Introducing OpenNMS Meridian

Gang:

One of the things I like about working with OpenNMS is that our users
are pretty self selecting. We don't do a great job of marketing OpenNMS,
so only smart, interesting (and, might I add, devilishly attractive)
people use it.

Some of you, I know, were scratching your head about the new "Horizon"
label on OpenNMS, 'cause you are smart that way. We did that in
preparation for our announcement today of OpenNMS "Meridian".

The main financial backing for OpenNMS comes from The OpenNMS Group
(www.opennms.com). For over a decade we have mainly survived on offering
OpenNMS support, and it is a tough business.

Don't get me wrong, I love our customers, but the better we do our job
the less they actually need support. Each year it become more and more
difficult to justify the cost. Since OpenNMS (both Horizon and Meridian)
are 100% open source, there is no license to renew, and if everything
works support becomes more like insurance than a valuable resource.

Another part of our business, and one part I really like, is custom
consulting. This is where I get to go out to customer sites and actually
use OpenNMS like an end user would. The idea for Meridian actually came
from one of those engagements.

The thought was, what if we could capture some of this custom
configuration we do and offer that up as a product? Would people find
that valuable? If we combine it with a version of OpenNMS with long term
support, then we've basically copied the Red Hat model. This is
important because many people who spend money on open source software
identify with and understand Red Hat products, and thus the sales effort
becomes easier.

We are the SCaLE 13x conference in Los Angeles this weekend, and we
figured it would be a good time to announce OpenNMS Meridian. Meridian
is a subscription service similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and to
continue the analogy, Horizon is similar to Fedora.

I want to stress that Meridian will lag Horizon in features, thus
everything you can do in Meridian you'll be able to do in Horizon. Our
development efforts will be focused on Horizon and you'll be able to see
the code in action via GitHub, just like always.

As another benefit, we are working on a much more rapid release cycle
for Horizon. This doesn't mean that Horizon will ever suck or be
released too soon - we still do a tremendous amount of testing - but all
the cool new features will hit Horizon first. This is necessary if we
are to continue to strive toward the goal of making OpenNMS the de facto
management platform for everyone.

And, as always, Horizon will be available for free.

However, some of our commercial customers don't like moving to the
newest code. Even with OpenNMS 15 out, we have a number of clients still
using OpenNMS 1.8. Meridian should appeal to them as they will be happy
with a much slower development cycle. We also hope that Meridian will
provide the revenue we need to aggressively grow our team and make even
more OpenNMS. The OpenNMS Group has no outside investment, our business
model is "Spend less money than you earn". While being cash flow
positive has its benefits, it does limit how fast we can hire and thus
how fast we can improve OpenNMS.

For most of you on this list, nothing will change with the exception of
getting better OpenNMS code with more features, faster. For those of you
who might like the idea of Meridian but never saw the need for support,
perhaps this will benefit you as well.

While OpenNMS is made up of lots of people from different backgrounds
and with different goals, the only two goals I'm not willing to
compromise on is that OpenNMS will never suck and OpenNMS will always be
free.

I would love to hear any feedback, comments or concerns you might have
about this change. Please understand that the next four days will be a
bit crazy for us as we're at a conference, but I will try to address
them as soon as I can. Unless you'd rather not, please post to the
OpenNMS discuss list so that everyone can see the conversation. If you
are at SCaLE 13x, please come by the booth. We have OpenNMS swag and
would love to see you in person.

Thanks for your help making OpenNMS possible.

-T
-- 
Tarus BALOG, Maintainer                     Main:   +1 919 533 0160
The OpenNMS Group, Inc.                     Fax:    +1 773 345 3645
Email: [email protected]                    URL: http://www.opennms.org
PGP Key Fingerprint: 8945 8521 9771 FEC9 5481  512B FECA 11D2 FD82 B45C

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server
from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards
with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration & more
Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=190641631&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
_______________________________________________
Please read the OpenNMS Mailing List FAQ:
http://www.opennms.org/wiki/index.php?page=MailingListFaq

opennms-announce mailing list

To *unsubscribe* or change your subscription options, see the bottom of this page:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/opennms-announce