Author: Tarus

Dev Jam 2017: July 16-21 Concordia University

Posted on by Tarus

One of my favorite times of the whole year is the week of Dev-Jam, the annual OpenNMS Developers Conference. This year will mark our twelfth meeting, and it has grown quite a bit since our inaugural one in 2005.

For the first time we will be holding Dev-Jam outside of the United States. About a third of the attendees come from other countries and due to recent changes in US immigration policy we couldn’t have people forced to reveal sensitive things such as social media passwords just to come to Dev-Jam.

So, we are holding it at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Not only is Montreal an awesome city, Concordia is also the alma mater of Jesse White, one of the key architects of OpenNMS. It should be a wonderful venue for the conference.

We have reserved a block of rooms in the historic Grey Nuns Building. Similar to the dorms we have used in the past, every one will get a single room with a shared bathroom. If you would rather stay in a more conventional hotel, there are a number of excellent choices nearby, although I would strongly recommend you consider the dorm as the majority of people will be staying there and it can be quite nice.

Grey Nuns Motherhouse

There are also a number of other events going on in Montreal that week, including a Metallica concert and a fireworks competition, and we will try to do something as a group (baseball is out since the Expos moved to Washington, DC, in 2004).

Space is limited, so if you are the slightest bit interested please let me know and I can reserve you a spot. More details can be found on the wiki and registration is now open.

Hope to see you there, and yes, there will be poutine.

Fourteen Years

Posted on by Tarus

I just wanted to take a second to thank my three readers for fourteen years of support.

My first post on this blog happened on this date in 2003, and when I wrote it I had little idea I’d still be doing it almost a decade and a half later.

It does seem weird that I still consider OpenNMS a start-up. We took a much different path than a lot of other companies, focusing on our customers instead of fundraising. With our mission statement of “Help Customers, Have Fun, Make Money” and our business plan of “Spend Less Than You Earn” we’ve not only managed to survive but thrive, and both the company and the project have never been stronger. While we are always looking for good investors, this allows us to pick just the right partner.

I’d like to end this with a quote from Michael Seibel of Ycombinator. Actually, it is almost his entire blog post but it really resonated with me.

I’d like to make the point that success isn’t the same as raising a round of financing. Quite the opposite: raising a round should be a byproduct of success. Using fundraising itself as a benchmark is dangerous for the entire community because it encourages a culture of optimizing for short term showmanship instead of making something people want and creating lasting value.

I believe founders, investors, and the tech press should fundamentally change how they think about fundraising. By deemphasizing investment rounds we would have more opportunity to celebrate companies who develop measurable milestones of value creation, focus on serving a customer with a real need, and generate sustainable businesses with good margins.

Optimizing for funding rounds is just as unproductive as optimizing for headcount, press mentions, conference invites, fancy offices, speaking gigs or top line revenue growth with massively negative unit economics.

Ulf: My Favorite Open Source Animal

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Over at opensource.com they asked “What’s your favorite open source animal?” Hands down, it’s Ulf.

OpenNMS Kiwi: Ulf

When I was at FOSDEM this year, we were often asked about the origin of having a kiwi as our mascot. Kiwi’s are mainly associated with New Zealand, and OpenNMS is not from New Zealand. But Ulf is.

Every year we have a developer’s conference called “Dev Jam“. Back in 2010, a man named Craig Miskell came from NZ and brought along a plush toy kiwi. He gave it to a group of people who had come from Germany, since he had come the furthest east for the conference and they had come the furthest west. They named him “Ulf”.

There was no conscious decision to make Ulf our mascot, it just happened organically. People in the project started treating him as a “traveling gnome“, setting up a wiki page to track some of the places he’s been, and he even has his own Twitter account.

I lost him once. We had a holiday party a few years ago and Ulf went missing. We thought he had been left in a limo, so I dutifully sought out a replacement. I found one for US$9, but of course shipping from NZ was an additional US$80 more, so I bought two. I later found Ulf hiding in the pocket of a formal overcoat I rarely wear (but had the night of the party) so now we have a random array of individual Ulf’s.

Anyway, Ulf manages to represent OpenNMS often, from stickers to holiday cards and keychains. I love the fact that he just kind of happened, we didn’t make a conscious decision to use him in marketing. If you happen to come across OpenNMS at conferences like FOSDEM, be sure to stop by and say “hi”.

2017 Europe: Brussels and FOSDEM

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This post is about a week overdue, but for the first time in my life I came down with a vicious case of “con crud”. This is a illness that you can get after attending a conference or convention (no reference since the top hits on Google all reference “furries“). This really knocked me out – mainly sinus congestion so severe that my head hurt so bad I couldn’t really sleep. It just laughed at my attempt to treat it with pseudophedrine, and nothing but time seemed to help. Luckily I feel better now and I’m eager to talk about my great time in Brussels at my first FOSDEM.

The Free Open Source Developers European Meeting is probably the largest free software event in the world. This year an expected 8000 people descended on the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and I believe every one of them walked by our stand. It was insane.

I arrived from Riga Friday night and made it to my hotel. My so-called friends had already abandoned me and headed toward the Grand Place and Cafe Delirium, the de facto pre-conference bar.

Cafe Delirium Crowd

Against all odds I managed to catch up with them in the alley outside the bar. Ronny and Markus had come over from Germany, as did Simon and Anya. Jonathan and Craig had come from the UK, and I finally got to meet the amazing Cyrille, a long time OpenNMS contributor who lives in Brussels. There was beer.

Our Gang at Cafe Delirium

We headed over to the university early on Saturday to set up our booth. While this was my first FOSDEM, I was told by a couple of long time attendees that the conference outgrew the venue years ago, with various suggestions for why: from “tradition” to “it’s free”. In any case, it does create an atmosphere that can only be described as special.

FOSDEM Stand

We had a stand in Building K on the second level. This was in a wide hallway surrounding a large auditorium where a number of sessions were held. From the start we got a lot of traffic to the stand, and unlike many conferences the people that stopped seemed genuinely interested in learning about OpenNMS and weren’t just there to check out the swag.

And we had really good swag. In addition to a number of stickers (including the awesome “Ulf Mate” sticker as a play on the “Club Mate” logo and slogan), we had, new for this show, OpenNMS keychain/bottle openers which were a big hit.

OpenNMS Keychains

I also got interviewed for Hacker Public Radio. I don’t remember much of what I said, but people seemed to be into it (grin).

It is seriously difficult for me to describe the crowds. When I needed the restroom, I had to make my way downstairs and then fight my way through a crowd so packed I think it rivaled that year I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

FOSDEM Crowd

But it just lent to the energy and atmosphere of the place. I know from social media that a number of people I know were there that I just missed (looking at you Brian Proffitt) but I did get to see some old friends and I make a few new ones. One person I was happy to meet for the first time was Carol Chen. She is the community manager for ManageIQ, and I first learned about her when Jeff was invited to do an OpenNMS talk at the ManageIQ Design Summit.

Carol Chen and Ulf

She showed up at the stand on Sunday in search of one of our keychains, but we had run out. I had put one away for me but was happy to give it to her. After all, I can always get more.

One thing that sets FOSDEM apart from other open source conferences is the emphasis on “free” software, and some of the social justice causes that naturally follow. Heck, the University has “free” (as in freedom) in its name. Considering that the US President had signed a “Muslim Ban” the week before the conference, it was cool to see this sign on campus.

Refugees Sign

But not all of the fun happened at ULB. Brussels has some beautiful architecture, and just wandering around you might come across a stunning building like this church.

Brussels Church

Nothing is probably as striking as the Grand Place, or central square of Brussels. It is surrounded by tall buildings, some of which represent Guildhalls of various crafts. My friend Daniel pointed out to me that a lot of the money for those buildings probably came from Antwerp during the height of the Hanseatic League. Since the cities of Tallinn and Riga were key players in the Hansa, it kind of brought this European trip full circle.

That’s not to say there aren’t modern things in Brussels. I’ll post this picture without comment.

Mr. Ego Sign

We ended the conference on Sunday with a small group of us meeting for beers and then dinner. Dinner was held at Restaurant Vincent and it was quite good.

Dinner at Vincent's

At the table is Karen Sandler from the Software Freedom Conservancy, me, Lukas and Daniel Ranc from Paris (Daniel teaches at Télécom SudParis and his son is working on his Ph.D.), Cyrille Bollu, Ronny Trommer and Markus von Rüden from OpenNMS, and Spot Callaway from Red Hat.

My only wish is that we could have sat at a round table, since the long table caused conversation to be split into two. I really wanted Daniel and Spot to chat, as Daniel is working on some cool software for education for doing quizzes and surveys in class, and Spot is focused on higher education at Red Hat. But in any case I really enjoyed the conversation, especially one story that Spot told of his college days that I pretty much can’t top (and I pride myself on being able to hold my own when it comes to storytelling).

It was a nice end to an exciting week.

2017 Europe: Riga

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Latvia is the 39th country I’ve been able to visit, and based on Riga it is easily in my top ten. I really enjoyed my short time here.

Getting off the bus from Tallinn, the first thing I noticed was that it was a little colder here. Both Helsinki and Tallinn are right on the water, but Riga is slightly inland. Still, it wasn’t a hard walk from the bus station to the hotel, and I got to see some of the Old Town.

Frozen Stream in Riga

I had the rest of the day to myself, so I decided to explore the City. One thing I noticed about Riga is that it is very clean. Granted, when you have piles of snow that don’t melt this doesn’t mean everything looks brand new, but I didn’t see the usual trash and paper on the ground like I might find in London or Paris. While the buildings may be old, they are well maintained, and some are quite beautiful, which is not how I imagined a former Soviet bloc country to look.

Riflemen Monument

Granted, there were a few reminders, such as the impressive “Riflemen Monument“. This was originally meant to honor those in the Latvian military who supported the Bolsheviks (the “red” riflemen) but I was told that now it also honors the opposition “white” riflemen.

The reason I came to Riga was to participate in a conference held by LATA (Latvijas atvērto tehnoloģiju asociācija or the Lativian Open Technology Association). LATA is a volunteer organization with only one employee, Ieva Vitolina, who was kind enough to invite me to speak.

Not only were the people in general in Riga very kind to me, the LATA people treated me like a diplomat.

Main Entry Hall for the LATA Conference

Before the conference I was introduced to Jānis Treijs, of the LATA Board. A very nice man, Jānis is very tall, and I had to joke that when I studied physics we used to say all people were two meters tall to make the math easier, but it is rare I actually get to meet someone that tall.

LATA conference room

The conference was held at the Latvijas Universitātes Dabaszinātņu akadēmiskais centrs (Latvian University of Natural Sciences Academic Center) which was a very modern facility, much nicer than many of the schools I attended in my youth. The morning program was held in this main room, and after lunch we would break out into another room as well (which was where my talk was to be made). About half of the program was in Latvian, with the other half in English.

IBM was a sponsor, and Andrzej Osmak from Poland gave a talk on IBM’s approach to open.

Andrzej Osmak

To be quite frank, OpenNMS would not exist without IBM. They are a main supporter of the Apache Foundation and most of the developers use Eclipse as their IDE. The only small criticism I would have about that talk was an emphasis on permissive licensing. I think permissive licenses are great in the proper context, but they aren’t the best choice for everyone.

This was followed by another talk in English by Dr. John O’Flaherty from Ireland.

John O’Flaherty

His focus was on “open data” and the different levels with which data can be made available. I am always amazed at what wonderful things people can create when companies and governments make data available in a usable fashion, and John gave several examples of those.

The remaining morning talks were in Latvian, so I just tried to understand them through the slides. The Clusterpoint presentation was interesting in that the slides were in English but the presentation itself was given in Latvian.

The morning ended with an awards presentation which had three categories: the most open institution, the most substantial contribution to technology promotion, and the best start-up.

Then it was the lunch break, which I spent talking about business and free software with Valdis, Ieva’s husband. It was then time to get ready for my own presentation.

There were two presentations in English about open source business. Including mine, Aleksejs Vladiševs the founder of Zabbix shared his experiences. It was kind of ironic that both of us work at pure open source companies and both of us work in the network monitoring space. Despite that, we tend not to compete, and it was interesting to see how similar our paths were.

My talk seemed well received, although I had a little less than 30 minutes so I didn’t have any time for questions. I was humbled that the winner of the LATA start-up award, Mihails Scepanskis, wanted to ask me some questions about open source business afterward, and along with his wife Anna and Vladis, we spent pretty much the rest of the conference talking. As usual, my favorite conference track turned into the “Hallway Track” once again.

National Library

That evening, the organizers of the conference took a group of us on a tour of the National Library of Latvia. This is a major landmark in Riga and it is easy to spot from many places in the city. It was planned for many years, but finally opened in 2014.

National Library Sign

The interior hosts a 400+ seat state of the art theatre, but the first thing I noticed was the central atrium.

National Library Atrium

Inside it there is a wall of books. These were books donated by the Latvian people to the library, and it stretches for several stories. We were also told an interesting story, when the library opened several thousand books were moved from the old location to the new building via a “human chain“. People formed a line over a mile long and passed the books hand to hand.

National Library Book Wall

The tour took us up through the building, and we got to see a number of the large (and not so large) reading rooms. One that caught my eye was dedicated to American culture.

National Library American Culture Room

I found it interesting that the books on display included ones by Noam Chomsky, James Carville and articles from the New Yorker.

Each floor was color-coded, and we were told that the colors corresponded to the “pre-Euro” Latvian currency, the Lat. The higher floors had colors that corresponded to higher denominations.

National Library

At the top was an interesting display. It was a Cabinet of Folksongs. This wooden cabinet holds over a quarter of a million Latvian folksongs written on small slips of paper.

Cabinet of Folksongs

The tour was followed by a wonderful meal in a restaurant in the Library itself. I got to spend more time talking with Aleksejs, Jānis, his wife and John, as well as drinking some nice beer over wonderful food.

The next morning Jānis’s wife had arranged for me to meet with the ITC department of the City Council of Riga. Riga firmly believes in Internet access for its population. The City has more free WiFi coverage than any other European City, and the Council is responsible for providing as many services as possible to its citizens to make sure the government is responsive to their needs. It was a refreshing conversation. They use a number of tools, including Zabbix, so I wasn’t expecting them to switch to OpenNMS, but I had a nice meeting learning about their environment and sharing a little bit about OpenNMS.

Corner House

We had a little time before lunch, so we made a quick visit to the “Corner House“. This was a beautiful apartment building that was taken over by the Cheka, a division of the KGB, and was the source of terror for many citizens of Latvia as late as 1991. It reminded me of the House of Terror in Budapest. Jānis’s wife told a story of her mother having to go to this building for an interview as the Cheka was interested in one of her relatives.

Corner House

It is a shame that a thing of such beauty could be used for such evil.

After that we met up with Jānis for a wonderful meal, and then I made my way to the airport for my trip to Brussels for FOSDEM.

As the airBaltic Q400 took off and got above the clouds, the cabin was suddenly filled with light. I realized that I had not seen the sun properly in a week. If Riga and its people can be this beautiful in the dark of winter, it must be a truly magical place in the summer. I hope one day soon to return.

2017 Europe: Tallinn

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After a wonderful visit to Helsinki, it was time for the next leg of the journey: Tallinn. Estonia will mark the 38th country I’ve been able to visit.

To get to Estonia I took the Tallink ferry service. There are several trips from Helsinki to Tallinn each day, so I planned to leave around 10:30 to arrive around 13:00.

I’m not a boat guy. While I’m fine in planes I don’t do well in boats, but the ferry is quite large. Here is a picture of one heading the other way through a window on mine:

Tallink Ferry

It had ten decks, so I made my way up to deck nine and found a seat near the window.

Tallink Ferry Interior

It was a quite civilized way to travel. Even though the sea was a little choppy, the ride was very smooth. You almost didn’t realize the ship was moving.

When we arrived I took a taxi to the hotel, dropped off my bags and set out to discover the city. I was in the “Old Town” section of Tallinn which was quite beautiful. There were a lot of cobblestone streets and well maintained old buildings with plenty of shops and restaurants.

Street in Tallinn

One of the things I like to do when visiting a new city is to play Ingress. I know that sounds weird, but one part of the game involves completing “missions” which require you to walk around. These missions are often created by locals and it can give you a great overview of a new place. Tallinn was no exception.

Tallinn was only a degree or more warmer than Helsinki, but it made quite a difference. I had issues walking around Helsinki because in places the slush had refrozen into ice and it made walking a little slippery. The streets in Tallinn were mainly dry and I could move around a lot faster.

There is a great mixture of old and new,

Tallinn Grafitti

and I saw a lot of construction. I’m not sure but I think this was the demolition of a Soviet-era housing block to make way for a more modern building.

Tallinn Building Demolition

It also had a lot in common with other European cities, such as this huge flower market I came across:

Tallinn Flowers

I think if I lived here I’d stop by every day and buy some fresh flowers for home.

While I practiced a number of Estonian words (When I came into the hotel and said “Tervist” one person mistook me for the mailman and came out of the back office, so I must have nailed the accent), everyone seemed more than happy to talk to me in English, and I didn’t meet a single rude person the entire stay.

Which, alas, wasn’t long. I was only in Tallinn on my way to Riga, so the next morning I got up and made my way to the Central Coach Station to grab my LUX Express bus to Riga.

LUX Express Bus

The five hour journey was made in comfort. I was in the back section which consisted of just one seat complete with “seat back entertainment”. I thought about watching some movies (they were pretty much the same selection as the ones on the plane over here) but I decided I’d rather watch the countryside go by and to doze a little.

Inside LUX Express Bus

It was snowing lightly and as soon as we got away from the coast there were several inches of snow on the ground. It looked very peaceful. When we crossed the Pärnu River it was completely frozen, and off in the distance I could see people skating on the ice. I’d heard of frozen rivers before but this was the first time I’d seen one.

When I arrived in Riga the first thing I noticed was the cold. Riga is a few degrees colder than either Helsinki or Tallinn, and I was happy I brought my winter coat that I bought in Sweden a couple of years ago. I am eagerly awaiting the conference which is the reason I am here, and to see some friends again and make a few new ones.

2017 Europe: Three SIM card

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Just a short post to praise the Three SIM card I bought in the UK several years ago.

I tend to buy unlocked phones and so when I travel I like to get a local SIM card, mainly for data. For this trip this was going to prove difficult, as I’m visiting five countries in nine days.

One thing I like about my Three SIM is that it never gets disabled. As long as I have a balance I have never had a problem, although I do travel enough that I end up using it at least once every six months or so. I am not able to top up the card on the Three website since I don’t have a UK credit card, so I simply use Mobiletopup.co.uk to get a £20 voucher from Paypal. Using that I just buy an “All in One 20” add-on which gives me 12GB of network access, 300 minutes and 3000 SMS messages – way more than I need. I turn that on before I leave the US and my phone works when I land.

What’s wonderful about it is that the plan is valid in any EU country. So far this trip I’ve used it in London, Helsinki and Tallinn, and I expect it to work in Riga and Brussels. I have yet to experience any network issues, although I have not moved far outside of major metropolitan areas.

I have no idea if Brexit will change this plan, but I sincerely hope not. So much of the technology I use in my life comes with headaches that I am grateful when things just work. Thanks Three.

2017 Europe: Helsinki

Posted on by Tarus

I am spending a week touring the eastern side of Europe, with the first stop being two nights in Helsinki. I should end up in Brussels next weekend for FOSDEM, and I am looking forward to my first time at that conference.

I’m here because I was invited to speak at an open tech conference in Riga, Latvia, and I couldn’t resist the invitation. Riga is home to Zabbix, a company very much like OpenNMS in that we both do network monitoring and we are both 100% open source. One might think this would make us enemies – quite the contrary. For some reason we really get along and also, for some reason, we rarely compete.

In trying to find a route from North Carolina to Latvia, I noticed a number of choices went through Helsinki. I had been to Helsinki once and really enjoyed it (despite it being winter). I also remembered from that trip that Finland is very close to both Russia and Estonia. You can be in St. Petersburg in three hours by train or Tallinn in two hours by ferry.

It was my goal to visit 50 countries by the time I turned 50 years old. I didn’t make that goal (I got to 37), but I figured I could use this trip to both visit Estonia and Latvia, adding two to the list.

My first flight out of RDU was canceled, so they routed me through JFK. I arrived in Helsinki three hours later than planned, but my bag made it with me so it worked out. It was dark and sleeting, but it wasn’t too difficult to take the new train into the city center and find my hotel.

HSL Train Helsinki Airport

I always like coming to Finland because it was the home of Linus Torvalds. Now I know he has lived in the US for many years and I also know he didn’t invent the idea of free software, but I still feel some sort of homecoming when I arrive since I doubt OpenNMS would be here if it weren’t for Linus.

There is an awesome company in Helsinki that is also an OpenNMS customer, so I was able to spend Monday visiting with them. Due to an NDA I can’t name them, but they are doing some amazing work in this part of the world. I got to learn more about their business as well as to share where we are going with OpenNMS.

Like many of our larger clients, they have an inventory system that they have integrated with OpenNMS in order to manage their monitoring needs. Since that system also contains customer relationships (which equipment is used to provide network services for particular clients of theirs) we played around with the Business Service Monitor (BSM). They should be able to export their network information into OpenNMS to create a customer impact topology, so that when there is an issue they can quickly determine the root cause. It is exactly why we created the feature and I’m eager to see how they use it.

They are also interested in using the Minion feature due in Horizon 19. This should allow them to easily deal with overlapping address space and any scalability concerns, plus they should be able to get rid of their current “manager of managers” solution. Exciting times.

They are looking to hire, so if you are in the area and have OpenNMS experience, send me your CV and I’ll be happy to forward it on to them.

Ulf and Hacienda Napoles at Liberty or Death

That evening, Ulf and I managed to indulge our taste for vintage and craft cocktails with a visit to Liberty or Death. This is a bar near my hotel that serves amazing cocktails in a very relaxed atmosphere. It was a nice ending to a very good day.

Ferry Terminal Statue

The next day will find me on a ferry boat to Tallinn. I don’t know of any OpenNMS users in Estonia, but I am still eager to see the city.

“OpenNMS WHO” at OSMC 2016

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There is a really cool monitoring conference held each year in Germany. Called the “Open Source Monitoring Conference” (OSMC) it is put on by Netways, one of the maintainers of the Icinga project, but they welcome other projects such as OpenNMS and Zabbix.

It is a lot of fun, and usually Jeff and I fight over who gets to go. This year David won (he was in Germany for other reasons) and they now have his talk available for viewing:

It’s an overview of what we have been up to and where we are going with the Project. Check it out.

Speaking of conferences and travel, next week I plan to be in Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga and Brussels. I’ll be in Riga for the Open Tech conference and hope to spent some time with my Zabbix friends, and I’ll be in Brussels for FOSDEM where OpenNMS will have a booth. It’s my first time at either conference, and if you happen to be in the area drop me a note and perhaps we can meet up.

OpenNMS 101

Posted on by Tarus

One of my favorite things to do is to teach people about OpenNMS. I am one of the main trainers, and I usually run the courses we hold here at OpenNMS HQ. I often teach these classes on-site as well (if you have three or more people who want to attend, it can be cheaper to bring someone like me in for a week than to send them here), and the feedback I got from a recent course at a defense contractor was “that was the best class I’ve ever attended, except for the ones I got to blow stuff up.”.

Unfortunately, a lot of people can’t spare a week away from the office nor do they have the training or travel budget to come to our classes. And teaching them can be draining. While I can easily talk about OpenNMS for hours on end, it is much harder to do for days on end.

To help with that I’ve decided to record the lessons in a series of videos. I am not a video editing wizard, but I’ve found a setup using OBS that works well for me and I do post production with OpenShot.

The first class is called “OpenNMS 101” and we set it up as a video playlist on Youtube. The lessons are built on one another so beginners will want to start with Module 0, the Introduction, although you can choose a particular single episode if you need a refresher on that part of OpenNMS.

My goal is to put up two or three videos a week until the course material is exhausted. That will not begin to cover all aspects of OpenNMS, so the roadmap includes a follow up course called “OpenNMS 102” which will consist of standalone episodes focused on a particular aspect of the platform. Finally, I have an idea for an “OpenNMS 201” to cover advanced features, such as the Drools integration.

I’ve kept the videos as informal as the training – when I make a mistake I tend to own it and explain how to fix it. It also appears that I use “ummmmmmm” a lot as a place holder, although I’m working to overcome that. I just posted the first part of “Module 4: Notifications” and I apologize for the long running time and the next lessons will be shorter. I had to redo this one (the longest, of course) as during the first take I forgot to turn on the microphone (sigh).

We have also posted the slides, videos and supporting configuration files on the OpenNMS project website.

I’d appreciate any feedback since the goal is to improve the adoption of OpenNMS by making it easier to learn. Any typos in the slides will be fixed on the website but I am not sure I’ll be able to redo any of the videos any time soon. I think it is more important to get these out than to get them perfect.

Perfection is the enemy of done.