Re: [SM-USERS] [SM-DEVEL] Proposed changes to squirrelmail.org

[Bob G. <bob...@gm...>]

I think it may be an over-simplification to suggest that SM users fall into
simple "computer literate / illiterate" categories.

I suspect if you had a marketing department you'd find that they consist of
something more like:

* Unsophisticated end users
* Somewhat knowledgeable end users, including non-technical business
decision-makers
* Power users / alpha geeks
* Developers (primarily interested in integration work)
* Developers (primarily interested in customization work)
* System Administrators (various levels of expertise)
* Actual and potential contributors

Your site probably can't be all things to all these groups, even though
there is a degree of overlap between some of them.

Speaking from personal experience as a developer with primary expertise in
line of business applications and (gasp) Microsoft technologies, but with
some minimal *NIX background ... in other words, "primarily interested in
integration work" ... I found your docs uneven, with a lot of gaps and
assumptions.  I eventually pieced together a workable bridge to our
DotNetNuke portal using Mono, but there was more trial and error involved
than I would have thought necessary.  Installation was something I ended up
outsourcing to a Canadian firm, which got me in the ball park with shell
scripts I was able to tweak for a successful migration.  I even slung a few
lines of PHP in the process.

I doubt you contemplated the likes of me as a user in your original vision
for SM (much less the hapless end user that Steve basically crapped on).  As
the product gets out there, it will continue to get used in ways you didn't
anticipate, by people you would not normally give a lot of respect, much
less the time of day.

If there is one single thing you could do to make the product more useful to
such folks it's probably to spin off a commercial version of the product and
package it in friendlier ways with some hand-holding consulting services for
installation, configuration and integration, such as what I bought.  Or,
provide some training and materials to help third parties get up to speed
with that sort of thing.

Beyond that I think you are probably just going to try to be something
you're not, and fail miserably at it.

For what it's worth ...

--Bob