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Thu Oct 16 12:09:33 BST 2008


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product literature I think we can both see it is not designed to appeal
to you.  However other long time users of CVSNT have already posted in
this thread that they did learn stuff from the eBook when they bought
it.

The CVS Suite marketing material is designed for people who are familiar
with using VSS.  Or to put another way - the CVS Suite marketing
material is designed for people who download WinCVS and say 'this is not
what I want'.=20

My goal is to add to the numbers of people people who are using good
software configuration management tools - which necessitates presenting
information in a new 'simpler' - 'less technical' way.

> As an addendum, I wanted to list some very real problems that I would=20
> buy CVS Suite to solve if only I knew with confidence they were even=20
> addressed

I think what you and many other 'technically advanced' users want is CM
Server ie: EVS.  The very first version may not look very pretty but it
does support both SVN and CVSNT clients and has 'svn style' repository
revision id's and we'll add to the number of supported clients
(TeamSystem will be next and also to the prettyness of the GUI and the
number of workflows the GUI supports.=20

> 1)  WinCVS is old and outdated. =20

The 'Suite Studio' (previously called Workspace Manager) is our
'replacement' for WinCVS - including it's support for flat view -
however if you love WinCVS then you probably wont like 'Suite Studio'
and are probably best off continuing to use WinCVS.  The CVS Suite
version of CVSNT already has support for 'message to bug number' so that
includes support for WinCVS, but we recommend using Suite Studio for
things like promote and merge by bug id since we wont be adding those to
WinCVS any time soon. =20

Of course we listen to our customers - so if tomorrow 1000 people bought
1-3 copies each of CVS Suite and 400 of them wrote to the help desk all
saying that WinCVS was the most important part of the Suite for them and
that their 'top 5 ideas' were 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 then of course we'd listen
and deliver on that in CVS Suite 2009.



> Anyway that's my feedback.  I love cvsnt and appreciate all the work=20
> that has been put into it. =20

The 'point' of our recent advertising push is all about the ability for
us to continue to fund innovation in the core FOSS product and not at
all about whether the CVS Suite commercial add-ons add value for you.
If CVSNT is core to work that a person is paid a wage/salary/income for
then I want to encourage that person to support the tool that is helping
them to earn an income.

Many other organisations keep innovation out of the FOSS product and
spend the majority of their hours and money on marketing and innovating
only in the non FOSS 'add on' tools.  March Hare Software have spent
more time and money every year on the core CVSNT/EVS projects than on
the 'add ons' by far more than 2:1 - and yes it does show in the
comprehensiveness of the 'core' product and the relative lack of
comprehensiveness of the 'add ons'. =20

Tony and I are certainly not going to walk away from CVSNT, however an
option open to us is exactly what you appear to be advocating for in
your e-mail: we'll start to add all these features to the 'add on
commercial tools' and so that they become indispensable. =20

However I prefer the path we've already followed, with adding
changesets, and audit and access control lists and multi-site
repositories to the core FOSS product so that it truly remains Free and
Open Source and relying on our users to see the value in supporting the
team that provide it and purchase support and the 'officially supported'
versions.


The features that we've added to the 'core' FOSS product are exactly the
ones that you say you value the most.  Now are you (and everyone else
who uses CVSNT) going to encourage us to continue to put them in the
'core' or are you going to encourage us to start putting them only in
'commercial add-ons'?

Regards,



Arthur Barrett




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