Re: Question about vendor-neutrality aspects of having "user case studies"

[Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>]

Chip Childers wrote on Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 09:34:20 -0500:
> The CloudStack marketing community is currently discussing getting case 
> studies from various users of the software, and understanding any
> current consensus on what's right vs. wrong would be helpful.
> 

An ASF project site should not endorse or prefer any single vendor.
It's fine to link to external sites --- Subversion links to external
parties for binaries, and OpenOffice for support --- but you need to be
impartial about it.  Also use rel="nofollow" on external links.

/me greps nofollow http://www.apache.org/**/*...

http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/linking might be related.  (It is
still a draft, so Shane might weigh in as to how close it is to his
current thoughts about an eventual policy.

> While I'm sure that actively promoting the *idea* of users posting case
> studies on their own sites is perfectly fine,

+1

> Has this type of thing been discussed other projects (and do you
> know the outcomes)?  If not, what would be your guidance for CloudStack 
> specifically, and Apache projects generally?

You're aware of the issues here --- content useful to users, and being
neutral towards third parties --- so I'm confident you'll find a fair
balance.

Daniel

Re: Question about vendor-neutrality aspects of having "user case studies"

[Shane Curcuru <as...@shanecurcuru.org>]

(ACK crosspost public & private lists)

Excellent commentary everyone!

Everyone should read this for important rationale and background of 
Apache vendor neutrality: Projects must appear to be, and actually be, 
governed independently of commercial influence:

   http://community.apache.org/projectIndependence.html

On 3/7/2013 10:04 AM, Chip Childers wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 05:00:59PM +0200, Daniel Shahaf wrote:
>> Chip Childers wrote on Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 09:34:20 -0500:
>>> The CloudStack marketing community is currently discussing getting case
>>> studies from various users of the software, and understanding any
>>> current consensus on what's right vs. wrong would be helpful.
>>>
>>
>> An ASF project site should not endorse or prefer any single vendor.
>> It's fine to link to external sites --- Subversion links to external
>> parties for binaries, and OpenOffice for support --- but you need to be
>> impartial about it.  Also use rel="nofollow" on external links.
>>
>> /me greps nofollow http://www.apache.org/**/*...
>>
>> http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/linking might be related.  (It is
>> still a draft, so Shane might weigh in as to how close it is to his
>> current thoughts about an eventual policy.

Indeed, while parts of the Corporate Recognition pages might be formal 
policy, most of this is more of a "best practice" for projects to 
follow.  I kept it as draft because I ran out of time, and also I wanted 
to better explain the rationale and details of some practices before 
sending it out - although there shouldn't be major changes, just 
improvements & explanations.  Guess I'd better find some time now!

>>
>>> While I'm sure that actively promoting the *idea* of users posting case
>>> studies on their own sites is perfectly fine,
>>
>> +1
>>
>>> Has this type of thing been discussed other projects (and do you
>>> know the outcomes)?  If not, what would be your guidance for CloudStack
>>> specifically, and Apache projects generally?
>>
>> You're aware of the issues here --- content useful to users, and being
>> neutral towards third parties --- so I'm confident you'll find a fair
>> balance.
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>
> Thanks for the pointers Daniel.  I think we may actually want to take
> Marks's advice on this.  If we have a page on our website where it would
> be appropriate to reference case studies, it sounds like the most *open*
> approach would be to have it refer to the wiki.

There are a couple of separate but related issues:

- General policy for what kinds of external pages to link to.  The key 
criteria here is: is the content of those external pages truly useful to 
users of Apache CloudStack software?  I.e. just to CloudStack itself in 
a general way, and not specifically to some vendor's solution built atop it?

If so, then it's probably fine to list - especially since as Daniel 
noted "You're aware of the issues here" - and I know from past behavior 
a lot of CloudStack folk are careful to pay attention to this.

Good case studies can be a boon to new user adoption, as well as to 
attracting future contributors to the project - so it's definitely worth 
thinking this through to let it happen in an appropriate way.

- How physically items are posted to your main website or to your wiki.

If you allow open wiki access, that's fine, as long as in addition to 
spam policing, you also police the overall tone and inclusion of the 
links to meet the above criteria (i.e. the links are useful to general 
CloudStack users).  Note that eventually you will have users who abuse 
the wiki for linking to sites that are not truly useful for our users.

Note also that the important issues around branding are around the 
perception of an informed consumer.  That means the level of scrutiny 
for appropriateness is much higher for the home page or main landing 
pages of cloudstack.a.o.  It's not as high for other main pages, and 
typically is somewhat lower for wiki pages (since most informed 
consumers understand that wikis are driven by the broader community and 
change more often).

Does that all make sense?

Re: Question about vendor-neutrality aspects of having "user case studies"

[Chip Childers <ch...@sungard.com>]

On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 05:00:59PM +0200, Daniel Shahaf wrote:
> Chip Childers wrote on Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 09:34:20 -0500:
> > The CloudStack marketing community is currently discussing getting case 
> > studies from various users of the software, and understanding any
> > current consensus on what's right vs. wrong would be helpful.
> > 
> 
> An ASF project site should not endorse or prefer any single vendor.
> It's fine to link to external sites --- Subversion links to external
> parties for binaries, and OpenOffice for support --- but you need to be
> impartial about it.  Also use rel="nofollow" on external links.
> 
> /me greps nofollow http://www.apache.org/**/*...
> 
> http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/linking might be related.  (It is
> still a draft, so Shane might weigh in as to how close it is to his
> current thoughts about an eventual policy.
> 
> > While I'm sure that actively promoting the *idea* of users posting case
> > studies on their own sites is perfectly fine,
> 
> +1
> 
> > Has this type of thing been discussed other projects (and do you
> > know the outcomes)?  If not, what would be your guidance for CloudStack 
> > specifically, and Apache projects generally?
> 
> You're aware of the issues here --- content useful to users, and being
> neutral towards third parties --- so I'm confident you'll find a fair
> balance.
> 
> Daniel
>

Thanks for the pointers Daniel.  I think we may actually want to take
Marks's advice on this.  If we have a page on our website where it would
be appropriate to reference case studies, it sounds like the most *open*
approach would be to have it refer to the wiki.