MPower Open keeps moving forward
July 6th, 2008 | Published in CRM, Nonprofit Tech, Open Source | 5 Comments
This is old news, but I’ve been busy. What’s kind of funny is that I was quoted on the press release, which was out 3 weeks ago or so, but it’s taken me this long to blog it. Bad Blogger! (I think my clients thank me for being a bad blogger.)
So what’s the news? MPower Open is now on Sourceforge, they released their product under the GPL v3. These are good steps forward. This is what I said (in what I think is my first quote for a press release):
By adopting a well-regarded license, joining the SourceForge platform, and launching its community, MPower is making great strides in creating an open source community around its application,” said Michelle Murrain, Principal, MetaCentric Technology Advising, and Coordinator, Nonprofit Open Source Initiative (NOSI). “I look forward to the growth of this community, and the ongoing development of the MPower solution as an open source alternative CRM for nonprofit organizations.
So my hope is that they really begin to use the platform. So far, there is basically no activity in the forums and mailing list. It’s going to take some real elbow grease of reaching out to people who might begin to form the kernel of a development community to get that going. “If we build it they will come” only works in the movies.
Tags:crm mpower nptech opensource sourceforge
July 7th, 2008 at 3:47 pm (#)
There is a fascinating catch-22 about the MPower case:
(1) It is very hard to build a community of users/developers because of the dominant rather than nurturing role of the MPower company in the community… MPower is likely competing for the same customers that might inspire a developer or consultant to get involved with the platform.
(2) The customers, as a general rule, check to the open source or open API box on their RFP and then hire the vendor to do the implementation…. they just don’t have the technical chops to really dive deep into the software.
So in the end, MPower has little incentive to be a neutral “nurturer” of an ecology (becuase it can’t grow as fast) and the community has little incentive to participate since there isn’t a neutral nurturer.
At the same time, it really doesn’t make a lot of difference to the customer that was going to hire Mpower anyway. The customer only hits a down side if Mpower does a poor job as a vendor and there is no alternative vendor to switch too since the ecology is small.
It will be interesting to watch things develop.
July 7th, 2008 at 3:59 pm (#)
Yeah, I certainly worry about that dynamic with company-led open source software. The “open source” ends up just being a buzzword label they can use, but has no meaning, if they don’t foster the community around the software.
But there are successful counter examples. So we’ll see what happens.
MPower has the additional hurdle that their software is written in .NET, and requires Windows. There is a smaller community to draw from in terms of interest in being involved in open source projects.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:04 am (#)
I am tempted to install Windows just to see what this CRM is like. It would make me feel dirty but I guess it might be worth it since you recommend it so much. This would be the first step I guess to making something better that was sustainable for NGO’s. Thanks again for the post you bad blogger. ; >
July 11th, 2008 at 11:04 am (#)
Just wondering if you have seen http://www.civicrm.org
It runs on a linux server (which I do not think this MPower does?
CiviCRM has a great forum for community.
And since it ties into Drupal or Joomla you get a complete frontend / backend system.
??
Thanks for a great site!!
November 9th, 2008 at 3:45 am (#)
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