Re: Re: Do commercial deployments count?

Hi Kragen,

Thanks for the passionate response -- I was a bit worried at all the
commonsensical "Just make nicer builds" responses, with no one really
addressing my main point:  are we all cool with the choices we are making about
the users we're targeting?

> What is this about being tied to Apache?  The Python event router isn't
> tied to Apache, and never has been.
I agree that the Python server is not tied to Apache in a technical sense --
but I think it should be in a marketing sense, at least for a browser-based
package.  I thought we were all agreed on this, but evidently not -- so I guess
the floor is open to discussion again.

> In the product we're deploying pubsub.py in, we have Apache, but as it
> happens, Apache and pubsub.py never talk to each other.  (Yet.)
So this depends on your point of view, right?  You're thinking "Do I need to
add Apache to the Python server for functionality reasons?" -- in which case
the answer is "Obviously not".  I submit that the average user (or at least the
average in-the-browser user) is going to be thinking "How can I add this to my
existing setup, which is Apache-based?" -- and therefore that is the real
question we need to answer.  This is a point I was never able to get across at
KN, and evidently am failing to get across in Mod-pubsub too:  people have
existing shit, and we need to tell a story about fitting neatly into the
interstices of their existing shit.  Where is the value in continuing to
stubbornly insist "we are our own thing, we don't need no stinkin' web server"
to a bunch of people who don't want or need to hear that?

Look at PHP.  Are they technically superior to Python?  Evidently not.  So how
did they grow that huge community?  They targeted the huge mass of pre-existing
Apache and IIS users as their market.  They did everything they could to make
it easy to coordinate with Apache, and then with IIS.  They didn't have any
qualms about categorically stating that PHP is a web-development language, even
though it can do other things.  The PHP guys have focus and clarity in the
problem they solve and the audience they're pitching to; while Python has taken
the other tack of marketing themselves as a general-purpose programming
language.  I respect the crap out of the Pythons, but I want Mod-pubsub to be
PHP.  :-)

So the more I think about it, the more I think we are scaring newbie users off
because of lack of focus.  There are just too many options, and we try to cover
them all in one go -- we tend to babble something like, "We have two servers,
one that's an Apache module and one that might or might not be run with Apache,
and we have a gazillion clients in every programming language on every
platform, and the whole thing can do everything and nothing!"  Not a very
effective pitch, as amply demonstrated by our low conversion rate of interested
people to active developers.

So my proposals are simple:

1)  Divide the distro up into a webdev package, a Windows package, and an other
programming languages package.  Nail the concerns of each audience.
2)  For the webdev package, target pre-existing Apache users as our audience.
3)  Agree on a strategy, so maybe we could make a statement about Mod-pubsub
without a mass of qualifications attached.  This doesn't make us look flexible
and precise -- it makes us look like we don't know what the heck we're doing.

> I really wish mod_pubsub were under the GPL, because right now, it's  
> pretty tough for me to get open source enhancements out of AirWave
These are largely internal corporate problems into which I can personally have
no influence.  KN released their stuff under a BSD-style license, as you know. 
I have no insight into whether your crew would even have used Mod-pubsub if it
had been GPLed.  If there's anything we could do besides changing the license
to help you convince your bosses, let us know -- maybe we could send Rifkin
over there to give his "Open Source is good for business!" talk.

> I think we should build as many applications as possible with mod_pubsub,
> and encourage other people to do so, too.
Couldn't agree more.  Unfortunately, someone has to write docs and implement
new build processes.  JP


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