Enterprise / Open Source Deki

[royk]

This is a sticky thread to clarify any confusion regarding MindTouch Deki Open Source and MindTouch Deki Enterprise. If you have any questions or concerns, please post below.

-----

What is the Enterprise version and what are its benefits?
As many open-source projects mature (Red Hat and mySQL, for example), you see a divergence in the software: one geared towards the dev community that contributes (you guys!) and one geared towards businesses. MindTouch Deki has also taken the same path as these successful projects with our Enterprise version. I think this image summarizes the benefits of Enterprise nicely:



These benefits come from talking to our customers, many who need vendor backing for large deployments (example: Mozilla), where getting timely responses is crucial.

-----

With this Enterprise version, are you abandoning the open-source edition?
This is a resounding NO. MindTouch always has, and always will be, first and foremost, an open-source company, and we will always ship a quality product to this community (no crippleware!). There was some confusion in our initial newsletter; the wording implied the open-source version would not get test coverage. This is not the case - we have not changed our test coverage policies on the open-source editions ... if anything, we have made extra efforts to shore up quality issues in the open-source edition in Kilen Woods.

-----

Will there be code/feature differences between the two versions of Deki?
They will both remain, at the core, the same codebase. Enterprise is built on-top of the open-source edition and adds more value for commercial customers with enterprise modules (connectors for things like SalesForce); these are features which are not inside the core application, but are built using Deki Extensions. We are not branching the enterprise and open-source versions as separate products, so there is no concern that we will fall into a situation where we will have to "choose" which one to work on - features built into the core product will be available to both Enterprise as well as Open Source.

Our process for shipping the releases has also not changed - we are still committed to developing the best features for the open-source community. We will continue to provide open-source VMs, open-source RPMs, and source releases to the community in a timely manner.

With regards to product development, the roadmap for the "Lac qui Parle" release should assuage any concerns about what we're focusing on

-----

What is with these licenses in Deki?
Because we want to keep the codebases between Enterprise and Open Source versions the same, we had to introduce the concept of signed binaries into the open-source edition. Signed binaries, simply put, validate Deki and the commercial modules that are using them. For example, the signed binaries allow us to provide free trials of the Enterprise versions to people who want to see the value of them.

All open-source versions of Deki ship with a perpetual open-source license which will continue to provide completely unfettered access to your Deki if the open-source edition works for you.

-----

[yasuaki]

A lot of questions ware able to solved by this great explanation. And, I admires your policies. Amazing !

However, one anxiety remains. It's a support policy for a open-source edition.

What I wanting confirm most is a range of issue correction to Deki on unsupported platforms,
such Solaris, Windows, Linux distributions on non-Intel processor.

For instance, developers of MindTouch individually corrected bug to Kilen Woods, due to the issue that depended on the SPARC platform.
Of course SPARC platform is unsuppoted for Deki, and we are not paying for the value.

I regret that the release of Kilen Woods was delayed because I demanded from MindTouch developers individual.
I don't hope to add the load more than the necessity to developers.

At this point, Kilen Woods doesn't work on SPARC platform due to problem concerning authority.

How do you think about this problem ?

[SteveB]

yasuaki,

That's an excellent question. By large you can expect to get the same kind of involvement from us as you have had in the past. So, we'll be working on fixing the SPARC related issues on Solaris.

But the reality is that these are two levels of support. The first level, which is offered in these forums, is free and at-will. We help, because we want to help, and we have the time to help. The second level is a customer relationship, these are companies--and sometimes individuals--who must get an issue looked into or just need our expertise to get the most out of Deki. There, we must help and make time to help, because that's what is expected.

These two levels of support have been around since last year. The new twist is that we now also have some non-open source components that build on the open source version of Deki. These new components bring additional value to customers. There is also an important change in pricing that is coming that I think many will appreciate, but I can't just reveal it yet!

Please keep asking questions. We really want to be as transparent about this as anyone could possibly be.

[jgable]

The way I see this is that we all like to eat. Mindtouch has to make money or all of you will end up working other jobs. If that happens the support we will drop significantly from where it is now.

Right now I am freeloading on the community version but I am working on getting my project to a position where the company sees it as indespensible. At that point I hope they will contribute to Mindtouch's bottom line.

Thanks for the great support all of you have given us.

[yasuaki]

Steve,

Wow, that is an answer that becomes reading glad.
I wish to express my gratitude for your having clearly answered my question. Thank you !

I can consent to your answer, and my doubt was clearly wiped. So, I will to ask for help to MindTouch with full of confidence. And I will contribute to community on other occasions.

I think many of possibilities of Deki are based on independency to the platform. But it should not be lost, of course actually though there may be various differences on each one.

There may be companies that has selected non-supported platform for Deki by various reasons as we use Solaris. If they can use Deki on that platform, then I believe the future of Deki extends, I think it is a good thing. However, Deki becoming complex system, and corresponding to various platforms only by developers of MindTouch will become more difficult.

I expect disclosure of technical information (spec, API, tools, issue reports) to contiune to MindTouch. So there is a possibility that this gap make good from the community as long as Deki is open source.

Don't worry. I'll be in communicating with the forum and MindTouch people.

[anthonym]

What is the real difference between the Enterprise and Community Editions? Are they the same download? Has anyone run the Community Edition in a production environment? We have about 60 employees that need to access the wiki.

[SteveB]

I moved your question over to this thread as it might provide you with an answer. If not, feel free to ask follow up questions.

[royk]

What is the real difference between the Enterprise and Community Editions? Are they the same download? Has anyone run the Community Edition in a production environment? We have about 60 employees that need to access the wiki.

No, they are slightly different downloads. We haven't shipped the actual Enterprise for Kilen Woods yet, but it will contain some additional bug fixes we've discovered (which will be available to all Open Source VM users by using updateWiki.sh) as well as containing all the enterprise modules.

Everybody runs the Open Source edition in production right now, there isn't an option to run the other one yet We should have an Enterprise trial ready for you by tomorrow, so you can download it and try it out.

[crb]

(Originally posted as a bug; summarized here by request.)

Right now, the new control panel in Kilen Woods suggests that you need to "activate" your product. In reality, you need to activate it to activate MindTouch Deki Enterprise, and the product is fully functional in the open source edition.

There's a 90/10 rule in play here: 90% of the customers will be OSS users who will never want to buy the commercial edition. I realise you want to make life easy for the 10% that do, and the product is the same for both people, but I think a balance can be struck.

It seems to me that the OSS edition is using words that make it sound like only a shareware trial for the enterprise version.

Geeks who think that you're taking their product away will stop advocating for sales, where happy geeks who see the benefits in purchasing a license because they see what it gives you over and above the fully functional OSS edition will push for their employer to buy support!

I have suggested some changes in the bug report.

[SteveB]

crb, thanks for the feeback. It's much appreciated. I'm sure we'll get the wording wrong a few times before we get it right, so thanks in advance for your patience until we get there!