TWiki 4.2 Press Release Discussion

• "application wiki" vs. "open source enterprise wiki". The former brings the message across, the latter is our official term as agreed on in the Rome meeting. Challenge to use both in the press release.
• where is the "4,000 contributors" number coming from? seems high
  • I remember now. This number is based on the number of people who contributed in the Codev, Plugins, TWiki web. -- PeterThoeny - 15 Jan 2008

-- PeterThoeny - 14 Jan 2008

Peter, I used the 4,000 contributors from the last press release (the one that Tom Tansy did). I assumed that because the figure had been expressed in a press release that it had some validity behind it.

Re the application wiki/enterprise wiki thing. We need to figure out how we are going to position TWiki. That's a wider question and one we'll have to figure out after the press release is sent out. For now I'd prefer to use the terms that I used in my first draft - especially having the term Application Wiki in the headline since this will hopefully pique the interest of journalists/editors.

-- MichaelCorbett - 14 Jan 2008

Peter, I've ammended the copy. Here are some notes to explain why I have done this.

• We need to be consistent in our use of either enterprise or application. I see what you were trying to do by using both but it was a little confusing in places.
• I know that at the Rome Summit it was decided to call TWiki an Enterprise Wiki but given the fact that there were only 12 people at the summit we can't claim that this was a community wide decision. Other wikis are trying to brand themselves as Enterprise wikis and this phrase (enterprise wiki) is getting a bit over crowded. No other wiki brands itself as an application wiki and I suggest that we take the opportunity to claim this territory now. I have therefore reworked the copy with the phrase application wiki. (Note that there is a Note to Editors section in which application wiki is explained.) We don't get many opportunities to position TWiki and we have to take them all.
• I want to get the word "free" into the lead since the word "free" always gets people's attention. That means I've had to rewrite the lead otherwise it gets a bit too long.
• Similarly the word "now" is very powerful. We need to ensure that the press release coincides with the availability of the code so we can say "available now".
• I suggest we speak on the phone before the marketing meeting.

-- MichaelCorbett - 14 Jan 2008

Result of phone conversation:

• Refine the "Lead" to bring three messages: What you can do with application wikis; ease of use appealing to business people; free download available.
• Add somewhere the message of "Web 2.0 in the enterprise".
• Discuss decision making process in upcoming summit.

I will send the press release to journalists tonight my time and tomorrow morning.

Everybody: Feel free to send out the press release to your contacts once the DRAFT is removed on top. Please ask the journalists/bloggers to released on or after 16 Jan 2008, not before! Please record your contacts in TWikiAdvocacy04x02.

-- PeterThoeny - 14 Jan 2008

it seems to me that the following line in the TWiki 4.2 press release should be amended

> > The open source TWiki.org community is now supported by TWIKI.NET, an
> > enterprise wiki company offering support subscriptions and other
> > services. TWIKI.NET was founded to cultivate, nurture and advance
> > TWiki as the leading open source enterprise wiki.
TWiki was and is already supported supported by other organizations - such as WikiRing, and several of them offer support and were founded to cultivate, nurture and advance TWiki. The implication that TWIKI.NET is in some way the first and only such organization - or even the one that has done the most work, is probably not the impression that we want to be giving.

-- SvenDowideit - 15 Jan 2008

There are many consultants who do a tremendous job on contributing to the open source TWiki project, such as Crawford of C-Dot, Sven of DistributedINFORMATION or Michael of Michael Daum Consulting. There are others as well, such as Koen of Sonologic, Lynnwood of Skyloom or myself when I was running StructuredWikis LLC. We also have employees who contribute a lot, such as Arhur and Kenneth. On behalf of all the users, thank you Thank You, THANK YOU!

I see your point that TWIKI.NET is not the first company supporting TWiki, but I am not sure it would look good in a press release to state "supported by C-Dot, Michael Daum Consulting, DistributedINFORMATION, Sonologic, Skyloom, TWIKI.NET, Lost Boys, Motorola and more". I think the point is that TWIKI.NET is the first funded company that was founded by the TWiki founder to cultivate, nurture and advance TWiki as the leading open source enterprise wiki. The enterprise wiki pond is big, together we can to secure a big chunk for the TWiki project. I invite the TWiki communit members, especially the members of the WikiRing brand and other consultants to work together, there are large opportunities for all of us ahead.

• "supported by WikiRing brand, TWIKI.NET, Lost Boys, Motorola and more" -- MD 18 Jan 2008)

The press release is designed to make an impact to folks with little attention span. I have seen in the past that journalists unfortunately mostly disregard pure open source projects. Look at the press coverage we got last time and the time before, very little to none! Let's see how much coverage we get this time.

-- PeterThoeny - 15 Jan 2008

The press release is now ready to be sent out to journalists, bloggers and analysts. Please ask them to PLEASE wait with the release until Wed, 16 Jan 2008. When you send it out, please record it in TWikiAdvocacy04x02.

Many thanks to Michael Corbett for initiating the press release!

-- PeterThoeny - 15 Jan 2008

"A UK based TWiki consultancy"? Gee, thanks. What happened to "WikiRing consultant, contributor of 70% of the checkins for 4.2, and sole author of the three of the six release highlight features"?

I don't mind TWIKI.NET getting a mention in the press release. I don't even object to your wording. But I think it is really offensive of you to once again brush the major contributors to the 4.2 release aside "because it doesn't look good".

The reason we founded the WikiRing was so that we could unite under a single brand, such that our contribution could be recognised in this sort of scenario. All of "Crawford of C-Dot, Sven of DistributedINFORMATION or Michael of Michael Daum Consulting, Koen of Sonologic, Lynnwood of Skyloom" - and several others - can be acknowledged with "the WikiRing consultants (http://wikiring.com)".

Personally I'd be quite happy with:

In addition to the consultancy services offered by the WikiRing partnership (http://wikiring.com), the open source TWiki.org community is now also supported by TWIKI.NET, an enterprise wiki company offering support subscriptions and other services.

TWIKI.NET has been founded by Peter Thoeny, the TWiki.org founder, to cultivate, nurture and advance TWiki as the leading open source enterprise wiki.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 15 Jan 2008

Dear All, In the last 24 hours I have had discussions with both Peter and Crawford about the statement in the press release about “The open source TWiki.org community is now supported by TWIKI.NET…”. I’d just like to point out that as the lead author behind the press release this sentence was not inserted by me. But that’s by the by. The important question is, do we mention ONE commercial company that supports TDO (TWiki.org) or TWO of them or more than two or whatever.

I have a feeling that there is no way we can reach consensus on this issue before the press release needs to be sent out. I have therefore amended the press release so that NEITHER TWiki.net or WikiRing gets a mention. I know that this could possibly annoy both camps but the press release has to go out. Time, tide and press releases wait for no man.

Given that the majority of people reading this are from an engineering background I am sure that some folks are going to say “what is the marketing stream playing at?”, “marketing are a right bunch of morons” etc. Well I would probably agree with you. This is no way to handle a press release. But it is just symptomatic of a wider problem – that of corporate governance. Basically that’s just a fancy term for how do we manage ourselves, most importantly how do we make decisions about things that really matter.

Whilst TDO has been an open source community our lack of formal decision making process has not mattered. But the minute that the chips are down – or money/honour is at stake – the effects of a lack of a proper decision making process become all too apparent. There have been a few other topics that point to the need for such a process. E.g. RevisitingDecisionNotToAllowLinkingToExternalTWikiDistros.

This community desperately needs to discuss corporate governance. The problem won’t go away and, what’s worst, is that if we don’t fix it then it will result in more conflict within our community.

-- MichaelCorbett - 15 Jan 2008

Since I posted the above comment I've been struck by a thought: What if others question on what authority I made that decision? Well, I guess the answer is as much authority as anyone else.

And doesn't that kind of beg the question that we need to look at our decision making process...

-- MichaelCorbett - 15 Jan 2008

Hmm, this change is too late. Last night after finalizing the press release over IM chat with Michael at 01:00am my time I started to send out the press release.

Some random thoughts:

• I thought it was a good suggestion that Crawford gets quoted in the beginning of the press release. After all he is the most active contributor.
• We need to refine our decision process; should be discussed in the upcoming TWiki dev summit in mid Februray.
• Press release was handled by one or two persons in the past.
• Many times delegation is better than community consensus. Some folks might remember the endless TWikiLogoDevelopment process. Defining a press release by community consensus takes a long time.
• The wording "C-Dot, a UK based consultancy" was in the initial draft of the press release.

-- PeterThoeny - 15 Jan 2008

Crawford: On "once again brush the major contributors to the 4.2 release": I am not aware of anything like this, I spent many hours trying to get the attribution right (this time and the previous times). IMHO it is better to be specific on allegations like this so that misunderstandings can be solved. I invite you to discuss this and other objectionable things you might have in a private forum; I prefer to keep politics out of the community.

-- PeterThoeny - 15 Jan 2008

It looks like you're in luck Peter & Michael. With the release being delayed until we resolve the Wysiwyg problem, you now have time to change the press release. I find the use of the TWiki Press release as an advertising vehicle for TWIKI.NET, when others contibuted significantly quite uncolaborative - and am reminded of Mambo.

-- SvenDowideit - 17 Jan 2008

It would be nice if 4.2 could be released on my birthday (coming monday ). Thanks in advance! -- Good luck at bug hunting.

-- FranzJosefGigler - 17 Jan 2008

Please do change the press release along the way Crawford proposed. Where's the problem?

-- MichaelDaum - 18 Jan 2008

Community spirit is more important to me than arguing which company or brand should and should not be mention in a press release. I removed the name of companies involved with the open source community. This should address the concerns. Many press releases have been sent on the 15th. We have more to send, those will have no companies mentioned.

-- PeterThoeny - 20 Jan 2008

I don't think that leaving the existing press releases out there is good enough. Especially as I expect that you will have sent out the ones with the highest visibility first.

-- SvenDowideit - 21 Jan 2008

I hope it is obvious to everyone that this is a power battle between Wikiring and TWIKI.NET. And I hope that the reaction from customers that follow this extremely destructive behavior react by not giving any of the two parties ANY BUSINESS until this has stopped.

-- KennethLavrsen - 21 Jan 2008

Kenneth is right! Let's release TODAY or never (hey, it's my birthday! )

-- FranzJosefGigler - 21 Jan 2008

Kenneth, I fear you are right - its not intentional (I assume from any party) - from my part I'm rather wary of my work being taken, with little being returned Which I guess is proof that the comercialisation of TWiki has not been managed effectivly.

For my part, I've felt this way for many years - Starting with how Cairo (and all the work I put into simply making it happen) was portrayed.

-- SvenDowideit - 21 Jan 2008

No, it is not a power battle between TWIKI.NET and the WikiRing, it's a disagreement between Peter and other members of the community on how accreditation is handled. The WikiRing and TWIKI.NET are caught in the middle simply because we are identified with those organisations.

Let's be clear about this. Over the course of 4.2 I have invested hundreds of hours of effort in open source TWiki, of which a fraction was sponsored. Sven, Arthur and I, as individuals, have made huge personal contributions to 4.2, with little thought as to reward. What small ego boosts we may get come through recognition of our efforts. Within the developer community we are generally acknowledged as the most active contributors, but we are invisible outside the developer community. The only chance we have to correct this is to get public recognition for our contributions to this release.

On TWikiHistory and the press release, my issues were not driven by any desire to have a power battle with TWIKI.NET. They were all to do with the lack of recognition that my many hours of hard work had been afforded. IMHO I should not have had to say anything; that recognition should have come automatically, without my having to kick up a fuss. Anyone who prepares such a document has to be strictly scrupulous to ensure that credit goes where it is earned, and doesn't get diffused or implicitly misdirected.

Peter's new approach of not allowing commercial advertising in press releases is absolutely correct, and I believe the community should embrace that approach with open arms. Any advertisment for any company in a press release is to my mind an implicit claim for the credit, and contrary to the community development ethic.

As a general point, I think the community has to be really careful not to be forced into a corner where we have to ban all commercial links because some contributors abuse their position. CommerceAndCommunity is all about communication, and ensuring the processes are in place to prevent this sort of problem in the future. Please lets support that initiative, and take a cup-half-full approach to this, instead of creating conflict where none need exist.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 21 Jan 2008

Hey, fair crack o' the whip there. I am not associated with any of these companies. From my viewpoint, it suddenly started to look like the project was now being controlled by a new commercial entity, twiki.net, our sole saviour. No question of which companies to promote, it came across as twiki.net alone and that's it. A monopoly.

As a person who is aware of numerous other businesses assisting us over long periods, I was rather alarmed to see some ring-in come along and execute commercial advertising defeat over the unboasted work of others. That's what it looked like.

No, in the battle between commercial interests, I see only one player here.

-- SueBlake - 21 Jan 2008

There are indeed two players in the conflict.

The press release was indeed a TWIKI.NET advertising stunt.

But look at what has been going on the past year: WikiRing, EncourageSponsorship (link in related topics), HowAreTWikiDevelopersFunded, BugsContrib, WebPermissionsPlugin, ContribPackage, SlideShowPlugin, JSPopupPlugin, RenderWikiRingLink, MathModePlugin, AliasPlugin, Blog.2007-10-02-twiki-420-beta-2-released-including-installers-for-windows-and-mac-osx, MoveableTypeSkin etc etc

I can continue with 100+ more of the same. What brand is it we see the most?

I don't think one party is any better than the other. And I do not take sides here. I think we are many that are fed up with the cold war in this community.

Most serious open source projects live side by side with commercial interests because you get more done than if you only rely on hobbyists. So let us learn to deal with this. Being one without a direct personal commercial interest, I have taken the initiative of getting clear rules for the future: GuideLinesLinkingThirdPartyDistributions and GuideLinesSponsorPresenceOnTWikiDotOrg addresses some of this. Please - everyone - participate in getting these guidelines refined and accepted.

We probably also need a similar Guideline for press releases. But I think that will be easier once we have the others settled.

-- KennethLavrsen - 21 Jan 2008

Kenneth, I think you got this wrong. Within the originally release there was only mentioned TWIKI.NET. As CrawfordCurrie and SvenDowideit where contributing significant amount of code to TWiki. They only want to get the recognition they deserve, which I think is totally understandable. Good to see that press release is now commerce-free

I don´t want to neglect other work around TWiki.org like release managing, documentation, supporting, translation, testing etc., but when it comes to TWiki-Core developing there are not many persons involved:

2007-01-17 (TWiki 4.1) - 2008-01-15 (TWiki 4.2) Main/lib

Author	Changes	Lines of Code
CrawfordCurrie	926 (66.5%)	16802 (59.2%)
SvenDowideit	224 (16.1%)	8793 (31.0%)

While SVN changes and lines of code do not totally reflect the work on core, but those guys did 90 % of the coding within lib! As this is the base of all further work (extensions, skins, applications...) the importance to develop this area cannot be overemphasize for TWikis future competitiveness.

Things to improve

However, the ongoing discussion on this topic reveals the need to define further processes and roles in order to foster TWikis growing community. I like to suggest two ideas in context of this topic.

development board and development leadership

Let the people decide who actually do the work! Looking at SVN logs clearly says CrawfordCurrie and SvenDowideit should be involved here. They both did substantially contributions and prove their commitment to TWiki over the last years.

Provided that they want - give them an adequate role within the "development" and "roadmap setting" process. I am sure they would be proud to lead this effort.

dedicated group for marketing

Regarding press-releases and other marketing related work I would suggest a dedicated group which works transparently for the community by having a open mailinglist - also for the upcoming release! At the moment Peter is mentioned as single contact with his TWIKI.NET address in place.

-- AndreUlrich - 21 Jan 2008

OK, let's look at those topics.

• WikiRing is a definition topic
• EncourageSponsorship doesn't mention WikiRing, though it links to the definition topic. Besides, it was all about recognising sponsors, not the WikiRing.
• HowAreDevelopersFunded - a small announcement about the existence of the ring.
• BugsContrib - and the rest of the branded extensions - we wrote them; why the heck shouldn't we brand them?

I could go on; the WikiRing has only branded those things that members have contributed. Is it our fault that we are the most active contributors? Because it feels like we are being blamed for being too active, and then again for taking issue when our activity is ignored.

Enough said. I am more than happy to participate in the definition of processes that prevent this sort of situation arising again. If you want a GuidelinesOnBranding, then I'm happy to contribute to that as well.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 21 Jan 2008

Andre I understand your point but I do not agree with the first statements. We have to see the big picture here.

On the "Let the people decide who actually do the work!". Is it only code that is work? Is the work I do not worth enough to give me influence???? I work in an IT company and I know that coding is approx 20% of product development. If someone codes 4 hours and another tests 4 hours they both contributed 4 hours. And if someone spent 4 hours supported users on t.o. they also worked 4 hours. If someone writes a good design document or user manual topic and spends 4 hours that too is 4 hours. We each have our strengths and the ones that codes may not be the ones that are the best to make decisions on features, documentation, user interface design, twiki.org development etc. The important thing about team work is to gather many different skill sets and work together getting the best out of it.

And then there is our different backgrounds. And one thing I have been trying to pull in is our customers in the meaning The people that use TWiki. I think it pleases developers that customers give feedback on features. Noone would spend time developing TWiki if noone used it. So as many will know I have been working hard getting more customers involved.

And the customers must have directly influence on the decisions that are important them. Note that noone ever challenges decisions made on the code. Developers can refactor the code completely without even raising a feature proposal. The release process is mainly there to help the community to choose the right features and to ensure that we do not destroy the ones we already have.

At the end of the day what we want it to make the best wiki we can possibly get. And having as many as possible being part of the decision process is a good thing. And it is actually never here we have conflicts in the community. The conflicts lately have had commercial aspects and that is why I now drive the definition of some simple guidelines. If we all follow these in future then there is nothing to fight about.

And marketing?? To be honest I sometimes think TWiki - the open source project - should perhaps focus less on trying to do marketing - and rather focus on the product development. And let the commercial entities do their own marketing. As you point out Andre there are some visible conflicts of interests.

One interesting thing I learned from the Wiki Seminar in January here in Denmark is that TWiki being an open source project is a key feature of TWiki and that this fact was a major reason to choose TWiki.

We should probably put even more emphasis on the open source strengths in the twiki.org profile and in future press releases.

-- KennethLavrsen - 21 Jan 2008

Answer to Crawford. There is NOTHING wrong with your branding. I think you should continue. The links was the argument to "there are two players with commercial interests". The guidelines we now create will ensure that people like you can continue branding your wonderful contributions with good conscience and on equal terms with the other brands. I hope this clarifies my position now

-- KennethLavrsen - 21 Jan 2008

I've been slowly pushing a wiki approach within a Tier 1 automotive supplier. It was reassuring to know that if our wiki really takes off, it would be possible to buy professional support in the time-zones where we operate. The very public discussion in this topic is much less reassuring, so I hope that it will finish on a positive note.

-- JohnFitzpatrick - 21 Jan 2008

John: I am sorry you are caught in the middle of this. Our community is learning how to cope with commercial interests, and we have ways to go to find a balance. The goal from the beginning is to grow the whole TWiki ecosystem, and to work on a win/win/win for community, customers and commercial entities. We are making progress, see for example today's release meeting, FreetownReleaseMeeting2008x01x21, where we discussed and agreed on the link question to external distributions and to the sponsor attribution question.

Kenneth/Crawford: I also have nothing against putting logos and links to contributing entities as long as it is done in a non-intrusive way. Trivia: We currently have 175 links to WikiRing URL (with sometimes big logos), and 34 links (currently no logos) to TWIKI.NET URL in Blog, Codev, Plugins, Support webs. The discussions have shown that our community needs guidelines. Thank you Kenneth for initiating them!

Crawford: I disagree and feel offended with your statement that I am not giving credit. I spent hours and hours to try to get the TWikiHistory right; this time, and also last time for the 4.1 release. It is never possible to satisfy everybody. Also, in the original version of the press release you and your consultancy got mentioned at the top; also there I feel you got your fair coverage; in fact above all others who do a lot behind the scene, such as Kenneth on quality, or Antonio on translations. I feel strongly we should strive on a harmonious relationship within the community, and to take personal arguments offline.

Andre: I could care less on my e-mail address used in the press release. I changed it to peter at thoeny dot org.

Franz: Happy birthday to you! We will release soon, possibly 2008-01-22.

-- PeterThoeny - 22 Jan 2008

@Kenneth: Please read my statement again. I have the "big picture" in mind therefore I explicitely wrote:

• "I don´t want to neglect other work around TWiki.org like release managing, documentation, supporting, translation, testing..."

I suggested that when we are in the process of defining necessary community processes and roles, the people who actually do the work should decide about their work! See, I didn´t exclude you here I just suggested that when it comes to "development" and "roadmap setting" processes CrawfordCurrie and SvenDowideit should be involved. TWiki finally is a software project and there are not many who actually have the skill and insight to develop it.

@Peter: I see you get my point. Please consider to build up a dedicated group and an open mailing list as I suggested in order to do marketing.

-- AndreUlrich - 22 Jan 2008

Kenneth wrote:

And marketing?? To be honest I sometimes think TWiki - the open source project - should perhaps focus less on trying to do marketing - and rather focus on the product development.

While we remain focused on product dev, the most obvious reasons that distract users from TWiki aren't being addressed at all. Marketing alone done by a commercial entity might help, sure. Why not remove those negative factors first, so we don't undermine any good marketing before it has started? The most annoying downside of TWiki is ... TWiki.org, but that has been reiterated for ages now and N-O-T-H-I-N-G has happened. To make it clear: as a product manager of TWiki, I'd plain stop product dev until things got a significant redesign, and people evaluating TWiki aren't confronted with such a crude system. There are no screenshots, no demos, no videos, nothing of that sort.

How can someone be convinced to use TWiki that way, other than some geeks down in the IT department who can taste blood?

-- MichaelDaum - 22 Jan 2008

Peter, if you can't see why I found your work on TWikiHistory and the press release difficult to accept, then there is no point trying to explain it to you any further, publicly or privately. Someone else might like to explain it to you some time. For now, I am waiting for processes to be put in place that prevent this from happening again before I will consider making any further contributions to the core.

BTW I'm really not interested in link wars, but I imagine we have 175 links mainly because WikiRing has been around for quite a while now, and members have contributed some 60 TWiki extensions to the Plugins web.

Michael, you are right. Let's accept a moratorium on development until such time as the public face of twiki.org has had it's long-promised facelift.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 22 Jan 2008

On advertising stunt: Absolutely, this was an advertising stunt. A stunt mainly for the community, for this reason: How much press coverage does TWiki, MoinMoin, DokuWiki, JspWiki or Mailman get? Virtually none. How much press coverage does MindTouch, SocialText, Zimbra or SugarCRM get? Quite a lot. Why? because journalists (sadly) pay more attention to - as perceived "professional" - open source projects where a company supports the community. Don't take my word, talk to a journalist. However, this is not to imply that TWiki was not already supported by companies, e.g. consultancies such as C-Dot (the reason why this company was mention at the top in the original version of the press release.)

We do not have a win/win situation here by removing company names that could grab the attention of a journalist, but I saw this as the only way to resolve the issue. I find it unfortunate for the community that we missed an opportunity here to get TWiki more into the limelight. Since the community does not believe a press release can be delegated we need yet another guideline. I believe it is better to let a marketeer define the GuidelinesForWritingAPressRelease.

Michael Daum: Right on the mark. TWiki.org could do so much better by simply adding some intro pages with screenshots and videos, tailored to a number of Personas Arthur identified.

-- PeterThoeny - 24 Jan 2008

I'd rather have a TWiki less in the press - and a strong community, than a TWiki which is split apart by these eternal fights. Please stop dammit.

-- KennethLavrsen - 24 Jan 2008

I agree with Kenneth, let us not be blind that current proceedings in the area of press releases is having negative effects.

Great idea to do more web-/videocast-style stuff - did anything come from the competions on this subject yet?

Talking about TWiki.org it would be great to have it cached also - it is a big impediment for cleaning it up is that it is currently not searchable through google - and in that it takes a lot of time to read-only browse/search it - with typical response times from 5-30+ seconds (in Denmark at least).

Anyway, just wanted to throw a direct link to the TWiki.org homepage personas Arthur identified - they are at WebPageAudience.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 24 Jan 2008