There is a lot of excitement about our new release, Deki Wiki "Hayes".  And rightly so. Deki Wiki is a ground breaking and very polished product that is just a joy to use. There really isn't anything like it in the market today. I want to take this opportunity to address the questions of our existing paying customers and the non-paying users of our previous version of the Deki VMware certified software appliance (release "Gooseberry").

As you know until this most recent release of Deki Wiki we packaged our software in what we termed a commercial open source VMware certified software appliance. We limited free usage of this to five users. We did not allow root access. What we were essentially selling was per user support subscriptions. At the time we thought this was the best way to develop the wonderful product you're currently enjoying. However, our rapidly growing community of users and developers have been telling us they wanted something different. We've listened to these suggestions and we have changed our product and pricing accordingly. Effective August 7th, 2007 we began delivering MindTouch Deki Wiki (VMware certified software appliance and source code) as free software with no user limitations and full access. Deki Wiki is free, as in no cost, and free, as in speech, software in the sense that we distribute the source code with our software and license it under GPL and LGPL. We are confident that by following the advice of our community we will continue to grow our company and be able to more effectively deliver the smartest, most usable, most powerful wiki application platform available. Now for your questions.

Free? How are you going to pay the bills!?

Thank you for your concern. We're selling support contracts. In addition to supporting the VMware certified installations we're also now providing support plans for custom installations and developers seeking to build on the Deki Wiki platform. If you plan to deploy Deki Wiki in a production or mission critical environment you want MindTouch support. Our support plans are very reasonable. If you are not relying on Deki Wiki for a mission critical application consider donating to our project at SourceForge.net. As you know Deki Wiki is dramatically improving how people build communities online and collaborate in enterprises. With your support MindTouch will be able to continue to develop innovative software solutions.

How do I install Deki Wiki? Is it still easy?

Yes, installing Deki Wiki is still very easy. You can install Deki Wiki in minutes using the VMware certified Deki Wiki image (includes source) or you can roll your own from source. Installing from source code is going to take you bit more effort and time though. Regardless of how you install, MindTouch has a support plan available for purchase.

What's new in this latest release?

First of all it's completely open, you have root access to the software appliance, and unlimited users. Moreover, the new Deki Wiki "Hayes" has a many new features and improvements. Most of the new features and improvements are listed at the developer community in the "Hayes" release section.

I'm a paying Deki customer, when do I get upgraded?

We are currently testing the upgrade process. We will be ready to upgrade all our existing customers in six to eight weeks. Our customers are very important to us. Because Deki Wiki has improved so dramatically with this new release, which has been a full year in the making, the preparation for upgrading is taking slightly longer than usual. We will upgrade all our customers as soon as we are absolutely certain the upgrade process is stable and will not cause any data loss or undue down time.

I'm a paying Deki customer, with a limited users subscription. When I'm upgraded does this mean I have unlimited users?

Yes. Hooray! If you have any questions call us directly. 866 MindTouch (646-3868) or (619) 795-8459.

I'm a Deki user, I have not purchased support, but I want an upgrade. How does this work?

For those of you who are previous Deki VMware certified software appliance, version "Gooseberry", users that do not currently pay for support, but want to upgrade to Deki Wiki "Hayes" you have two options available to you.

Option 1: You may purchase a support plan and have MindTouch upgrade you to the new version. If you purchase a Gold support plan MindTouch will migrate all of your content to a new Deki Wiki "Hayes" VMware certified software appliance or we will assist you in installing Deki Wiki from source code and migrating your content. If you purchase a Silver support plan we will migrate all of your content to a new Deki Wiki "Hayes" VMware certified software appliance for a one time migration fee of $1,000.

Option 2: You may download and install the new Deki Wiki , version "Hayes" software and then migrate your content manually with copy/paste. You may use this free of charge forever and you now have all the new features, unlimited users, and full access. Hooray! Manually copying your content has obvious limitations and headaches. We know. However, MindTouch can not issue you root access to any old Deki products, but you are free to continue to use it as is if you like. With the new Deki Wiki (VM), "Hayes" release, you have root access, it's entirely open, and you have unlimited users. You may consider donating to our project at SourceForge.net.

If you have any questions call us directly. 866 MindTouch (646-3868) or (619) 795-8459.

categories: MindTouch