ClearFoundation

Well, in case you missed the blog post (which is easy to do on laptops with limited screen height), here it is:

ClearOS Community and Professional

I won't rehash the blog post, but instead add my personal somewhat off-topic perspective. This change paves the way for the much talked about Home Edition too. I have spent way too much of the last 12+ months doing architecture and "grunt" work, it will be nice to get back to the fun stuff:

- Reviving my MythTV (or an alternative)
- Reviving Gallery
- Getting all these devices in my house (iPad, Android phones, Wii) working together
- etc.

I am also looking forward to poking around at all the apps that people have put together and posted on this forum. I can't keep up!

Anyway...feel free to post your thoughts, comments, peeves, etc.

Hi Peter,

Sounds good! a couple of questions (sorry a few more than I originally had in mind!):-

Do you think you will wait for development of enough "Home"/Community apps before releasing a Home 'image'?

How do you see the 'support / non supported' business model working through the Market place? A system using tokens similar to your own? or its limited only by our imagination?

Does releasing apps via the Martket place tie a deveoper into a particular licensing system? Is there a business model for open source paid apps without providing some other service or support?...i.e the possibility that someone redistributes your freely available source code for less?

Following on from that will the marketplace be vetted (like Apple) or free for all (like Android)?

I note Zarafa Small Business gets a mention for the Professional version - do you intend to provide the Zarafa Community edition for ClearOS Community edition? (I'm also keen to provide an upgrade path for users on 5.2...)

Do you have a timescale on when the build system will be available, or will this conincide with the Martketplace release documentation?

Thanks! looking forward to 2012

p,s Gallery3 is very much alive for 5.2 over here
www.clearfoundation.com/component/option.../func,view/id,12080/

Hi Tim,

Pete's busy busting out stuff for Shad tomorrow to try and get a beta3 out next week...I can answer some of your questions till he surfaces.

Do you think you will wait for development of enough "Home"/Community apps before releasing a Home 'image'?

Ya...until there's some apps specifically targeted towards the Home, there's not much sense. The way I see things moving towards is that the Community Edition will be more of a generic, all round version, with specific builds like Home having apps targeted towards that segment in addition to changes to common apps (ie. think changing language to be less techie...hiding features that a home user would never use etc.).

How do you see the 'support / non supported' business model working through the Market place? A system using tokens similar to your own? or its limited only by our imagination?

That's interesting that you ask that...its one of the reasons behind the changes to support and the launch of the Pro edition...we (ClearCenter) couldn't provide support for a $10 app (pulling #'s out of thin air) to someone using the free Enterprise Edition. This is an option now that we will have the Pro edition as an option to people.

Ultimately, we'll have to flexible enough so that support can be provided by the app 'vendor', ClearCenter, a community, a combination of any of the three. If the vendor provides support for an app, the pricing will reflect that 'built in' cost, just as we're doing with the Pro version. If the vendor wants nothing to do with supporting an app, and ClearCenter chooses to take on this task (i.e. it is an app in ClearCenter's core target market), the natural course of action would be to add the app to the Professional segment of the Marketplace where a Pro subscription is required. If neither vendor or ClearCenter want/can support the app, my feeling is it has to go in as free, be noted as unsupported, and left to the community.

Does releasing apps via the Martket place tie a deveoper into a particular licensing system? Is there a business model for open source paid apps without providing some other service or support?...i.e the possibility that someone redistributes your freely available source code for less?

The developer does have to choose a license, but we don't force one on you....so, it can be GPL'd, LPLD'd, proprietary...anything...as long as the licensing doesn't conflict with with any libraries or source code used in the app. For example, obviously, one can't grab Concrete5's source code, package it up, slap a webconfig page on it, an sell it in our Marketplace under a proprietary license.

As for 'redistributing your freely available source code for less....your next question will answer that, I think.

Following on from that will the marketplace be vetted (like Apple) or free for all (like Android)?

For the time being, ClearCenter will vet all apps entering the Marketplace for security, quality and, I suppose policing (although I hope this won't be too common, if ever, an occurrence).

I'm not too sure what's going on with Zarafa...Pete's been working on that and Mike has been in contact with the Zarafa management team.

Finally...I know just enough to be dangerous with the new build system...as a '3rd party' developer, there will still be parts that need 'human intervention'...but we'll work towards automation in the next 12 - 18 months and certainly get 'development to Marketplace' more streamlined.

And yes...more documentation to come regarding becoming a vendor in the Marketplace...high priority on my list once we get 6 out.

Ben

Thanks Ben! Very helpful

Hi Tim,

Yes, Zarafa Community will be available along with Zarafa Small Business. It's going to lag the 6 release a little bit since there's a bit of chicken/egg with respect to whole Zarafa ecosystem (aligning all the business/subscription stuff with the technology bits). The Zarafa libraries (mostly your code!) and LDAP extension are sitting in SVN... I just need to light it up again.

The development road of ClearOS 6.2 is long (what i fully understand). So i really hoping this year for some apps for home users. Personally i like to see support for Apple devices. Like AFP, Timemachine, etc.

Nice that Zarafa also will be available for the community edition!

Hi Marcel,

In 5.x, we can't roll Transmission, media servers and other non-business stuff into the web-based installer. We don't want those things showing up in business settings of course. By splitting into multiple editions, that giant roadblock is now gone

Not to hijack the thread, but there's a Howto on Time Machine @ www.clearfoundation.com/docs/howtos/time_machine Many team members in Utah depend on it, so I'm guessing that it works.

Some times you lose sight of ClearOS being a SBS solution but now splitting ClearOS in multiply editions i can't wait to see what the future has in store for us.

Of course I have customized my ClearOS 5.2 server with all kind of home stuff but sometimes it's difficult to install because of the aging system (old linux kernel and packages). This is understandable for a enterprise server but what can we expect with the community / home edition. Is it possible to upgrade packages with the new build system?

Marcel van Leeuwen wrote:
Is it possible to upgrade packages with the new build system?

Yes! I sent an e-mail to Tim many many weeks ago to start the process of getting one of his RPMs/apps migrated to the build system. We were going take that experience to build out the remaining documentation and workflow processes. Most of this is already done @ www.clearfoundation.com/docs/developer/packaging/start -- we just need to refresh the docs.

The plan kind of fizzled out, but we'll revive it soon. My main focus is getting this release out the door of course

Hi Peter, sorry no intentional delay on my part, i'll drop you a PM to get things rolling again