What does Zimbra have against OpenSUSE

[tgx]

Originally Posted by jholder

With that all said, I have specifially asked our PM team to reconsider OpenSUSE. This doesn't mean that they will, but it does mean that they will look at this thread, download/install numbers, and employee resources, and make the decision.

Whether they do change their mind or not, this thread is an example that we do care and do listen.

Yours faithfully,
john

Thanks John, I guess really that's all the better we can ask for.
You have no idea the level of grief this has caused. I evangelize Zimbra
and SuSE wherever I can and this has been a mighty blow to be
unceremoniously discarded like worn shoes.

[Jbrabander]

Originally Posted by langs

I am yet to see a single RFE I have voted for in 2+ years implemented

I'd guess that to be a fluke. I've been on Zimbra about 6-7 months and have had 3 implemented that I voted on.

Not even a yearly customer survey.

If it's not currently done, this would be a nice thing to do, I agree.

You know what NE customers are using RHEL4 why didn't you get the execs to talk to them and warn them, give them a heads up so plans could be put in place a head of time.

Just to wonder "aloud"...has Zimbra ever considered some sort of emailed newsletter (or something of the sort) to give customers a "heads-up" on future releases, updates, and EOL type information? I know much of that is online, but having some of that data given to us might be nice instead of having to go out to pmweb to get it.

Oh and just to harp on for one my second about CentOS why do we see posts like this from Zimbra employees just days ago;

Why are they setting people up by recommending CentOS as their first choice for a stable distro, knowing full well it's not offically supported and that Zimbra painfully make that clear all the time. John you have posted very harshly about it before to make everyone aware of this fact.

I wondered this too when I read that particular post from Phoenix.

[jholder]

There's only one RFE that has more than 150 votes that's not committed, and that's CentOS official support.

We've made our position on this very clear: We have no plans to support CentOS. Nothing against the OS, but we support RHEL, just like every other software vendor. No one builds for CentOS, they build for RHEL. CentOS builds RHEL. RHEL is the standard, not CentOS. Without RHEL, CentOS doesn't exist. That's like saying: "Zimbra only supports HP and not Compaq". It doesn't make sense. CentOS=RHEL. It works. We don't cut down support because of it. As long as CentOS continues to be compatible with RHEL, we will continue to work on that platform.

Here's what you need to know about it:
We support RHEL. As long as CentOS continues to be compatible with RHEL, we will support CentOS by proxy of RHEL. It's their (CentOS's) OS. They choose how compatible to be, and therefore choose how compatible to be with Zimbra and other RHEL products.

It seems unless your a comcast etc you don't count.

This is compeletey baseless. We could just close off bugzilla and get rid of the forums and wiki, and our moderators, and employees who get paid to watch the forums. We could stop internal emails about what our users want and cease holding weekly PM and triage meetings.

In other words, we could become other large software vendors.

The fact that we engage our users is a testment to the fact that you count. Just because some RFEs that you may have voted for aren't in there, doesn't mean that you don't count. It means that we might have a different vision where we just haven't gotten to it yet. We hardly ever close one as Wontfix. It sits in the queue, waiting.

As far as the Reps go, any time a technical issue comes up, they tell us about it. Also, remember that Zimbra has exploded with growth over the past year. The Reps are divided up into regions, and as we grew, we needed more reps, and that's why reps changed. If you want something, then the burden is on you to tell us what you want. Only then, can you expect it.

We're not perfect, and it's important to remember that sometimes we make choices that some users may not like. That's just part of the industry.

We just try to make the best choices that will be the best for our users as whole, as opposed to a few select companies. Yes, there are the Comcasts, and large universities that have more pull. But to say that you don't have a voice, is a bit dramatic.

[langs]

Originally Posted by jholder

As long as CentOS continues to be compatible with RHEL, we will continue to work on that platform.

Thats a very very different line then you have previously stated loud and clearly;

CentOS is not a supported Operating System.

We know a lot of you run CentOS, so I give you this wise advice:
Try Ubuntu

We're here to help. We'll help as much as we can.

Network Edition Customers: Please be advised that Zimbra Support does not Support CentOS. If you need to move to a new platform, we'll help. Contact support@zimbra.com

John, that doesn't sound anything like working with it to me. Yet Zimbra employee's still recomend it on a daily basis, you can't have it both ways. Have you thought maybe you should relax this offical line then if it's not what you mean.

This is compeletey baseless.

In one breath you say you don't ignore customers or RFE votes and in another you say you have no plans to support it offically no matter what your client say..

There is no doubt that the forums are great, and for a FOSS community a must.. however that does not make it the best method to communicate with your NE community, I don't see you doing sales negotiations over the forums.

we just haven't gotten to it yet.

How many years do you think we should have to wait for them to be gotten to, maybe it's fairer on us just to say can't do this, won't do this. Least then we can evaluate our options.. or do you want to be a vendor thats always saying it's coming.

As far as the Reps go, any time a technical issue comes up, they tell us about it.

I'm sure they do, but what happens with it then, do you have any idea how many emails I have gotten like thist;

I just found that he was out of the country on business all of last week and I am so sorry for not getting back to you regarding this

Thank you for your message. I have copied XXXXX XXXXX and she will be more than happy to assist you.

Currently, we do not have any training scheduled for other locations

It is currently targeted for the next major release which won’t be out until Q1 08 tentatively.

It appears this one slipped through the cracks. Are you up on 4.5.6? How are things working out? Apologies for the delay,

It's seems to be the norm...

Also, remember that Zimbra has exploded with growth over the past year

.

While that is great to see, it's not my problem to overcome.

If you want something, then the burden is on you to tell us what you want. Only then, can you expect it.

Sorry John I cannot agree with this in any way.. it is every companies job to ensure they are looking after their customers to the best of their ability. You will miss oppurtunity hand over fist thinking like that. It is not our job to do the thinking for you, it is 100% your account execs job to be talking to us about our needs to the point of them nagging us. Are you telling me a vendor has never invited you to lunch to discuss your needs or what they can do for you? or been invited to a vendor party or sporting event etc?

We just try to make the best choices that will be the best for our users as whole, as opposed to a few select companies. Yes, there are the Comcasts, and large universities that have more pull. But to say that you don't have a voice, is a bit dramatic.

I am sure I have a voice just not one that I feel moves you in any way, you've told me plenty of times to get stuffed and I'm not the only one having problems with Zimbra the company, heres an example I got recently;

To re-iterate, XXXXX dumped Zimbra for Exchange because of a glitch in the
"Outlook setup" function

During May and June last year I worked with Zimbra's MAPI expert, Henry
Gusakovsky, to debug...

In the end it would have required some changes to Zimbra's Outlook Connector for which we weren't given a time-frame even though they understood that we
would not be renewing our NE licence (without it). This bug may well have been fixed with later versions of the Outlook Connector.

This cost you another decent sized NE customer, and when I recently asked about it Sam just pointed me to the bug listing.

You guys do know it's easier to keep a customer then to replace them right?? Why not have a survey annually? why not make the exec do something other then send renewels out.

[jholder]

I'm reopening as the items I had issue with will be removed shortly.

Let's try to address these, and clear any confusion that might abound.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by langs

Why are they setting people up by recommending CentOS as their first choice for a stable distro, knowing full well it's not offically supported and that Zimbra painfully make that clear all the time.

This comment is taken out of context as you fail to mention that the advice was given to an Open Source user, they can run Zimbra on any platform they like. I have, in fact, run the open Source version of Zimbra on CentOS since the very first release of Zimbra. As you well know it's binary compatible with the equivalent release of RHEL There's no restriction on which distribution a user runs Zimbra on if it's the OSS version.

Originally Posted by langs

John you have posted very harshly about it before to make everyone aware of this fact.

You'll also not find any advice from me about running NE on CentOS as being a supported platform.

[uxbod]

Personally I will always recommend CentOS to people whether they wish to use NE or FOSS. Though I do understand the official line that it is not supported; hence the extra tag in my profile.

In the future if CentOS was unable to run ZCS, for whatever reason, then I know it would be pretty easy to migrate to another variant that is officially supported.

Perhaps there is the potential in the future for Zimbra to bundle a copy of RHEL when you purchase the NE version ?

[Jbrabander]

Just to ask (cause I truly don't know), if CentOS and RHEL are binary compatible, why is one supported and the other isn't? I only ask for the knowledge, not to pick fights.

BTW, we're running the RHEL5 NE version of Zimbra on CentOS and it's going fine. Any issues we've had have been the same ol' ones others have too.

langs: Yes, I think the account execs should check in with us once in a while. Drop me an email, check in, make sure I'm doing ok. But in the absence of that, the programmers aren't mind readers. If you tell them something, it may or may not happen. But if we don't tell them anything, that's a guarantee it'll never happen. I handle mostly hardware issues and over the years I've had a number of people tell me some piece of hardware hadn't been working for two weeks and now they're mad about it. Well, if you don't tell me it's broken, I can't fix or replace it.

As for RFEs hanging out there for longer periods, I'd have to ask of Zimbra, would it be possible to get status updates? If they're having trouble implementing something, put in a note letting us know what the hang-up is. Maybe then we (as a group) could get a better sense that the issue really is being worked on.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by Jbrabander

Just to ask (cause I truly don't know), if CentOS and RHEL are binary compatible, why is one supported and the other isn't? I only ask for the knowledge, not to pick fights.

It's been answered in this thread. There is no vendor support available for CentOS, note the use of 'no vendor support' and not 'no support available' - there is vendor support for RHEL.

[tgx]

We've made our position on this very clear: We have no plans to support CentOS. Nothing against the OS, but we support RHEL, just like every other software vendor. No one builds for CentOS, they build for RHEL. CentOS builds RHEL. RHEL is the standard, not CentOS. Without RHEL, CentOS doesn't exist.

Perhaps what is being missed here is that Zimbra doesn't have to produce a build for CentOS because it already produces a build for RedHat. By extension CentOS is supported because CentOS maintains binary compatibility with RedHat. You would only have a problem if CentOS introduced a bug not present in RedHat.

Zimbra could easily install each RedHat binary they produce on a test CentOS server and change all of the labels on their RedHat binaries and installation scripts to read CentOS but it's extra work and not really necessary.

The support issue is different because you can't call RedHat for support when you run CentOS. Now, having said that if you go to CentOS' website...today...you will see under the 'support' section a link to Commercial Support. If you click it, you get a 'Coming Soon' page. Therefore it may be possible in the future that CentOS will also offer support for its own spin at which time the current Zimbra mantra would hold less merit.

I think is the crux of the contention with many people in this forum that are used to getting FOSS builds for distros and not really being all that concerned with whether it is supported or not by a vendor. Zimbra however, is worried about it for some reason. Perhaps Zimbra can lessen its adamant attitudes towards OSS distros. Maybe even break out the download pages between NE distros and OSS ones. I think at some point its going to have to be addressed as the divide between OSS and NE grows. Essentially you are trending towards only offering OSS on paid versions of Linux...which is sorta just weird.