[cvsnt] Betr.: Re: March-Hare message into my commit messages

[Glen Starrett]

Hi Jan,

> Either from people running to subversion, the `real free' sollution 
> already sounds much more `sexy', or worse even if someone gets sick of it 
> and forks (although I doubt a fork would be successfull given that 
> everything is still under GPL.) 

I don't want to start a SVN vs CVSNT thread here, but SVN does have an 
upsell which includes a lot of the features we give away for free. 
Their approach is to limit the free product to the core and have 
companies pay if they need the extra features.  They have a very 
different approach, but it is certainly centered around getting their 
product sold.

> I requested my 
> company to get a license based on the polite mails on this list recently 
> and they did. 

Thank you!

> I personally wouldn't ask it again if the message was not in a friendly 
> mail to the list but in an annoying message in my revision history.

Unfortunately a lot of users are not like you.  There are far more that 
will continue to use the free product and never seek to support the 
project for a number of reasons.  This message will help those who are 
ignorant of the commercial product see it's available, and encourage 
them to participate.

I don't fault our silent FOSS users.  When I was still doing the 
corporate programming thing, I would seek out free or inexpensive 
products to improve my productivity.  "Free as in beer" was always easy 
to try.  There were dozens of closed source shareware time limited apps 
that I purchased because I had to, and others that were not time limited 
or ad-supported I used for years without paying for.  I think there are 
a lot of users like me out there, who just need some gentle 
encouragement to contribute.

I got interested in CVSNT and joined the list because it was a new 
concept to me and took awhile to get my head around it.  I participated 
on the list only partially to 'give back', but mostly to solidify my own 
knowledge -- and it worked extraordinarily well.  If CVS Suite was 
around when I started learning about CVSNT, and I had purchased it with 
the eBook*, it would have saved me countless hours of learning by trial 
and learning the wrong way.  Take the cost of CVS Suite into the number 
of hours I spent learning, and you're looking at sweatshop child labor 
rates.  There is a LOT of value in the product and services March Hare 
offers (yes, I get paid to say that, but it's true).


... And now to the big question ...

If you have suggestions on how we can evangelize the CVS Suite and Pro 
products to get more sales in a less obtrusive way I would like to hear 
them.  What triggers you decide to open your wallet or go through the 
pain of your internal acquisition processes?

Keep in mind there are some options that are off the table: We aren't 
going to close/obfuscate the source, we won't purposefully add bugs, we 
prefer to keep core functionality where it belongs (as close to the 
server as possible), etc.


* For those who don't know already, the eBook we refer to is titled "All 
About CVS" and is a 300+ page book included with CVS Suite that is 
focused on CVSNT/CVS Suite, not like a lot of the sources you get on the 
Internet containing outdated or conflicting guidance for using CVS 
and/or CVSNT.  For example:  Don't use flying fish branching, it's bad 
for performance and completely unnecessary with changesets and the 
promotion model.


Best Regards,


-- 
Glen Starrett
Technical Account Manager, North America
March Hare Software, LLC
http://march-hare.com/cvspro/
800-653-1501 x803