So why did our team choose to rewrite TendenciOpen Source and in the Python Programming language? It is a question I get asked a lot. We’ve never been a company that likes to talk in the negative if at all possible, yet it is important to talk about the megatrends going on given we work with associations and nonprofits.
Popularity of a language is a trend, and what you want is as many developers familiar and liking the language of your open source project as possible. This means you have a better chance to have a secure web site and therefore a more secure future.
To be fair – as Disraeli said – “lies, damn lies and statistics” – so there is no one perfectly secure language any more than there is a perfectly “safe” hammer. There will always be operator error and programmers make mistakes.
So we’re not saying Python is perfect, and all of us have used most of the other languages on those charts at some point. We’re just saying we are pleased so many other programmers also like Python and Open Source. THAT is the best that can be done to secure your future online. Secure code that you can examine yourself and even host yourself!
Addendum: As I post this on the Tendenci Blog. Given we focus on non-profits, associations, memberships, education, medical, religious – basically the do-good cause-based organizations, I believe it is particularly important that the project is as transparent as possible. Sometimes it is healthy to inform everyone of WHY we made a decision seven years ago. Python was the right call.
We wouldn’t be cause related software developers or working at cause related companies that aspire to the #openeverythingOSCON type of ethos to begin with.
First – it is to serve.
To achieve our communication goals we are using some amazing open source software based on django and postgres just like tendenci of course – The Misago Open Source Discussion Forums is used to power the new https://community.tendenci.com site to provide a “place” for that dialog to take happen. Developers are welcome to continue posting issues on github of course, clients who prefer to have us (or you!) manage their tendenci hosting will submit billable tendenci support requests, but there is something different about a forum that is toned down and not quite as public. I can’t quite explain why.
As the CEO of Tendenci, the company and the software – I apologize for my lack of communication to you. I apologize to you -our long-time clients and our our new clients. I apologize to the developers who have deployed Tendenci on your own servers with little or no documentation and not posting public developer training.
I hope you forgive me (OK, I flipped this one around from “I forgive you” to be reflective of our situation at Tendenci.)
Your voice matters to me very much and quite frankly I haven’t kept up communication. Instead I have let the media, public, private and social – dictate the dialog. I know better.
I can start the dialog by dispelling a few rumors right away with some clarity to questions I have (actually) been asked.
No I’m not moving to LA. I just fly a lot. And…. it wasn’t LA anyway….
Yes I love San Francisco and Houston both. (not sure about LA #heh)
Yes I still love Houston more. And yes the Bay Area can also be awesome.
Yes, there will be more changes at Tendenci the company and with the pending release of Tendenci 6.
No I won’t do any more phone interviews with reporters – only email or recorded so I don’t get selectively quoted.
No we aren’t going out of business. Been at it 17 years. Still here. Still serving my clients. Now expanding Tendenci to build a global legacy that is better than the proprietary vendors like Blackbaud while we still make a profit and grow. What else does anyone recommend I do that helps my clients the most? (Feel free to comment. But make no mistake, the tipping point is near. Open Source will win. Why should that be different for non-profits and association management software needs?)
Yes we are restructuring and that includes costs that go along with it. We’ve had some ups and downs and yes we are downsizing our offices in Houston and being inclusive of more remote team members.
True rumor – NO, Tendenci 5 does NOT have all of the functionality of Tendenci 4. Nor the other way around. They are different. It’s like going from a PC to a Mac. It’s different. Don’t convert if it isn’t for you yet.
And number 10….. yes, apparently people still actually read the paper. Didn’t realize I was newsworthy. Not sure if that is good or not. I just want to build Tendenci to “Connect and Organize the World’s People. Do Good.” Sorry if I messed up the PR part by having my head down laser focused on Tendenci.
I deleted the rest of this blog post to keep it short. Consider it my own test to myself to keep the dialog going. And I am committed to keeping open communication. Links and systems solutions in the next few posts.
Thank you,
Ed
PS. Tendenci is all about YOU! I get that. I deeply respect that. #candid #honest #servant
This image came up as a topic of conversation in a meeting we had this morning and I wanted to share it. It is a pretty accurate description of the open source rewrite of Tendenci from the ground up over the last four years. And I’m pretty excited about the software moving away from the squiggly part on the right in this image from Henry Bloget’s blog post.
What People Think Success Looks Like Vs. What It Really Looks Like
Oh don’t worry, we’ll attack new challenges and make new squiggles which will make people think we are off track, or losing it, or “freak them out” as we get to the end of a road and go “oooops, that didn’t work.” But now we know that didn’t work.
It also reminded me of some of Hugh’s quotes in his book Not Sucking that I have always liked. For example:
THERE IS NO SECRET SAUCE
WORK HARD. LIVE QUIETLY. BE FRUGAL. SIMPLIFY. NEVER COMPLAIN. CONSTANTLY ELEVATE YOUR CRAFT.
Sure, a bit of talent and good fortune comes in handy. It’s nice that you could draw better than any other kid in your small town, or that your parents had the money to afford tennis lessons after class.
But that just gets you to the starting line. The actual race is what happens after that, day in, day out, for many years to come.
And the ones who win, the ones who really elevate their craft, are generally the ones who work the hardest. Life is unfair.
People underestimate the power of hard work. I like that he simplifies it all into Creativity, Mastery and Meaning. He doesn’t lie to you about a four hour work week, or tell you you have to wear Gucci to be happy, he doesn’t even list being happy as a goal. Meaning, Mastery and Creativity are how you don’t suck. Being happy is what happens when you don’t suck. But not always, because it’s hard work.
The best way to not suck is to MASTER something useful. Obvious, yes?
The thing is, I know TONS of super successful people, but none of them fit this extreme, celeb-lottery-winner-Reality-TV model. Some of them are actually pretty boring, to be honest. But they lead happy, friendly lives and do VERY well career-wise.
THAT is what most success looks like, if you think about it. The stuff on TV or in the movies just isn’t REAL enough for us to learn that much useful stuff.
So I was thinking about this again, recently, HARD.
What model would work for folk like you and me? A model that didn’t mean you had to sell your soul to Wall Street, Hollywood, Washington or the tabloids? A success model that doesn’t rely solely on the unlikelihood of outrageously good fortune or acts of evil?
Then quite by chance, I saw a great documentary recently: “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”, a film about the world’s greatest sushi master, and a light bulb EXPLODED in my head.
Our man, 85-year-old Jiro Ono is the world’s greatest sushi chef– the only sushi master to ever have been awarded three Michelin stars. He’s also the oldest person to have ever been a recipient of that award.
The thing is, he doesn’t have a lot of money or own a fleet of trendy restaurants in all the world’s capitals, a-la Wolfgang Puck. No syndicated TV shows, celebrity-chef book deals or TV talk-show circuits, either.
He just has just a small, plain, dull, ordinary-looking, low-key sushi bar with ten seats in the basement of a Tokyo office building, near the subway, the kind of nondescript place you’d probably just walk by without stopping, if you saw it. Ten seats! Yet he REALLY IS the best in the world at what he does.
Jiro works seven days a week, over 350 days a year (he hates taking vacation), serves sushi and sashimi to people in very small numbers, and THAT’S IT. Just sushi. No salad, no appetizers, no deserts.
Like I said, JUST SUSHI. And by sticking to this minimalist, bare-bones formula, he’s become the best in the world.
A tiny little sushi bar in some random subway station. Yet people wait in line, people book a stool at his sushi bar as much as a year in advance, at prices starting around $600 a head. People have been known to fly all the way from America or Europe, just to experience a 30-minute meal. In an office basement!
I read that and felt humbled. And befuddled. And yes perhaps a bit justified.
I’m also really happy to know others are like me. I don’t particularly consider myself successful but I expect it will all work out. I have many blessings and I work with great people. I have a wonderful family. I’ve also had my share of loss and plenty of criticism, which I have learned comes with the role of CEO even for a small company (note: there are no books on how to be a CEO. You just do your damndest to learn fast!)
Back to Jiro. I get him. For me, I have been obsessing about one single software product called Tendenci built specifically for associations and non-profits for 13 years now. I’ve had a lot of help. I’ve never wavered nor lost the passion to keep improving it. I’m truly obsessed with making software in a way that makes our CLIENTS successful.
I started it in 2001, (the tech bubble had burst) on the premise, after reading hundreds of marketing books that clients who made money off of your software wouldn’t leave you. That they might forgive a missed deadline, but they would not forgive a security breach. That they wanted the freedom to leave at any time. So all of our clients were sold month to month, export your data and leave whenever you want. (this was before open source was an option and before PHP was around.)
What started on the Microsoft platform is now rewritten by a a great team of programmers who work here, and outsourcers, and hopefully more and more by people in the community. It is now Django/Python/Postgres and Ubuntu. We are working hard, and I am obsessing on adding donor management that integrates with Salesforce Foundation’s free licenses for non-profits. I’m completely obsessed with giving NPOs an alternative – that they can succeed on both bottom lines, financial and causes, and put more of their money and time towards the cause instead of spending 10k/user for Raiser’s Edge.
Can a 13 year old product built on Django give NPOs a real alternative to Raiser’s Edge and Blackbaud? And can it be an OPEN SOURCE product that you can integrate, extend, and experience with no vendor lock in at all? The odds are against me. And there are only 10 stools. And my obsession with achieving this success grows stronger every day, and it is not because I know anyone at Blackbaud.
I’m obsessed with collaboratively building Tendenci not because of what the software itself can do. I’m obsessed and seeking mastery because of what global-non-profits can do with the first open source Python software built specifically for them. That is my passion.
I am very thankful for my family for introducing me to good music at such an early age. Although I can’t play any instruments, I have always loved all types of music.
When I was a kid my Dad used to play a Bob Dylan cassette (John Wesley Harding) in his truck when he would pick my sister and I up from daycare.
I’m sure to say that my love for Dylan came from my Dad, along with love for many other great bands such as the Clash, the New York Dolls and the Rolling Stones.
I am also pretty sure I can attribute most my redneckness now in life (besides going to Texas State) to him playing Texas Country. For example, as a kid I remember listening to Robert Earl Keen when we’d go to the beach. If not not the redneck part, he is certainly responsible for my smart-assness.
There has always been some what of a heated discussion between my parents when talking about music. Dad would always say, “I’ve been listening to so and so since…” but Mom would have to correct him to let him know that she in fact turned him on to the artist, such as Emmylou Harris, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Willie and Waylon and Guy Clark.
They both introduced me to bands such as Doug Sahm and the Texas Tornadoes, Steve Earle and Joe Ely.
I’d also credit my sister Briana Purser for introducing me to great bands such as the Black Angel’s, Thee Oh Sees and the Night Beats as well as the classics like Neil Young and Donovan.
Without my family, who knows what I’d be listening too. But thanks to them I have discovered such bands as Reckless Kelly, Hayes Carll, Ryan Bingham, Ghostland Observatory, Battles, Four Tet.. I could go on forever. But for that, I am very thankful for having my family in my life and the music they have shared with me. Love you guys, Happy Thanksgiving!
