Comparison to services like BitNami
Kartik Subbarao
Collabograte and other efforts like BitNami. I'd like to share my
response here:
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There is an important distinction. Services like BitNami provide
*pre-integrated* bundles/stacks of open source packages where all of the
integration decisions are made by the service provider. BitNami in
particular provides self-contained installation along with a custom
installer for all of its packges. The version of Apache that they
provide is not the same version of Apache that comes with the OS.
There is nothing wrong with that of course, and in fact that's exactly
what many companies want. They want someone else to do all of the
integration work for them, so that they can just click a button and
deploy the services. Services like BitNami provide lots of value to
companies that would otherwise not be able to tap into the power of
these open source components.
Collabograte has a different target audience. Collabograte is targeted
primarily to IT integrators. These are people who are *experts* (or who
are looking to develop expertise) in IT integration. They want more
control over the integration process at a fine-grained level -- they
want a framework for integration activities, not a preintegrated stack.
They also want to contribute as much work upstream as possible, and
develop active relationships with OS distribution providers and open
source projects. Even though they may work for different companies, they
also identify as members of the open source ecosystem. They don't want a
merely transactional, customer-to-vendor relationship with the open
source code they deploy. They want a *peer to peer* relationship with
the people who write the code that they are running, and with their
counterparts in other companies. These relationships are highly valuable
to them in their work, both technically and interpersonally.
If we can find enough of these people to build a critical mass, I think
this project has the potential to make a meaningful shift and
improvement in the relationship between Enterprise IT and the open
source community at large.
If not, well then there are always other avenues to pursue :-)