So this is what we have become. A bunch of scared to death chickens running around reading press releases from the corporation trying to figure out if they still want our eggs or if they're having our filèt and wings for dinner tomorrow. Our worries are well founded, because remember this:
The corporation is only one board meeting away from doing something really stupid.
Thats how fragile this ecosystem has become. This is your wakeup call. If the PE introduction didn't scare you, or you really thought that proprietary Telerik components in what used to be the open source version was a gift from heaven, then please think again:
The main strategy for the corporation is to sell the PE version.
Thats what paying the bills, and more importantly, thats what the investors came for. The community version is supposed to be the entry level product and the PE is the natural upgrade for serious use. The tactics to implement this strategy are quite simple:
Take control of the community and use it to sell the PE version.
So how is the community controlled?
- Owning Snowcovered.
- Introducing proprietary licensed components to the "open core" (Teleriks) where it's use are governed with an agreement between the two corporations.
- Refusing necessary tools for the community on the main site.
- Slowing down the development of the free and open "core modules and providers".
If you don't believe me, consider this: Does it take 3 years to setup a wiki? No, but it may take 3 years for a corporation to decide if it will profit or hurt the PE version. I don't think it's a coincidence that the corporation is not looking for volunteers to help out with the community extensions. For an open source project that is down right suspicious. They want to do everything themselves so they can control it and make sure the CE-PE gap is inline with the overall strategy. The only community activity that is getting all the attention from the corporation are the user groups. Their purpose being sending users off to the annual event so that someone from HQ can visit and pitch the PE version.
If this is allowed to continue the CE-PE gap will continue to expand until the CE has found it's proper position as the entry level product only usable for the small and low traffic sites. In the coming months and years we will see that the PE version will replace all modules and extensions shared with the CE version. In the end they will only share the "open core" which amounts to nothing from the end users perspective. The long term effect of this, is that companies that are willing to spend some serious dollar on DotNetNuke will do it by utilizing the PE version.
So how do we fix this?
We need to setup an independent and open community taking responsibility for core modules and extensions for the open source version of DotNetNuke. It's as simple and hard as that. We also need a competing marketplace to Snowcovered. It doesn't have to take 50% of the market to be important. It's mere existence would make it important. Ready to take over if the corporation screw up Snowcovered.
One way to get this started is to fix one thing at a time. Fixing the search engine. Create a distributed cache. Replace some rotten core modules with new solid quality ones. Improved file uploader. Lot's of interesting tasks to do. While the corporation are "looking into things".