

> Like your appraoch to hosting options for instance.

Good idea.

>* Create some typical support site type templates.  Make it a
>no-brainer choice for small developers.  Conversant can be tailored
>to create great looking support sites with lots of options.  The
>thing I value most about Conversant is how it saves my time. That's
>my most precious commodity.  Offer to work with some developers to
>create these time-saving features.

I think you might be looking at the wrong picture. When I say that we want to build a community of developers around the software, I don't mean that I want them to be the (only) end-users. Rather, the developers will do what they do now: create solutions for their clients. Conversant will be another big tool in their toolbox.

[SNIP]

>Other suggestions:
>
>* Try to consolidate the Conversant documentation into a manual/PDF
>format.  Encourage existing Conversanters to write up their
>experience and produce some case studies that can be used to 'sell'
>Conversant.  Some have already done this.  Others, like me, have
>been full of good intentions but need "go fetch a stick" ;-)

The PDF docs are definitely needed. There's at least one case-study in the works already, although the case still needs to answer a few questions. ;-)

>* Write some white papers about the architecture of Conversant and
>how/where developers may tailor it to their own devices and
>incorporate it into their own work-flows.  Push the XML-RPC
>interoperability angle.

Definitely, but thank you for pointing out this need.

>* Update the home page of www.macrobyte.net ;-)  At the moment it
>doesn't look like you eat you own dogfood there!

That's finally in progress. We've been razzed about this so much in the last month it's not even funny.

Frankly, I often forget about the macrobyte.net web site.

Having that site updated will give me a place to talk about the business, finally, and this site can go back to being my personal home page. It feels very weird to talk so much about Macrobyte, here.

[SNIP]

>* Have a story/plan of how Conversant might interplay/support
>Radio-generated sites, and provide discussion capabilities.  A
>tricky one this since it competes in the same space as RCS/Manila.

RCS doesn't offer any discussion capabilities. Manila only offers Radio a place for comments.

Thanks for your thoughts, Duncan, and I'm sorry it took me a couple days to make the time for this response!

Seth