NethServer just for businesses or also for home users (aka NethServer User base)?

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

Continuing the discussion from What about Plex Server addon in the software center?:

@robb

Excuse me for being blunt but… plex?.. really?IMO plex is for home use. In good German it’s “spielerei” (or in English: just for fun)I mean, a SMB server is mainly developed for businesses right? Then install plex if you like on your home NS, but wasting valuable dev time on creating a module for this is (again, IMO) throwing away resources.

Interesting discussion, splitted from plex topic

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

@robb

I mean, a SMB server is mainly developed for businesses right? Then install plex if you like on your home NS, but wasting valuable dev time on creating a module for this is (again, IMO) throwing away resources.

Yes, in a way, you’re right but there are other valuable points of view that I don’t want ignore.

Let's talk about strategy and communication

Okay, so let’s go: The home page is mysterious and don’t inform what is Nethserver, neither what Nethserver able to do: I would suggest to fusion the main page and the actual learn more page, and made a learn more page to show the webgui, the history, the background… The home page has a contradiction: “NethServer is an operating system for Linux enthusiasts, designed for small offices and medium enterprises” By experience, I know that an enterprise and small business don’t like to lead with…

Yes, our big goal is building the BEST distribution for servers, designed primarily for small offices and medium-size enterprise BUT if it could be helpful also for the home user and requires a little effort, why not?

I remember when years ago I tried owncloud first versions, people said: personal cloud like google drive or dropbox?
Why does a business should need a personal cloud? Why throwing away resources?
And now, you know the current situation, owncloud is become a killer application here.

I hope that I am clear in this.

@robb

• piwik, so you don’t need big-brother-is-watching-you Google analytics on your website/portal
• Drupal (there is already work in progress on Joomla, but I would prefer Drupal )
• Wiki like MediaWiki
• Alfresco Document management system

Interesting, please open new topics about them (Alfresco should be already there)

[apradoc (Adrián Prado Castro)]

@robb

Excuse me for being blunt but… plex?.. really?

Brother @robb. Really this is a very good proposal, as are yours.

I take the word of @alefattorini to open a topic here - i.e. - about CMS. There is so much variety that would be nice look more like, Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress, but there are some very versatile day today, including some commercial such as Prestashop or Arastta

Regarding Plex seems to me that is an alternative to a public home, as it can be Kodi or as may be Kaltura for a business environment for media and Internet TV. (Kaltura prefer CentOS 6+ servers). Here is another topic

I could give other examples, but the choices each of us can provide are endless. And that’s excellent. Having, by topic, several cases already evaluated to document its implementation. Such is the case of Xerte and Piwik

I feel Nethserver has an interesting magnet, which invites us to make a very enjoyable and productive technological community

I have a dream … A central NS as monitor of the other servers in the School Intranet System
(Excuse me. It’s another topic )

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[robb (Rob Bosch)]

Let me take on this first:
OF COURSE Nethserver is for both home and business! But IMO when the developing resources are limited, attention for the base modules should be focussed on primary functions like network services and security.

Apart from that there can be a million very interesting and attractive addons, plugins and modules.
Maybe it would be a good idea to have some kind of ‘universe repository’ (yes I come from Ubuntu ) for external modules that are maintained outside the scope of the main devs.

I know it is very hard to find people that have enough knowledge and time to develop and maintain a module, but ultimately that would be a great way to extend Nethserver.

Besides adding extra native modules, it should be possible to manually install any application that doesn’t interfere with Nethserver templates. Do pointers on how to approach this exist in the docs? (still new and didn’t read all the docs yet)

[zamboni (Stefano)]

@robb

OF COURSE Nethserver is for both home and business! But IMO when the developing resources are limited, attention for the base modules should be focussed on primary functions like network services and security.

I agree 120%… and that’s why I (but not only me) am keeping saying @all “beggers”: “please, stop ask ‘please add’ and start doing it yourself”…
there’s no limit to what we can do/install with/on NS, but dev’s resource must be aimed to develop core features…
all “home user” features can be developed by other people…

@robb

Besides adding extra native modules, it should be possible to manually install any application that doesn’t interfere with Nethserver templates. Do pointers on how to approach this exist in the docs? (still new and didn’t read all the docs yet)

NS is centos… you can install everything on it without dealing with templates, as you do with a plain centos install… the main difference is that you have to edit your config files and that those files won’t be automagically updated if you change some parameters (IP address, for example)
obviously, everything you install won’t have a web panel into NS’ web GUI

[giacomo (Giacomo Sanchietti)]

@robb

Maybe it would be a good idea to have some kind of ‘universe repository’ (yes I come from Ubuntu ) for external modules that are maintained outside the scope of the main devs.

We already have it
http://dev.nethserver.org/projects/nethforge/wiki/NethForge

[zamboni (Stefano)]

it seems that the problem here is not “the place” but “who will fill it”

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

Who are our users? Where is our user base?

ClearOS is pretty clear about this

Home User

• he uses stuff like Plex, Owncloud
• fileserver and content filtering

Sysadmin Windows

• looking for alternative to windows and windows integrations
• point-to-click and web interface
• very windows oriented

Sysadmin who uses multiple products Windows/Linux/others

• He uses Windows, Zentyal, ClearOS, PfSense, Endian
• Proxmox/Vmware as virtual environment
• He knows very well those products and uses them heavily
• technically well grounded
• He knows very little about shell or scripting

Sysadmin Linux

• Very good with CentOS/Ubuntu or shell
• He likes customizations,
• He constantly installs new modules and tests new things

Who isn’t in our user base

• DevOP and advanced Linux Sysadmin
• Generic Developers
• Web developers
• CMS developers

[davidep (Davide Principi)]

I want a NethServer spin based on Fedora

[apradoc (Adrián Prado Castro)]

@alefattorini

Who isn’t in our user base

Educators of any level that use Information technologies

[Jim]

I want a NethServer spin based on OpenBSD ( AKA without Systemd )

1- For me I don’t care if Nethserver is primary for business or home use: if Nethserver serve well.
Let the user/sysadmin decide.

I had already said, who are we to decide if Plex is home use or business used?
There’s communication business existing in the world, isn’t it? A business company can use Plex to make business.
Another example, a Professional Photographer can use Plex to make a showroom!!!

2- We just integrate the Nethforge repository, by default… So what to do now? To split, divide the application catalog in business use or home use !!! it’s absurd.
I think it’s not a good idea. since Nethserver is modular and nothing is a must have or required.
If yuo want a fonction, an app, you can easily install, if you don’t want let the app in the catalog. So it’s absurd to distinct home use and business use.

[davidep (Davide Principi)]

I think it was not @alefattorini’s aim to talk about different NethServer flavours. I think he is trying to depict the typical end user profiles (I heard they use the word “personas”).

@Jim

So it’s absurd to distinct home use and business use.

As it was said in the past, I agree with you.

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

@Jim

We just integrate the Nethforge repository, by default… So what to do now? To split, divide the application catalog in business use or home use !!! it’s absurd.

I’d like to

• move all completed/tested modules into the forge
• involve our non-userbase: CMS developers, Web developers, Generic Developers

We already discussed it but it’s still a hot topic

@Jim

2- We just integrate the Nethforge repository, by default… So what to do now? To split, divide the application catalog in business use or home use !!! it’s absurd.

Nono, as @davidep has just said I wish to rough out a list of “personas”. My aim is improving our marketing strategy and maybe putting such data on our new website.

[Jim]

Ok, I misunderstood the initial step.
Now it’s clearer

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

We have many new faces in community and this topic may be interesting again

Who are you? NethServer just for businesses or also for home users (aka NethServer User base)?

[thorsten]

I know this answer is late and maybe I am warming up some cold soup…
Also I hope, I am not putting my nose in stuff which is not my pigeon.

IMO, any system can not have enough modules to be installed. There are just three points to be considered:

• available development and maintenance ressources (which should be focused)
• customers / user groups which can be attacted (derived from use cases)
• selection of software packages if more than one exists to solve the same problem (alternatives like SOGo vs. WebTop are nice, but not allways necessary)

Consequently I disagree with Robb: plex might be mostly interessting just for home user, but this statement is not exclusively. Think of restaurants and bars managing playlists. Think of hotels providing indiviudal TV streams (mostly it is just an infopage, but it is).

Zentyal (at least in early version) had a very interesting approch:
During installation the admin could select the main purpose of the installation (e.g. file server, network environment managment, web server, communication server) and so on. Based on the selection required modules were purposed, e.g.

• communication server: email, ejabber, asterix, groupware
• network environment: dhcp, radius, intrusion prevention, firewall, dns
• file server: ftp, groupware, users and groups, file sharing

Univention and ClearOs have a similar approach. The page https://www.nethserver.org/learn-more/ is a very nice opposite example: It presents very nice flowers, each of them is beautyfill, but … where are the bouquets?

A little copying from that, It kindly purpose to set up some additional documentation within the admin manual describing “necessary”, “recommended” & “nice to have” modules for selected cases of use.

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

@thorsten

Zentyal (at least in early version) had a very interesting approch:
During installation the admin could select the main purpose of the installation (e.g. file server, network environment managment, web server, communication server) and so on. Based on the selection required modules were purposed, e.g.

Thanks for your thoughts

@edoardo_spadoni worked on the new cockpit interface using this approach. Where you can follow a wizard that leads you to install and configure all the software useful for the main purpose of the installation