1 Topic by deltatango

  • deltatango
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2016-04-03
  • Posts: 28

Topic: business continuity

Not really a support question, perhaps call it a meta-support question.

iRedMail is a great product, and Zhang's support is better than any 'major vendor' I've ever used. In the open source world, it's common to have a single champion that drives development, support, etc, and serves as a benevolent dictator. This model has worked very well for numerous projects.  My question is: what if Zhang is targeted by a Microsoft Exchange assassination team (or if he just slips in the shower)...  what happens to iRedMail?  I know the config code is public domain, but what about continued support for iRedAdmin-Pro paid licenses?  Zhang - do you have folks on your team that could pick it up?

Sorry to bring up a downer of a topic. I've had to do business continuity planning of my own lately.

----

Spider Email Archiver: On-Premises, lightweight email archiving software developed by iRedMail team. Supports Amazon S3 compatible storage and custom branding.

2 Reply by ZhangHuangbin

  • ZhangHuangbin
  • ZhangHuangbin
  • iRedMail Developers
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-05-06
  • Posts: 31,172

Re: business continuity

I will come back to reply in a week, let's see what others say about this. smile

deltatango wrote:

My question is: what if Zhang is targeted by a Microsoft Exchange assassination team (or if he just slips in the shower)...

By the way, i may be killed by the bad air and bad food in mainland China before MS assassination team found me. big_smile

3 Reply by tinotom

  • tinotom
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2015-05-05
  • Posts: 9

Re: business continuity

Business continuity is also a matter of risk acceptance. Just evaluate this risk and include it in your business impact analysis. As a mitigation, you should prepare and periodically test a migration plan to another product with similar features and usability. Once done, just accept the risk explicitly smile.

My 2 cents

4 Reply by rroopstr

  • rroopstr
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2016-04-27
  • Posts: 23

Re: business continuity

ZhangHuangbin wrote:

I will come back to reply in a week, let's see what others say about this. smile

deltatango wrote:

My question is: what if Zhang is targeted by a Microsoft Exchange assassination team (or if he just slips in the shower)...

By the way, i may be killed by the bad air and bad food in mainland China before MS assassination team found me. big_smile

for the time being, even though I still know absolutely nothing about this, and just ask zillions of questions, and spend all my waking time cramming with the documentation in order to grasp just a little bit more; then I would definitely be available to help with Spanish translations. I'm sure all of us are thankful to Zhang's care to each one of us and will deploy our specific, unique abilities to responsibly make this superb service grow.

5 Reply by deltatango

  • deltatango
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2016-04-03
  • Posts: 28

Re: business continuity

tinotom wrote:

Just evaluate this risk

Evaluating the risk is exactly why I wanted to know whether Zhang has anybody backing him up. Is there an Alan Cox to his Linus Torvalds?

That comparison really makes me a dinosaur.

6 Reply by ZhangHuangbin

  • ZhangHuangbin
  • ZhangHuangbin
  • iRedMail Developers
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-05-06
  • Posts: 31,172

Re: business continuity

I understand your concern, and here's my opinion.

*) as the founder/developer of iRedMail / iRedAdmin-Pro / iRedAPD, i'm sure i will keep working on them. But obviously, this is not your concern.

*) I submitted materials to register a company in mainland China few days BEFORE your post, hiring some talents is planned (that doesn't mean we can hire talents as we wish -- iRedMail project is not invested by VC, so although we're profitable, but there's still a budget). so that i have people to back me up and improve iRedMail, bring iRedMail to a whole new level. The registration should be finished before May 15. We may change the base to another country someday.

*) iRedMail itself and all softwares used in iRedMail are open source (note: full source code of iRedAdmin-Pro are available to paid customers), so if iRedMail team is gone, you still have full source code of iRedMail (and all sub-projects), you're free to modify the source code to match your needs. (needless to say, if you want to redistribute iRedMail, you must follow its license (GPL). and iRedAdmin-Pro is not allowed to redistribute or resell.)

*) iRedMail started in late 2007, it's been around for more than 7 years, and under very active development, offers professional and quick tech support, we have many satisfied and loyal users/customers. Also nowadays, we have ~= 300 new iRedMail installations per day (the real installation, not calculated by downloads). Many iRedMail users are experienced sys admins, so like you said, if i was killed by Microsoft Exchange assassination team, i believe many iRedMail users will stand up and take over the project and keep improving it.

Hope it helps a little.

7 Reply by deltatango

  • deltatango
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2016-04-03
  • Posts: 28

Re: business continuity

Thank you for the reply Zhang.  It's great to hear about your plans for expansion. I truly hope that goes well for you.

I look forward to becoming a long-time user myself.