Author Topic: On the future of Feng Office  (Read 39878 times)

conrado

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #30 on: March 11, 2011, 07:39:30 pm »
Wow! Very glad to receive so much interest and feedback!

It is late friday night here and I want to go home (and I am riding the bike today), so I won't extend today, but will do so next week.

To get started:
  • 1.7.4 is already on Sourceforge. Formal announcement and release post will take place on Monday. Just finished  the draft.
  • Work on Feng Office 2.0 already underway. More on that soon.
  • Involving more developers: eager to do so. It is much more challenging than one would originally believe. We strive to do it, and yet we have to do so much better. At least we have adopted a new and a bit more formal methodology (for us): Scrum. We are still getting used to the changes, but already noticing the results. Hopefully a more formal methodology will help us on this front as well.
  • API? Yes! We're doing it. Not designed yet. Thus, no approximate release date possible yet.
  • More changes? Yes! 1.7.4 just out. 1.7.5/1.8 probably faster than previous. 2.0 I've mentioned.
  • Better communications: Believe me when I say I probably suffer the most from the fact that I have less time to communicate. The volume of information and work-flow is ever-increasing and overwhelming most of the time. That is why our latest forum-hero, Francisco, is lending a great hand.

More on this next week. Here, and on the blog.

Have a nice weekend! Cheers!
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Karl

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #31 on: March 11, 2011, 08:30:28 pm »
Hi Conrado,

Great news!

 :) :) :)

Have a nice weekend too!

- Karl


Markus

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #32 on: March 14, 2011, 06:37:21 am »
Hi conrado,

glad to read that.
Hope, you had a relaxing weekend. Sounds like a busy week ;D

cheers
markus

conrado

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #33 on: March 14, 2011, 11:26:24 am »
Thanks! Had a fun weekend. Not relaxing (should do one of those sometime!).  :P

As promised, the post about 1.7.4 is here.

Tell your friends! This is one release we're particularly proud of. App is looking good.
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aiman

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #34 on: May 06, 2011, 03:09:06 am »
Thank you.

freakalad

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Re: On the future of Feng Office - IRC, etc
« Reply #35 on: June 02, 2011, 02:24:34 am »
Hi guys,

I've just discovers Feng Office (well-impressed!) & hoping I can use it like a local version of what I often use Google's services for, like Docs.
A local Feng VM can fulfil much of what such services offer & go some way towards addressing the public's concerns.

I'm just a bit concerned with regards to to continued development of this fantastic product, since there seems to be a strong commercial slant, which seems to be ticking off a lot of otherwise loyal FLOSS members, users & contributors.

This is evidenced by the absolute desert that is the IRC channel :(

Can anyone please tell me where this product/project is headed, and if it's even worth my while investing time, effort & resources in continuing down this path.

It would be a crying shame if this was the case; but if this is the reality, I need to cut my losses & move on.

moorezilla

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #36 on: June 02, 2011, 10:02:17 am »
Well... considering that there's a release candidate available for download and testing, that fact alone suggests the product is still under active development. As to the commercial slant, ultimately this product is developed to make money for the developers and the company behind the product. Even though it's open source code, the developers are running a business, so they probably are much more apt to answer questions and concerns of paying customers. That's the trade off. If you want your questions answered in a timely manner and you want your concerns definitely addressed by the developers, you need to consider paying for the product... or I should say... paying for support for the product if you're hosting locally. Feng Office also has (or had in the past) the opportunity for people to sponsor development of particular functionality, in the event that they wanted to help mold the future direction of parts of the project. Hope this helps.

freakalad

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #37 on: June 02, 2011, 07:52:41 pm »
Thanks for the response, moorezilla.
It does go some way towards addressing my questions.

As long as this product is FOSS, & will continue to support & recommend it, since it fills a big niche.

I just hope the community-side (form, IRC, etc) picks up a bit & remains healthy, as is absolutely essential for a strong FOSS project.

conrado

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #38 on: June 03, 2011, 10:00:10 pm »
Yep. moorezilla addressed the question in a beautiful manner, I would say.  ;)

This is a pretty recent picture of the team that is working at Feng Office. We have so much work that it's been something like two months since we took the picture, and we still haven't updated the About page!



The IRC channel was a suggestion of a community member. It is not an official communication channel.

Francisco, from the Feng Office team, does keep a close eye on the forum. He devotes as much time as possible, prioritizing, as moorezilla very rightly pointed out, subscribed customers issues and concerns.

We are always trying to find ways (and time!!) to continuously improve our community communications. That is very important to us.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2011, 10:04:01 pm by conrado »
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conrado

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #39 on: June 03, 2011, 10:05:37 pm »
Oh, BTW, we even have welcomed two new teammates since we took this shot!
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bigbearomaha

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #40 on: June 26, 2011, 09:56:21 pm »
OK, having recently looked over the main website for FengOffice.

1) I see no free community download offered.

2) I see offers to download versions for local install for a per seat cost

3) I see requests for people to join the development team.

Are those who join the development team all paid then?  if you are going to charge for a product,  I assume "everyone" who is a contributor is being compensated in some manner.  If not, I find that pretty shady for an FOSS project (otherwise, please call yourself only "OpenSource" as there is no "free" involved and constitutes false advertisement.)

if there is still a free community version, you are hiding the download info very well and if I have missed seeing it, I would like some help in accessing it.

If there is no longer a free community version, I will then announce my departure from this forum and this project.
You are obviously free to sell opensource software if that is your desire, but I cannot say that it is worth paying for if the problems from the last released version of OpenGoo still exist in any form.

btw, you advertise FengOffice as a competitor to google and other similar online apps, yet you were quite anti-spreadsheet earlier in this thread.  Like it or not, people expect spreadsheet functionality in an office app.

hoping to hear good news on this

Karl

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #41 on: June 27, 2011, 04:37:59 am »
OK, having recently looked over the main website for FengOffice.

1) I see no free community download offered...

if there is still a free community version, you are hiding the download info very well and if I have missed seeing it, I would like some help in accessing it.

It is not hidden.

Click on "COMMUNITY", there is a submenu, click on "Downloads" -- there ist is.

conrado

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #42 on: June 29, 2011, 07:29:33 pm »
Thanks for assisting Karl!

Hi Bigbearomaha, I hope Karl's answer addressed most of your concerns?

We try hard to make it clear Feng Office is a Collaborative Project Management Software Platform. Previously positioned a "Web Office". Granted, it is not an easy positioning, but it is not the simplest of the software platforms either. "Web Office" didn't do enough justice.

And we are very pro-spreadsheets! We used them everyday! We would love to be able to help improve our own online-spreadsheet editor. As we do with so many parts of the system. In fact, other parts of the system (like people and tasks management) our currently our main focus. It's just that. We can't do everything right away. We are a team with a finite set of members.

No, we don't pay every contributor, but we do have to pay the salaries of our staff.

Cheers!
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bigbearomaha

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #43 on: June 30, 2011, 12:04:37 am »
no, he did point out where in the list the download link is, I appreciate that for sure.  but for "answering most of my questions"   I hardly see how that could have happened from his very brief post.

I have to admit,  I thought openGoo was a project worth watching.  As I watch more and more though, it seems that the project is creeping toward proprietary waters.  I'm sure I've been obvious already that  I have become more skeptical since then.

It's a fine line opensource companies walk when taking open source code and trying to make something that people will pay for out of it. 

I;m not against paying for opensource software.  I am one of those people who does pay for select apps that outshine others because of the effort put into them.  However, I'm sure you will agree, those opensource apps are far and few.  based on the opengoo I am running, I wouldn't pay for it.   I will download the newest community version of fengoffice and see how and if it has improved to that point.

I do have a problem with some companies attaching exorbitant costs to their software and trying to become overnight millionaires with it.  Not saying that is what is happening here.  But it is something that crosses my mind every time I see opensource apps being sold.  Call me leery if you will.

One thing I think the business world, especially small business world, which I do quite a bit of local consulting for, needs is a server app like this  that is at least equivalent, if not superior, to a googledocs or such that is affordable, if not free.   I am not a huge proponent of cloud computing and I often advise customers against relying on third party cloud services.  Especially if there is a self operated option available.

It is for this reason  I am interested in opengoo now fengoffice and it's development into something viable.

If and when I see an app become usable while still being affordable for the small business,  I will endorse it to my customers whole-heartedly for the "full version" as it is usually worth paying for.  So maybe you understand why  I
approach this transition to fengoffice so cautiously.

conrado

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Re: On the future of Feng Office
« Reply #44 on: July 04, 2011, 01:23:51 pm »
Hi Bigbearomaha,

No, I do not agree. Or at least I do not understand.

- What is the problem not beeing addressed?
- What are your questions no beeing answered?
- What do you mean when you say 'those opensource apps are far and few'? We are very proud of the quality of Feng Office. Which is right here - not far. Thousands of users have taken the time to thank the team and praise Feng Office products and services.

Feng Office is helping thousands of companies and non-profits around the world manage their projects and teams more efficiently.

Some use our Open Source code. Some use our Cloud-based service (Feng Sky), and some use our support services for on-premise production deployment (Feng Onsite).

We took the time to build different offerings that would fit as many scenarios as possible.

We invest most of our time and money on making Feng Office the best possible solution for online Project Managment and Collaboration, and improve the system frequently - Are you not aware of the latest releases?

So what exactly is the problem?

Cheers!
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