maria-developers team mailing list archive

[Colin Charles <byte@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 25 Sep 2013, at 06:23, MARK CALLAGHAN <mdcallag@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Define "we", or even define "MariaDB"? I am confused. At this point mariadb.org looks like a collection of links to #2 and #3 below:

In the context of this email, "we" is Monty Program. Kristian and I both work there, long before we (MP) had to deal with the MariaDB Foundation and SkySQL.

> 1) mariadb.org / foundation
> 2) mariadb.com / skysql
> 3) askmonty.org
> 

As to how we define MariaDB, I think this is worthy of a discussion. Bear with me for a moment. The tl;dr version of the following is such that mariadb.org has always been a collection of links to #2 and #3, with the only exception being #2 didn't exist before and was called montyprogram.com

Why do we have askmonty.org? Because when the company was announced as Monty Program, a domain squatter registered the domain. We could have paid the chap off, but we chose not to enrich a domain squatter, thus we began legal proceedings to get montyprogram.com. We finally got it, but at this point things like the downloads and the Knowledgebase were on askmonty.org. We had montyprogram.com which served to offer developer support, keep track of some news/press releases, but that was about it.

After a while, we decided we needed to have mariadb.org. Here we put the user stats collection, the explain analyzer, etc. Eventually downloads moved here. The knowledgebase still remained at askmonty.org. The blog moved from blog.montyprogram.com to blog.mariadb.org

With the merger of Monty Program with SkySQL, it seems that naturally montyprogram.com would have to be retired. Askmonty.org also got retired.

But for reasons beyond me (one might presume this has something to do with a branding strategy), there is now a new website called MariaDB.com (which as you allude to above, is SkySQL-owned).

So, mariadb.org is the foundation's website. mariadb.com belongs to skysql. Now, let's see what has changed from now, compared to a year ago?
* the Knowledgebase seems to have a new URL - kb.askmonty.org is now https://mariadb.com/kb/en/

What hasn't changed? The downloads. The blog.

In fact, mariadb.org hasn't changed much at all. It still has links pointing to askmonty.org and montyprogram.com. As I do not represent the Foundation, it is clear this is something that has to be brought up to the attention of Simon Phipps, as CEO of the Foundation (https://mariadb.org/en/foundation/).

So the net conclusion?
- We've lost montyprogram.com and askmonty.org (this is good!)
- We've gained mariadb.com (with a potentially confusing offering that has a vague description)
- The knowledgebase from askmonty.org (the only thing that remained there, besides the old worklog tool and wiki) has moved to mariadb.com
- We clearly need to improve the content on mariadb.org
- We need to get rid of/merge content of worklog: http://worklog.askmonty.org/worklog/ 

Does this help answer your questions? Also, I'm not sure if these discussions are meant to be on maria-developers, instead of maria-discuss

cheers,
-colin

> 
> On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 1:31 PM, Colin Charles <byte@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Kristian,
> 
> On 18 Sep 2013, at 01:26, Kristian Nielsen <knielsen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Colin Charles <byte@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >
> >> It's 17.09 today, and we've hit 50,160 total downloads (this number is
> >> considered company-internal, we don't share this number externally).
> >
> > "company-internal"? What have you been smoking? Colin, you are supposed to be
> > the community guy for crying out lout :-(
> >
> > This is *completely*, utterly unacceptable.
> >
> > MariaDB is a community project. We are about openness. We are about working
> > together, all of us, to create a better world. We are *not* some individuals
> > or companys playground.
> >
> > So no, the community's usage numbers of its own project is not "internal",
> > thank you very much.
> >
> > So please cut out the crap already.
> >
> 
> I am the Chief Evangelist for MariaDB, and clearly a community advocate and always fight for the community when discussing things internally.
> 
> You are also absolutely right, that MariaDB is a community project. It is governed by the MariaDB Foundation. We have always had a strong ethic with being open. However, despite our strong ethic of being open, we have never published our download statistics. And maybe we should, but that is a discussion that needs to happen with all the stakeholders involved, from the company that pays your salary to the community of developers and users.
> 
> There is an utopian view of the MariaDB world and a realistic view of the MariaDB world. Let’s try to achieve a balance without being anyones playground. There are many changes happening in a rapid fashion, and the cowboy-style that we used to run at Monty Program is clearly changing.
> 
> So while we might want to celebrate the community’s usage numbers, they were set to be internal, like they have always been. Its like a Facebook keynote: they have a lot of MySQL servers, but they will never tell you the exact number of servers or instances that exist (swap Facebook with any large web property, Google, Twitter, etc.).
> 
> There are competitive reasons to keep numbers private sometime. We have analysts paying attention to MariaDB. We have the press paying attention to MariaDB. We have investors paying attention to SkySQL, a large backer of MariaDB.
> 
> MariaDB has been very open with some numbers (see What’s happening now - https://mariadb.com/kb/en/), but we have never in the history of the project shared download numbers.
> 
> Maybe it is time to start a discussion on what numbers do become public. Maybe its time to publish a press release at the start of next month. Maybe numbers should be shared amongst all members of the MariaDB Foundation. Maybe once the MariaDB Foundation is running at full speed, there is a Community Council, ala what Ubuntu does.
> 
> I don’t know the right answers to this, but one thing I can assure you is that I do my level best to keep things in the open. I would appreciate that when something is posted in private it remains that way. You might think its crap, but its unethical to share private emails in public.
> 
> Kristian, I have very high honours for you. Thank you for your occasional outbursts to remind us to keep it real.
> 
> cheers,
> -colin
> 
> 
> --
> Colin Charles, Chief Evangelist
> MariaDB | t: +6-012-204-3201 | Skype: colincharles
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Mark Callaghan
> mdcallag@xxxxxxxxx

--
Colin Charles, Chief Evangelist
MariaDB | t: +6-012-204-3201 | Skype: colincharles