---
title: Developers are Hard Taskmasters- @beng on VMware Cloud Foundry. Github *before* Twitter
date: 2011-04-20T11:38:28Z
modified: 2011-04-20T11:38:28Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/developers-are-hard-taskmasters-beng-on-vmware-cloud-foundry-github-before-twitter/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 3299
categories:
  - Uncategorized
tags:
  - Uncategorized
  - cloudfoundry
  - devrel
timestamp: 2011-04-20T11:38:28Z
---

If you want to attract developers to your platform it pays to keep their concerns front and center at all times- their tolerance for “marketing” is usually pretty low. So while VMware’s Cloud Foundry has received near universal praise, I really loved [this tweet](http://twitter.com/#!/beng/status/60662873717874688) this morning from [Ben Griffiths](http://www.techbelly.com/), one of my office share mates.

> “Cloudfoundry looks good. A twitter icon, a facebook icon, youtube too on the homepage. But github buried two clicks deep.”

Buried – ha! He continues –

> “Pretty sure I’m not the only one who skips the ‘blah-blah-blah’ marketing docs and goes straight to the source code.”

Of course having [Cloud Foundry on GitHub](https://github.com/cloudfoundry) at all puts VMware way ahead of its more traditional competitors. Its exactly the right thing to do. Developers want to learn and share, and they do it on Github.

The lesson for developer relations- never put put anything between a developer and the source code. Not a [registration wall](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2011/02/22/how-registration-walls-and-pdfs-can-make-your-marketing-less-effective/), not a requirement to send a fax (that shit still happens all the time), and apparently not even an extra click. Come on VMware you really need to up your game 😉

Cote writes up Cloud Foundry [here](http://www.redmonk.com/cote/2011/04/12/cloudfoundr/), where he explains why the industry got all hot and bothered at the launch.

> The Cloud Foundry offering from VMware is looking like one of those obvious, good things I rarely expect Big Companies to do. Of course you’d want a portable PaaS layer that ran Java, Ruby, JavaScript, and other languages. Of course you’d want the company to actually run their own cloud instead of having to sort through “partners.”
> 
> In summary, they’ve put together a “bring your own PaaS” with wide language support _and_ a VMware run instance you can use as well, if you don’t want to bring anything and just go directly to a cloud that has it all wired-up.

disclosure: VMware is a client.

Cloudfoundry looks good. A twitter icon, a facebook icon, youtube too on the homepage. But github buried two clicks deep. [![beng](http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/584875979/Headshot_normal.jpg)

](http://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=beng)