Suggestions for Improving the Visibility of Marketing Content and Community Contributions

[tratru]

Dear all,

I noticed with interest that a section has been created where marketing-related information and posts can be shared. I would like to say that this is a very welcome initiative and, in my opinion, it was long overdue.

However, I would like to make a brief observation, which should be taken simply as constructive feedback. The decision to place these posts within a sub-section of the Community category, rather than giving them more prominent visibility, might limit their impact. An article of this kind represents an important achievement for the community. It is comparable to a medal pinned on a soldier returning from war: a source of pride that deserves to be displayed openly and highlighted on the front page.

As I believe I have mentioned more than once, marketing is not my field. Nevertheless, in my role as a technician I have occasionally been interviewed for articles that were later published in industry magazines on behalf of the companies involved. For this reason, I would have expected “if not a full editorial” at least greater visibility than simply being placed within a forum thread.

I would also like to take this opportunity to suggest another idea, with the sole purpose of helping the community grow. Of course, this is just a proposal and should be considered as such.

Recently, several users have shared various unofficial plugins. For example, I can think of RPZ or the plugin that provided network traffic monitoring with some additional features. After a few months, however, these components tend to disappear, as they remain scattered across different posts and are eventually forgotten.

It might therefore be useful to group them together within a dedicated sub-section of the forum. Naturally, this should be accompanied by the appropriate disclaimers “for instance, clearly stating that these are unofficial components and that users install them at their own risk”.

In this way, users would at least be aware of their existence and could easily find them when needed. Moreover, such an initiative would help highlight the work and contributions of the community itself, strengthening its reputation and credibility, which is ultimately the most important aspect.

[ms (Michael Tremer)]

Hello Umberto,

@tratru

I noticed with interest that a section has been created where marketing-related information and posts can be shared. I would like to say that this is a very welcome initiative and, in my opinion, it was long overdue.

This category is not new at all. It has been on the forum from the start and was only now moved to the Community section. But I don’t think it is what you think it is.

@tratru

Recently, several users have shared various unofficial plugins. For example, I can think of RPZ or the plugin that provided network traffic monitoring with some additional features. After a few months, however, these components tend to disappear, as they remain scattered across different posts and are eventually forgotten.

It might therefore be useful to group them together within a dedicated sub-section of the forum. Naturally, this should be accompanied by the appropriate disclaimers “for instance, clearly stating that these are unofficial components and that users install them at their own risk”.

This is not a good idea at all. The IPFire development team does not have any interest in giving people a platform where they can do their own development. This is the support forum for IPFire. It is about questions around IPFire and for people who are using IPFire.

If you would like to run your own out-of-tree add-on, there is no limitation at all. Set up your own website, publish your own builds, set up your own space where people can ask questions. But it has nothing to do with IPFire. It is - by your choice - a separate project.

The reason why we are having a very strong stance is that we don’t want any of these “fire and forget” add-ons. People have been dropping a lot of code on here and in other places and then never followed up on it. Building professional and useful software is not a task that lasts you an afternoon. It is an ongoing process that requires planning, recourses and a lot of patience. If setting up your own thing is too much effort and you just want to drop some stuff, then you are not the right person to contribute to the open source eco system and certainly this is not the place where to put these things.

We have been tolerating things in the past, but it has been a place of frustration for all sides. Just because you can upload some tarballs here, does not mean that this is a meaningful code contribution and that a project will become a success. I believe we can all agree that the RPZ example that you picked is showing this specifically well.

So, we won’t create a separate category. We don’t want to spend time on it, and we do not provide any meaningful resources of the IPFire infrastructure for any third-party projects. Time and money that people donate to the IPFire project should only be invested there and not in some hobby of some other people.

@tratru

In this way, users would at least be aware of their existence and could easily find them when needed. Moreover, such an initiative would help highlight the work and contributions of the community itself, strengthening its reputation and credibility, which is ultimately the most important aspect.

You may talk about whatever you want on this forum. We are trying to keep this place as neutral as we possibly can - although some people are asking for the opposite.

I believe that you are confusing these things with a contribution to the project.

Developing a third-party feature is not a contribution in the sense that I would use that word in this context. We don’t have any interest in strengthening the reputation and/or credibility of these third-party projects whatsoever.

We are happy to support and champion people who are joining IPFire itself. Proposing and implementing changes in the IPFire code base, improving documentation, helping us to advertise the project. That is something that I would consider a real contribution to this project.

-Michael

[tratru]

@ms

This is not a good idea at all. The IPFire development team does not have any interest in giving people a platform where they can do their own development. This is the support forum for IPFire. It is about questions around IPFire and for people who are using IPFire.

If you would like to run your own out-of-tree add-on, there is no limitation at all. Set up your own website, publish your own builds, set up your own space where people can ask questions. But it has nothing to do with IPFire. It is - by your choice - a separate project.

The reason why we are having a very strong stance is that we don’t want any of these “fire and forget” add-ons. People have been dropping a lot of code on here and in other places and then never followed up on it. Building professional and useful software is not a task that lasts you an afternoon. It is an ongoing process that requires planning, recourses and a lot of patience. If setting up your own thing is too much effort and you just want to drop some stuff, then you are not the right person to contribute to the open source eco system and certainly this is not the place where to put these things.

We have been tolerating things in the past, but it has been a place of frustration for all sides. Just because you can upload some tarballs here, does not mean that this is a meaningful code contribution and that a project will become a success. I believe we can all agree that the RPZ example that you picked is showing this specifically well.

So, we won’t create a separate category. We don’t want to spend time on it, and we do not provide any meaningful resources of the IPFire infrastructure for any third-party projects. Time and money that people donate to the IPFire project should only be invested there and not in some hobby of some other people.

Dear Michael,

I fully understand your position regarding the code issue and I completely support it. However, there may have been a misunderstanding, and I believe that my mentioning the RPZ module might have led to some confusion.

As I mentioned before, I absolutely agree that in order to maintain a truly professional system, continuous and long-term commitment is required. Even a brief deviation from these guidelines can risk losing focus on the main objectives.

To better explain my point, I would like to refer to two products that I use in my primary professional activity. The first is the Niagara system by Honeywell (https://www.niagaramarketplace.com/all-products/home-automation.html), and the second is CODESYS (https://store.codesys.com/en/).

Both platforms make available on their websites components developed by third-party integrators for their respective systems. These components can sometimes be downloaded free of charge and other times for a fee; however, in both cases the responsibility always lies with the developer of the component or with the person who installs it.

That said, I fully understand the decision not to provide visibility to components developed outside the official channel. My suggestion was simply an idea inspired by a model that works very well for these two companies and is widely used by many professionals.

Kind regards.