SmartBear <-> Pact communications audit

[mefellows]

This discussion is to provide visibility into, and an opportunity to discuss, how SmartBear and Pact are used together in public communications and digital mediums.

Item	Description
Owner	@mefellows
Status	🟠 In progress
🗣️ Link to slack #maintainers items	Slack link: https://pact-foundation.slack.com/archives/C05HCLA3C93/p1690181353832709

Background

SmartBear owns the Pact brand (not the open source project), and uses it in public communications in many ways, particularly with its commercial service PactFlow.

For example, PactFlow is mentioned on the home page of pact.io as a commercial product that can be used to improve the Pact experience:

The intent, of course, is to improve visibility of its commercial product in order to create a successful product. It goes deeper than pure commercial value by design, as is outlined in this blog post on why PactFlow was built in the first place.

For example, having a commercial company backing the ecosystem has many tangible benefits, including dedicated people working on the project, supporting the project, and generally driving its cause. This leads to increase in credibility and trust for our community of users wanting to choose a tool they can rely on day to day.

Consequences

The consequences of this are also tangible:

1. There is a blurring the lines that can make it hard for people to understand this relationship
2. This could cause people to think Pact is a paid product, deterring them from using the tool
3. It could also cause people to think that because PactFlow exists, they can expect community volunteers (such as maintainers) to respond and engage as if they were a paid employee of SmartBear, placing undue expectations on them

Objective

1. Identify the touch points between Pact and commercial entities (SmartBear or otherwise)
2. Improve the communication so that the above consequences are mitigated and the communication strategy is clear
3. Review wording and logo usage for consistency

Asset Scope

• pact.io
• docs.pact.io
• pactflow.io
• docs.pactflow.io
• smartbear.com
• GitHub repositories (pact-foundation and pactflow orgs)
• Our Slack workspace and related community forums

Findings

This discussion will be updated as the audit takes place.