[RFC] How to become a StackStorm Partner?

[arm4b]

Some of the ideas about the Partners Page, Expectations, Benefits for the Partners, ways to Market were described at RFC: StackStorm Partners, Code of Conduct and Economy with concerns like Conflict of Interest Situations #5045 when Partners are part of the TSC.

We got something working by listing existing StackStorm Partners at https://stackstorm.com/partners/.

Next, with the Incentivize and recognize vendor contributions #59 by @dzimine we moved from the TSC-membership requirement to be listed on the partner page to a more broader/relaxed model. We understood that partners couldn't fit pre-defined requirements and there are always special cases outside of the box. And so Partners Page is a space for acknowledgement and recognition those who're providing significant ongoing support, contribution, help to the project in different ways.

While we have very clear expectations, requirements and mechanisms about additions, deletions for the TSC Membership in StackStorm Governance (https://github.com/StackStorm/st2/blob/master/GOVERNANCE.md), once we untied Partners from the TSC requirements the criteria for the Partners are yet to be defined.

Let's try to find what would work. Here is the first draft based on researching other OSS partner programs out there. Please review and provide your feedback and ideas:

https://stackstorm.com/partners-program/

A few thoughts:

Open to potential Partnerships

To continue its growth, StackStorm as a project and open source community is interested to welcome diverse partners and be open by default and accept any significant help from the potential Partners and Community while recognizing them.

Adding the new Partner

We can provide some of the examples to stimulate the partnership ideas. The gist is that it should be something significant that helps the project in an on-going basis.

• Dedicating staff: employees/contractors to contribute and support the StackStorm Project. (ex: Orchestral, Ammeon)
• Providing an ongoing ​financial support via LF Community Bridge Donations. (BlueCycle, Bitovi)
• Providing resources for sustaining the project ​Infrastructure.​ (AWS) with free credits. (PackageCloud) with FOSS plan, etc.
• Providing services, consulting on reduced cost or for free.
• Contributing to​​ the ecosystem: ​organize Community Events like Meetups, Podcasts, Webinars. (Ammeon)
• UI/UX, graphical Design ​and Support. (Bitovi)
• PR outreach and Media cover.
• Professional Security Research​​.

What are the other examples we could think of? We should encourage potential Partners to just come up with a Partnership proposal if it doesn't fit any of those.

What StackStorm provides for the Partners

• Listing on the https://stackstorm.com/partners/ (with the company Logo, Link, Description) so these companies can call themselves as a trusted Official StackStorm Partners.
• StackStorm will promote the partners program​, will highlight​ the page and the major partner's contributions ​via ​its communication channels.
• Co-marketing Opportunities: sharing Blog Posts, HowTos, Tutorials, Demos, Use Cases, ​Case Studies, Meetups, Webinars and more from its Partners​,​ if ​that content is helpful and relevant​ & healthy for the Open Source community ​under the Linux Foundation.
• Any paid support, professional services, consulting, training, custom solution requests from the Community StackStorm redirected and will redirect to the Partners page ​which may include vendors providing these services.

Removing the Partner

The partnership is about on-going bi-directional help. One of the raised concerns: the timing criteria of adding/removing partner. If Partner stopped contributing or pulled out their services, - same reaction should be expected from the StackStorm. A good idea might be to set 3 months as a fair wind-down period for communicating the problem and before taking decisions to remove the partners. This complements the LF Analytics time range filter: https://insights.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/stackstorm/dashboard

Partners by the Year

We start with a new Partners page for every new year, keeping archive for the previous years. This means Partners who helped the project in the previous 2020 will be recognized for their support in that year. Now new 2021 partners page may include links to the older yearly archives. For instance Encore could be on the 2020 page which highlights their substantial contributions made that year.

Partners List: Particular Order vs Categories

There were ideas about randomizing the list of partners. @dzimine proposed to group partners by the categories (ex: Vendors).

Both have their pros/cons. If we randomize, - that would look like a roulette instead of a page of recognition. If we'll have multiple categories, - what to do when the Partner fits into more than one category? What are the specific categories we currently have?

Currently it's just an alphabetical list, but what do you think would be a good healthy solution there https://stackstorm.com/partners/ ?

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@StackStorm/maintainers @StackStorm/contributors your feedback and ideas are welcome.

[raviorch]

We need to have another section right at the top to list the type of contributions that the partners can provide. Here are some of them:

• Architectural
• Module Design
• Code
• Bug Fixes
• Maintenance
• Opensource Packs management
• Day to Day Management
• etc.

What StackStorm provides for the Partners

• We definitely should not just point a potential customer who wants to adopt StackStorm just to the partner page and forget about that. We will need to come up with a methodology/criteria to recommend certain partners to the enquiries so that the community page also ensures that the customer is taken care of.

Partners List: Particular Order vs Categories

• Partners need to be listed by categories, listing alphabetical is not an option. Ideally it should be randomized, so that each user will see a different list. I guess Dale Smith from Orhcestral already provided Eugene with the script to randomize and we should use it.

[arm4b]

@raviorch Thanks for the feedback!

1) Those specific examples you provided are great, but what if there's some activity that doesn't fit that list? I think the following section already describes it in a broader way making sure we don't exclude any possible contributions activity by the partners:

"Dedicating staff: employees/contractors to contribute and support the StackStorm Project. (ex: Orchestral, Ammeon)"

2) > We definitely should not just point a potential customer who wants to adopt StackStorm just to the partner page and forget about that. We will need to come up with a methodology/criteria to recommend certain partners to the enquiries so that the community page also ensures that the customer is taken care of.

The Partners page was designed to list the providers in an unbiased/neutral way so the Community can choose the partner they prefer, depending on their description, services provided, etc. If we would allow Partners to reach out to the Clients directly instead, that comes against the LF Privacy Policy, GDPR, and is just not good for the Open Source community health and the trust we're trying to build with users. StackStorm can't share user's data or info with the partners.

If you'd like to reach out to the user's community, there is a recommended way practiced within the LF/CNCF projects: Webinars, Meetings, Co-marketing, Blog Posts, that's mutually beneficial. See https://github.com/StackStorm/discussions/issues/51 for more context. For example, any interested Partner can organize Webinar/Meetup. It should be helpful enough for Community and topic commercially neutral enough for StackStorm to help to promote it. We announce it to ST2 Community via Email Newsletter, Slack, Twitter, LinkedIn. People that followed your webinar landing page and registered for the webinar event could be your potential clients. Hope that brings more info and ideas.

3) Partners List: Particular Order vs Categories Is your proposal is to do both "Categories" + "Randomization"? How do you think the Categories would look like, considering the existing list of Partners? Should we Randomize the Categories as well? Let's discuss that tomorrow during the TSC Meeting #67? Another way to look at https://stackstorm.com/partners/ is that Tags/Categories are already applied to the Partners instead as a way to differentiate them. For example, Orchestral is a Service Provider that provides Training, Support, Platform Development, while for example, BlueCycle could do also SecOps.

[amanda11]

If you split the list by categories, then we will need to ensure that companies that fit into more than one category appear in all the categories that they fit under.

[raviorch]

Hi Amanda, Agreed, you dont want to put the same partner in many categories. The solution is to provide badges to partners so they can be listed once and their badges highlighted on the partners page. The badges itself should be awarded based on the contributions, hence the categorizations of the contributions is very important. That is what I had suggested in my feedback. Regds Ravi

--

Ravi Rao
Phone: 408 368 0780

The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress!! – Joseph Joubert

------ Original Message ------ From: "Amanda McGuinness" @.> To: "StackStorm/discussions" @.> Cc: "raviorch" @.>; "Mention" @.> Sent: 3/18/2021 2:59:47 PM Subject: Re: [StackStorm/discussions] [RFC] How to become a StackStorm Partner? (#64)

If you split the list by categories, then we will need to ensure that companies that fit into more than one category appear in all the categories that they fit under.

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[arm4b]

OK, so the suggestion if the Partner activity fits 3 different categories, it will be listed only by one? Is that helpful to the visitors of the partners page, isn't this confusing instead?

@raviorch Looking at the https://stackstorm.com/partners/ list and understanding their impact and areas of activity, what are the specific category names you'd like to propose?

[raviorch]

Hi Eugene, Here is the suggestion that I had put in.

Partners contributes in different capacities to earn different Contributions Badges which will lead to the categorization of partners. Some of the contributions are: Engineering Partners - Includes the following activities - Badge Provided: Engineering Partner Architectural Module Design Coding Testing Bug Fixes Opensource packs Release Management Professional Services Partner - Self Explanatory - Badge Provided: P.S. Partner BizDev Partners - Includes following Activities - Badge Provided: BizDev Partner Business Operations Product Management functions Financial support Day to day management Marketing Partner - Activities Includes Marketing Materials - Blogs, Videos, Press Releases, etc. Ongoing Training The above are just a sample of contributions, if anyone has anything I left off please feel free to add them.

The partners are further categorized as: Bronze Partner will have to earn 1 Badge Silver Partner - Earn 2 badges Gold Partner - Earn 3 badges Platinum Partner - Earn all the badges This is what the Partner provides to the community to earn the badges.

Given this, here is what StackStorm gives back to the partners to start with:

First and foremost, there should be a very significant mention of partners right at the top of the stackstorm.com page. This should clearly mention that this is a community project very efficiently supported by partners, and so on. All of us who are already partners can help in crafting the message and even help in recreating the page. The banner under “Partners” will show the categories of the partners, and when each of the categories are clicked it leads to separate page. Bronze Partners - will get their logo onto the Bronze page, nothing more Silver Partners - Will get their logo and a blurb of their offering next to the logo Gold Partners - will get about 1/2 a page of content with links to their websites Platinum Partners - will get a page of their own, and can host any content they want The Governance Committee will decide how and when a partner is categorized. Based on the partners participation, the committee will decide once in 6 months if any partner advances to the next stage or gets relegated. This should be the starting point, we can iterate on the concept based on how the partners feel in 6 months from now.

BTW, Partner conversations will be on-going, it cannot stop, if it stops the Community and the project will cease to exist.

Let me know what your thoughts are.

Warm Regards Ravi

------ Original Message ------ From: "Eugen Cusmaunsa" @.> To: "StackStorm/discussions" @.> Cc: "raviorch" @.>; "Mention" @.> Sent: 3/19/2021 5:48:56 AM Subject: Re: [StackStorm/discussions] [RFC] How to become a StackStorm Partner? (#64)

OK, so the suggestion if the Partner activity fits 3 different categories, it will be listed only by one? Is that helpful to the visitors of the partners page?

@.*** https://github.com/raviorch Looking at the https://stackstorm.com/partners/ list, what are the specific category names you'd like to propose?

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[guzzijones]

I would be way more likely to donate if I could get a badge and my company name prominently on the website. My 2 cents.

[arm4b]

Yes, we definitely should include Partners logos on stackstorm.com and link to the Partners page with a more detailed list. That's for the moment when the partners program is really launched and announced. Not sure about the website header though, but where the Case Studies are placed, before the "Used by Your Peers" we can add "Supported by the Partners").

[punkrokk]

I forgot what the problem statement was. We desire to build a partner program that:___?

I also don't think we are near a consensus. Calling a vote next week is premature. Other than a vote deadline I don't see any other deadlines other than: "will" or "in the future".

Things that are unanswered is:

• I don't see anything aligning value between both sides and amongst partners. Nothing that is transparent.
• We will need some sort of legal agreement. A code of conduct in a repo is a a recipe for disaster. Yea you can use it to kick someone out, but that won't squash a lawsuit.
• We need to identify the roles needed to maintain the partner program.
• we probably need a better way to route inbound leads. I think that throwing something to the partner page, while it sounds fairer on the surface, it also demonstrates a lack of willingness to pair the right opp with the right partner.
• are we just kicking Encore out of the partner program? Maybe they didn't realize the commitment needed? Who's in charge of reaching out to them?
• we need way more clarity around the precise requirements to earn and keep a badge and what type of exceptions can be made. I think that the period should be a year. Most sales cycles take 6 months for this kind of stuff. We aren't peddling kazoos.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of my thoughts at the moment.

[lskillen]

We tried contacting re: the partners programme, but the email (partners@stackstorm.com) seems to be non-existent (yet).

Is there an alternative place or email to contact regarding partnership? :-)

[arm4b]

@lskillen Yes, it wasn't set up yet. But please try again.

[arm4b]

@raviorch I like the way of categorizing Partners by 3 levels like Gold, Silver, Bronze depending on activities and value they give. It's a great idea, thanks for diving deep here! There is a benefit for both StackStorm and the Partners with this model. Partners who contribute more in a different and diverse ways to the project are recognized more. At the same time Partners who contribute less are encouraged to be diverse in their support.

This multi-tier complexity brings more work and pressure on the project maintenance, periodic partners review, categorization and having the dedicated sub-committee advising to TSC is also great. I'd recommend to look deeper at the StackStorm Technical Charter and the current Governance to start brewing ideas there. I believe transformation like that is a multi-month effort making sure this group is diverse enough, structured supported by the processes, while we want to launch the Partnership program yesterday. A lot of conflicting versions and requirements for the program from different parties, lost deadlines, countless meetings dedicated to it and inability to ship it is a missing benefit and a lost chance for the both StackStorm project and the Partners. At this point we want to at least document what we currently had ASAP looking forward to next iterations like more complex & tiered Partners v2 in the future.

[arm4b]

We will need some sort of legal agreement. A code of conduct in a repo is a a recipe for disaster. Yea you can use it to kick someone out, but that won't squash a lawsuit.

@punkrokk I understand that could be something of the partner's interest, but it's not a b2b partnership like it would be if StackStorm was still managed by the Extreme Networks. Remember it's an Open Source project under the neutral LF. Not sure how the contractual legal agreement makes sense or possible and this feedback was given during the last TSC Meeting from the different members. I'd recommend aiming to keep it simple and optimize the maintenance for StackStorm keeping in mind non-profit Open Source project interest under the neutral LF governance supported by a diverse open source community.

I forgot what the problem statement was. We desire to build a partner program that:___?

I think at this stage the goal is to recognize the Partners supporting the project and codify de-facto what we had so far: 1) Partners Page highlights the parties that are helping the project in any significant way. 2) Describe co-marketing opportunities that StackStorm can provide in exchange. 3) Define how to become a Partner. OSS wants to be open and not hard for the other partnerships. 4) Announce the program. Send the first traffic to the Partners page with different companies and services StackStorm could officially recommend to its community. Bootstrap it and see what happens next, iterate.