Recent posts in this topic
shanebee:Isn't it worse to plan your business around software you don't have access to? I find it interesting that this thread has a lot of people complaining about not knowing when the software is going to be released. If you were planning to use the software but are not able to utilize it when you require, find something else and move on without so much as a whimper.
Complaining about it just makes you look silly.
I think you miss the point.
Either way, just go ahead and say you think people who are "planning" their business around this are stupid. Thats precisely what you want to say, and the paragraph above does nothing for you.
To help you understand what some folks may be going through on this thread, here's what you need to know: When setting down and planning a project a team first figures out what they need, then they go out to get it. For those teams that settled on acollab, they have been using it, relying on it, and planning on it.
When the developer of a significant piece of software your team is using stops giving regular, reliable updates and timelines for new versions, your team gets in a pickle. They have to then decide to move all their assets to another piece of software, or pray like hell they don't grow beyond the capabilities of the software they are using ...which they have no way of knowing will be updated in the forseeable future. That's planning. And when the developer stops providing useful information in regards to updates, timelines, and release dates, you have to move on.
Like many of us have already done.
This hurts the developer, and they sometimes don't recover. This is a huge problem with software engineering as a whole, and the reason why most teams out there *don't* make it. They are often brilliant engineers, and poor businessmen.
For the record, acollab has a bright future. Especially if it's developers learn something valuable from this from a business perspective.
Good luck to all of you. I won't be back on the board for a(nother) very long period of time :)
intensetech
on Sep 11. 2007. 2:15 pm
You know what I find amazing, is all this activity and ranting about active Collab 1.0 not being out yet- and most of you are essentially pushing him to get the product out, when I doubt hardly any of you guys have ever even given him money in the first place.
It floors me that it seems that most of you WANT IT ALL AND YOU WANT IT NOW but you don't want to have to pay for it.
I suggest you need to lighten up.
I would rather Ilija take his time and develop a great project, no matter how long it takes, rather than succumb to the whims of a bunch of cheapskate whiners, who would have him produce a more mediocre product to pacify the masses.
By the way, I've been monitoring active collab for quite some time and there were NEVER really any regular updates, timelines or release dates previously - so you're best going off to get a grip.
Besides, I don't believe that anyone here is a true business expert in the first place -- and if they are, they're probably in the wrong forum.
It should also be noted Active Collab pre-version 1, IS open-source. If there are really features that you are dying to have implemented, and your business is about to go under without these so-called features, then take the existing code, HIRE A PROGRAMMER AND DO IT. ( that's right actually pay someone $$$!)
contribute, be positive and helpful, or leave.
Just stop your whining!!!
It floors me that it seems that most of you WANT IT ALL AND YOU WANT IT NOW but you don't want to have to pay for it.
I suggest you need to lighten up.
I would rather Ilija take his time and develop a great project, no matter how long it takes, rather than succumb to the whims of a bunch of cheapskate whiners, who would have him produce a more mediocre product to pacify the masses.
By the way, I've been monitoring active collab for quite some time and there were NEVER really any regular updates, timelines or release dates previously - so you're best going off to get a grip.
Besides, I don't believe that anyone here is a true business expert in the first place -- and if they are, they're probably in the wrong forum.
It should also be noted Active Collab pre-version 1, IS open-source. If there are really features that you are dying to have implemented, and your business is about to go under without these so-called features, then take the existing code, HIRE A PROGRAMMER AND DO IT. ( that's right actually pay someone $$$!)
contribute, be positive and helpful, or leave.
Just stop your whining!!!
Just an small business computer guy, doing troubleshooting, net admin & programming...
http://www.intensetech.com
http://www.intensetech.com
jeremyclarke
on Sep 11. 2007. 5:29 pm
God Intensetech, don't be such a baby about it. The people who are still bothering to complain are the ones who WANT to pay, the FOSS people left awhile ago (and now that the front page of the site doesn't pronounce innacurate information, there aren't even noobs wandering the forums confused about licensing).
They are just WAITING to hand Illija some money for 1.0, as well as to see some plugins start to pop up (which isn't happening at this point, unless it's happening in the Beta walled garden). They just wand a freaking ballpark generalization of the cost so they know if they can afford it or not. For a lot of people Basecamp is NOT affordable at all, if you have a big org it gets outlandish almost immediately, so they want to know if aC will be a better option or if they should go with the open source fork of aC maybe ( http://projectpier.org ) as you mentioned.
They are just WAITING to hand Illija some money for 1.0, as well as to see some plugins start to pop up (which isn't happening at this point, unless it's happening in the Beta walled garden). They just wand a freaking ballpark generalization of the cost so they know if they can afford it or not. For a lot of people Basecamp is NOT affordable at all, if you have a big org it gets outlandish almost immediately, so they want to know if aC will be a better option or if they should go with the open source fork of aC maybe ( http://projectpier.org ) as you mentioned.
@Astiron,
You clearly have the same expectations and understanding that our business does. Unfortunately a lot of these guys seem to be either one man shows that work for themselves and as such do business in a much more adhoc manner, or they are individuals who are using ActiveCollab to keep track of their homework. This is fine because traditionally aC has been a free alternative and that attracts specifically people who either don't like to pay for something, or want an innovative solution to a business need.
@everyone else
Quite simply, some of us, myself included, are potential customers of new product that has yet to be successful in the market or make any money as a business. We have the expectation that we will be paying for this product and have no problem with doing so. You will find most businesses are not in a habit of making 'donations' to opensource projects, however if AC remained opensource and our business continued to use it on the scale we are we would have arranged something.
I can partly understand the criticism for our expectations on release dates and pricing, not all of you are looking at this from a professional point of view. ActiveCollab was previously free and so there are those of you who think we are unfair to put such demands on Ilja. But he wants ActiveCollab to go commerical, and that comes with commerical responsibilities if he wants to succeed.
I'm not going to apologise, we have a business to run, and I have chosen to use aC as I like it as a product, and since we intend on paying for it we have expectations from Ilja as a customer on the level of service he provides, this includes information when we the customer need it.
It is now the 12th of September, the month that 1.0 will be apparently released, we have 12 business days left and we do not know a price, and we do not know licensing structure.
Have we thought about forking 0.71? Yes, we've also considered contracting Ilja to work solely for us developing ActiveCollab for our business needs, or acquiring the entire ActiveCollab business. But we have kept faith so to speak as the direction he is already taking ActiveCollab suits us.
Right now, if it's released this month and it's licensing structure makes business sense then it fits in with our plans just fine. No set release date just makes me nervous, leads me to believe he is not in completely control of when he can deliver it. No pricing worries me also, it could suggest he has no solid business plan as yet for how he is going to market the product. But we'll wait and see, at the end of the day he has done well with ActiveCollab, otherwise we would not want to use it. We will support him like we would any business partner. If we aren't his biggest customer on release day I'd be mildly suprised :)
You clearly have the same expectations and understanding that our business does. Unfortunately a lot of these guys seem to be either one man shows that work for themselves and as such do business in a much more adhoc manner, or they are individuals who are using ActiveCollab to keep track of their homework. This is fine because traditionally aC has been a free alternative and that attracts specifically people who either don't like to pay for something, or want an innovative solution to a business need.
@everyone else
Quite simply, some of us, myself included, are potential customers of new product that has yet to be successful in the market or make any money as a business. We have the expectation that we will be paying for this product and have no problem with doing so. You will find most businesses are not in a habit of making 'donations' to opensource projects, however if AC remained opensource and our business continued to use it on the scale we are we would have arranged something.
I can partly understand the criticism for our expectations on release dates and pricing, not all of you are looking at this from a professional point of view. ActiveCollab was previously free and so there are those of you who think we are unfair to put such demands on Ilja. But he wants ActiveCollab to go commerical, and that comes with commerical responsibilities if he wants to succeed.
I'm not going to apologise, we have a business to run, and I have chosen to use aC as I like it as a product, and since we intend on paying for it we have expectations from Ilja as a customer on the level of service he provides, this includes information when we the customer need it.
It is now the 12th of September, the month that 1.0 will be apparently released, we have 12 business days left and we do not know a price, and we do not know licensing structure.
Have we thought about forking 0.71? Yes, we've also considered contracting Ilja to work solely for us developing ActiveCollab for our business needs, or acquiring the entire ActiveCollab business. But we have kept faith so to speak as the direction he is already taking ActiveCollab suits us.
Right now, if it's released this month and it's licensing structure makes business sense then it fits in with our plans just fine. No set release date just makes me nervous, leads me to believe he is not in completely control of when he can deliver it. No pricing worries me also, it could suggest he has no solid business plan as yet for how he is going to market the product. But we'll wait and see, at the end of the day he has done well with ActiveCollab, otherwise we would not want to use it. We will support him like we would any business partner. If we aren't his biggest customer on release day I'd be mildly suprised :)
Ilija Studen
on Sep 12. 2007. 8:00 am
Progress updates
Few months ago, when activeCollab finally got its new face and we finally could show some little bits we wrote several articles that discussed new features, what decisions we made etc. Nothing fancy, just an update and something about the upcoming release every 10, 15 days. And it was cool - you knew that activeCollab is making progress and had some details in front of you, we got some early feedback and kept in touch with people who are waiting for v1.0.
What stopped us from writing any new post for a month was bitterness of some people who commented - "Stop bubbling, release! Enough with chit-chat, I want it now! Of course it is obvious that best way to improve a product is to actually use it - fucking duh!!! RELEASE! Dudes, you are creating bad buzz here!" and so on.
So we stopped publishing posts about upcoming release and focused on development. That was wrong. Some people figured that project is not progressing and that we are slacking while truth was opposite. activeCollab made great progress during that period because we were working on the interface - things people directly use. You know - those small details that can drive you crazy if they are not done right or the way you expect them to work...
That is what I know NOW, but didn't realize back than. Our mistake and we learned from it. Sorry...
Pricing and licensing
We wrote a post that has pricing details and explains two licenses. Ivan just needs to work a bit on it and it can go online so it is just a matter of time. That's a good thing - you'll have more data to work with and something to rely on.
To be completely honest, that post scares me a bit. First, I am not comfortable about publishing pricing details before activeCollab 1.0 is shipped and I said that earlier. That post will be start of an endless discussion about features, how couldn't it be cheaper, what we should include in free version etc etc etc. You know what I'm talking about. Time that such discussion can consume could easily be invested in making sure that we deliver activeCollab sooner or move to the new office (we couldn't pick a better moment to move :D ).
Launch schedule
Sole reason why we haven't provided any dates is because we knew what we want to build, but haven't had any idea on how much it actually takes to build something like that. At the same time, things tend to change during the execution - new ideas emerge, old ones prove to be completely crazy and you walk away from them, priorities change, some simple tasks turn out to be a real pain etc.
Good news is that we are over that. Major features that didn't made it into this release are rescheduled for the next release, we know exactly what activeCollab 1.0 will have and what not and all that is left is testing and polishing the little details. Now we can offer the dates:
September 22nd - activeCollab 1.0 Release Candidate
October 5th - activeCollab 1.0
People who were patient enough and waited or donated in the past will get some special deals, but we'll talk about that when RC is shipped.
Licensing and pricing details will be announced in a couple of days as I mentioned above.
Few months ago, when activeCollab finally got its new face and we finally could show some little bits we wrote several articles that discussed new features, what decisions we made etc. Nothing fancy, just an update and something about the upcoming release every 10, 15 days. And it was cool - you knew that activeCollab is making progress and had some details in front of you, we got some early feedback and kept in touch with people who are waiting for v1.0.
What stopped us from writing any new post for a month was bitterness of some people who commented - "Stop bubbling, release! Enough with chit-chat, I want it now! Of course it is obvious that best way to improve a product is to actually use it - fucking duh!!! RELEASE! Dudes, you are creating bad buzz here!" and so on.
So we stopped publishing posts about upcoming release and focused on development. That was wrong. Some people figured that project is not progressing and that we are slacking while truth was opposite. activeCollab made great progress during that period because we were working on the interface - things people directly use. You know - those small details that can drive you crazy if they are not done right or the way you expect them to work...
That is what I know NOW, but didn't realize back than. Our mistake and we learned from it. Sorry...
Pricing and licensing
We wrote a post that has pricing details and explains two licenses. Ivan just needs to work a bit on it and it can go online so it is just a matter of time. That's a good thing - you'll have more data to work with and something to rely on.
To be completely honest, that post scares me a bit. First, I am not comfortable about publishing pricing details before activeCollab 1.0 is shipped and I said that earlier. That post will be start of an endless discussion about features, how couldn't it be cheaper, what we should include in free version etc etc etc. You know what I'm talking about. Time that such discussion can consume could easily be invested in making sure that we deliver activeCollab sooner or move to the new office (we couldn't pick a better moment to move :D ).
Launch schedule
Sole reason why we haven't provided any dates is because we knew what we want to build, but haven't had any idea on how much it actually takes to build something like that. At the same time, things tend to change during the execution - new ideas emerge, old ones prove to be completely crazy and you walk away from them, priorities change, some simple tasks turn out to be a real pain etc.
Good news is that we are over that. Major features that didn't made it into this release are rescheduled for the next release, we know exactly what activeCollab 1.0 will have and what not and all that is left is testing and polishing the little details. Now we can offer the dates:
September 22nd - activeCollab 1.0 Release Candidate
October 5th - activeCollab 1.0
People who were patient enough and waited or donated in the past will get some special deals, but we'll talk about that when RC is shipped.
Licensing and pricing details will be announced in a couple of days as I mentioned above.
activeCollab team member | LinkedIn
Awesome news, Ilija!
Will the language file be available with RC? I would like to support you with Finnish version for the final release.
Will the language file be available with RC? I would like to support you with Finnish version for the final release.
Thanks for the news Ilija :) much appreciated.
AS an aside to all this, I hope that the new version is free of any GPLed code, likke:
// ---------------------------------------------------
// Fix some $_SERVER vars (taken from wordpress code)
// ---------------------------------------------------
Most isn't a big deal, but better safe than sorry!
// ---------------------------------------------------
// Fix some $_SERVER vars (taken from wordpress code)
// ---------------------------------------------------
Most isn't a big deal, but better safe than sorry!
Ilija Studen
on Sep 12. 2007. 4:13 pm
Yes, it is. We payed close attention to licenses of libraries we used. No GPL, mostly LGPL.
activeCollab team member | LinkedIn
Good to finally get the release dates (although I didn't cried yet for all the time we waited ;) )
Keep on good work Ilija, I hope that the dates will be respected (and that the price will be affordable :p), I'm pretty sure aC 1.0 will be a kicking ass release :D
Keep on good work Ilija, I hope that the dates will be respected (and that the price will be affordable :p), I'm pretty sure aC 1.0 will be a kicking ass release :D
Walid Iguer
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