plone vs drupal at Greenpeace UK

[Jon Stahl]

Thought y'all might be interested to see the results of GPs' recent evaluation of Plone vs. Drupal (vs Planet2, an in-house OpenACS solution).

 

http://importantprojects.com/archives/000084.php

 

Plone lost narrowly to Drupal. I  offered some extensive comments to Rob Purdie, who ran the process (and is a friend).  I think they misjudged Plone on a few key points, my comments on those are below.

 

Nonetheless, their requirements are a VERY interesting read to get a sense of what a typical large NGO might be looking for in a CMS.

 

Also it's interesting to note how hard the Drupal community worked this process:

http://groups.drupal.org/node/411

http://groups.drupal.org/node/458

 

Very interesting food for thought.

 

Here's the feedback I offered to Rob Purdie:

 

===============

 

System scability: Plone A- , Drupal A.

 -- Not sure what that means to you, but Plone (well, Zope actually) has built-in multi-server clustering support and can scale almost infinitely in terms of traffic.  Drupal, AFAIK, does not.  Plus, it has the smartest caching technology out there (CacheFu) which dramatically speeds up performance.

 

RSS Feeds:  Plone A, Drupal A+

 -- Again, not sure why Plone would rate lower.  Everything in Plone produces RSS, and you can construct RSS feeds for anything you can search for, which AFAIK is actually MORE flexible than Drupal.

 

Be able to include HTML in any field of the CMS: Plone B-, Drupal A+

-- I don't know what this means, but I think this is a pretty weak requirement.  The whole point of a CMS is to separate formatting from content.  Plone allows you to insert arbitrary HTML into page bodies.  You can override styles locally if you want to configure Plone to allow that.   Perhaps the evaluators didn't realize this -- Plone doesn't really advertise it.  You certainly don't want to insert arbitrary HTML into metadata fields. 

 

Global Login: Plone B, Drupal B+

 -- Not sure what this means at GP, but Plone unlike Drupal, has a pluggable authentication system that can authenticate users against prety much anything.   A single outlier rating made the difference.

 

reuse/leverage content: Plone F-, Drupal F-

-- I know this was constructed for Planet2, but perhaps you weren't aware that Plone, using the PloneRSS product, can import content via an RSS feed and transform it into first-class content objects.  That probably rates better than an F-, doncha think?

 

 

Product database:  Plone B, Drupal A

 -- If you're talking about full-on e-commerce support in the CMS, Plone is definitely weaker there.  But if you're talking about custom content types, I can't see how you one could rate Plone significantly lower than Drupal.  Plone's Archtypes system for creating custom content types is second to none.  Fields can be maintained through the web.  Validation, UI and more are all specified in a single schema.

 

Cross-browser support:  Plone A, Drupal A+

 -- What is this based on?  Plone is the most validatable, standards-compliant package out there.  There was only one outlying rating on this, otherwise both would hvae gotten A+ across the board.

 

E-newsletter distribution: Plone C, Drupal A+

-- You're giving Drupal an A+ because of CiviMail?  Beta quality "developer only" code?  Relying on any CMS for email newsletter distribution is pretty dodgy, IMHO.  A serious organization like GP should be using a powerful hosted email newsetter distrbution tool such as WhatCounts, Vertical Response, etc. that offers serious deliverability, bounce management, etc.  Plone plays nicely with these tools.  A single outlier rating accounts for nearly all of the difference.

 

extensibility: Plone A, Drupal A+.

  -- Not sure what this is based on.  But to argue that Plone is any less extensible than Drupal is simply not true. 

 

I'm surprised that GP didn't consider support for multi-lingual content as a requirement.  Plone is of course very, very strong here.

 

I'm also surprised GP didn't really consider versioning support.  Plone is also very strong here.

 

==============

best,

jon

 

-----------------------------

Jon Stahl, Program Manager

ONE/Northwest - Online Networking for the Environment

[hidden email]  http://www.onenw.org
206.286.1235x15  skype: jonstahl  y!: jondstahl

 

Want a piece of my mind? Check out my blog at:

http://blogs.onenw.org/jon

 

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[Aaron VanDerlip]

Jon Stahl wrote:
>  
> ===============
>  
> RSS Feeds:  Plone A, Drupal A+
>  -- Again, not sure why Plone would rate lower.  Everything in Plone
> produces RSS, and you can construct RSS feeds for anything you can
> search for, which AFAIK is actually MORE flexible than Drupal.
I think the aggregator space is where Plone is not particularly strong.
What I mean is that there is not to my knowledge a slick and easy way to
create RSS aggregation views.   It has been a while, but last time I
worked with this space, CMFSin was the tool to use, and it is not at all
easy for site managers to tweak the settings.


>  
> Be able to include HTML in any field of the CMS: Plone B-, Drupal A+
> -- I don't know what this means, but I think this is a pretty weak
> requirement.  The whole point of a CMS is to separate formatting from
> content.  Plone allows you to insert arbitrary HTML into page bodies.
> You can override styles locally if you want to configure Plone to
> allow that.   Perhaps the evaluators didn't realize this -- Plone
> doesn't really advertise it.  You certainly don't want to insert
> arbitrary HTML into metadata fields.
Sigh.  It can be difficult to explain the benefits of the Plone
approach.  For some users, not being able to use <font> or other
deprecated, pasting HTML in any field as they wish, seems like a major
drawback and limitation.  Perhaps a use case where site A use
HTML-anywhere vs site B using thoughtful separation would be helpful in
explaining the advantage.  I find folks that have had prior experience
with larger sites see the immediate benefit of the Plone approach, but
folks migrating from smallish sites, formerly managed with Dreamweaver
type tools do not.


>
>  
>  
> Cross-browser support:  Plone A, Drupal A+
>  -- What is this based on?  Plone is the most validatable,
> standards-compliant package out there.  There was only one outlying
> rating on this, otherwise both would hvae gotten A+ across the board.
Agreed, this one is from outer space as far as I am concerned.

>  
> E-newsletter distribution: Plone C, Drupal A+
> -- You're giving Drupal an A+ because of CiviMail?  Beta
> quality "developer only" code?  Relying on any CMS for email
> newsletter distribution is pretty dodgy, IMHO.  A serious organization
> like GP should be using a powerful hosted email newsetter distrbution
> tool such as WhatCounts, Vertical Response, etc. that offers serious
> deliverability, bounce management, etc.  Plone plays nicely with these
> tools.  A single outlier rating accounts for nearly all of the difference.
>  
> extensibility: Plone A, Drupal A+.
>   -- Not sure what this is based on.  But to argue that Plone is any
> less extensible than Drupal is simply not true.

A surface examination of either tool would probably favor Drupal, since
it is relatively easy to track down where in the code you make a minor
change or customization.
I guess in short, I just don't believe in the A+ grade for anything ;).


--
Aaron VanDerlip
Programmer

NetCorps
Eugene Oregon
541 465 1127 x104



Reclaim Your Inbox!
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[Martin Aspeli-2]

Jon Stahl wrote:
> Thought y'all might be interested to see the results of GPs' recent
> evaluation of Plone vs. Drupal (vs Planet2, an in-house OpenACS solution).
>  
> http://importantprojects.com/archives/000084.php
>  
> Plone lost narrowly to Drupal. I  offered some extensive comments to Rob
> Purdie, who ran the process (and is a friend).  I think they misjudged
> Plone on a few key points, my comments on those are below.

So do I :)

> Nonetheless, their requirements are a VERY interesting read to get a
> sense of what a typical large NGO might be looking for in a CMS.
>  
> Also it's interesting to note how hard the Drupal community worked this
> process:
> http://groups.drupal.org/node/411
> http://groups.drupal.org/node/458

Love those URLs :)

What's interesting is that we didn't know about this. I'd have loved to
have a discussion with them on plone-users or IRC, but I guess they
never went there. That's a pity, given some of their (probably
understandable) misconceptions.

> Very interesting food for thought.
>  
> Here's the feedback I offered to Rob Purdie:
>  
> ===============
>  
> System scability: Plone A- , Drupal A.
>  -- Not sure what that means to you, but Plone (well, Zope actually) has
> built-in multi-server clustering support and can scale almost infinitely
> in terms of traffic.  Drupal, AFAIK, does not.  Plus, it has the
> smartest caching technology out there (CacheFu) which dramatically
> speeds up performance.

The fact that there are huge systems running Plone should speak to
scalability. If you're talking scalability : hardware ratio, that may be
a different story.

> RSS Feeds:  Plone A, Drupal A+
>  -- Again, not sure why Plone would rate lower.  Everything in Plone
> produces RSS, and you can construct RSS feeds for anything you can
> search for, which AFAIK is actually MORE flexible than Drupal.

No idea what their criteria may be...

> Be able to include HTML in any field of the CMS: Plone B-, Drupal A+
> -- I don't know what this means, but I think this is a pretty weak
> requirement.  The whole point of a CMS is to separate formatting from
> content.  Plone allows you to insert arbitrary HTML into page bodies.  
> You can override styles locally if you want to configure Plone to allow
> that.   Perhaps the evaluators didn't realize this -- Plone doesn't
> really advertise it.  You certainly don't want to insert arbitrary HTML
> into metadata fields.

not to mention the fact that with ArchGenXML you could slap together
whatever fields you ever needed.

> Global Login: Plone B, Drupal B+
>  -- Not sure what this means at GP, but Plone unlike Drupal, has a
> pluggable authentication system that can authenticate users against
> prety much anything.   A single outlier rating made the difference.

Again, no idea what this means. What more could you want to integrate
with than LDAP, NLM and SQL user stores?

> reuse/leverage content: Plone F-, Drupal F-
> -- I know this was constructed for Planet2, but perhaps you weren't
> aware that Plone, using the PloneRSS product, can import content via an
> RSS feed and transform it into first-class content objects.  That
> probably rates better than an F-, doncha think?

Which content? Migrating content from old systems is never easy, but
WebDAV/FTP loading at least makes it a bit easier for plain HTML.

> Product database:  Plone B, Drupal A
>  -- If you're talking about full-on e-commerce support in the CMS, Plone
> is definitely weaker there.  But if you're talking about custom content
> types, I can't see how you one could rate Plone significantly lower than
> Drupal.  Plone's Archtypes system for creating custom content types
> is second to none.  Fields can be maintained through the web.  
> Validation, UI and more are all specified in a single schema.
>
> Cross-browser support:  Plone A, Drupal A+
>  -- What is this based on?  Plone is the most validatable,
> standards-compliant package out there.  There was only one outlying
> rating on this, otherwise both would hvae gotten A+ across the board.

That's just silly.

> E-newsletter distribution: Plone C, Drupal A+
> -- You're giving Drupal an A+ because of CiviMail?  Beta
> quality "developer only" code?  Relying on any CMS for email newsletter
> distribution is pretty dodgy, IMHO.  A serious organization like GP
> should be using a powerful hosted email newsetter distrbution tool such
> as WhatCounts, Vertical Response, etc. that offers serious
> deliverability, bounce management, etc.  Plone plays nicely with these
> tools.  A single outlier rating accounts for nearly all of the difference.

But true also, that there are few decent e-newsletter products. My
experience with this is that people just don't know what they want. I've
seen use cases along the lines of "I'd like to be able to post news,
collect them, and push them as a newsletter", but when it comes down to
it, the manual process they need to clean it up and send what they
really want reduces to copy-and-paste anyway. Managing a database of a
few hundred thousand email addresses, spamming them and tracking
responses is not the role of a CMS anyway, and you'd probably want
commercial hosted solutions for this if you do it at a large scale.

> extensibility: Plone A, Drupal A+.
>   -- Not sure what this is based on.  But to argue that Plone is any
> less extensible than Drupal is simply not true.

Also just silly - unless they're taking the ubiquity of the skillset
into account. It may be easier to find drupal experts than Plone ones
(at least cheaply).

> I'm surprised that GP didn't consider support for multi-lingual content
> as a requirement.  Plone is of course very, very strong here.
>  
> I'm also surprised GP didn't really consider versioning support.  Plone
> is also very strong here.

Both good points.

It seems to me that they could be doing themselves a disservice by not
talking to the Plone community. What if they'd come on this list, or on
plone-users? I bet there would've been dozens if not hundreds of
responses from people eager to share experiences and dispel myths.

Oh well.

Martin


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[Jon Stahl]

> > RSS Feeds:  Plone A, Drupal A+
> >  -- Again, not sure why Plone would rate lower.  Everything
> in Plone
> > produces RSS, and you can construct RSS feeds for anything you can
> > search for, which AFAIK is actually MORE flexible than Drupal.
> I think the aggregator space is where Plone is not
> particularly strong.
> What I mean is that there is not to my knowledge a slick and
> easy way to
> create RSS aggregation views.   It has been a while, but last time I
> worked with this space, CMFSin was the tool to use, and it is
> not at all easy for site managers to tweak the settings.

Aaron, the new PloneRSS product does this.  Needs a little polishing,
but is damn impressive.

best,
jon

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[Jon Stahl]

> It seems to me that they could be doing themselves a
> disservice by not talking to the Plone community. What if
> they'd come on this list, or on plone-users? I bet there
> would've been dozens if not hundreds of responses from people
> eager to share experiences and dispel myths.

They claim that they DID talk to Plone-folk, but I don't know who.
Someone from their team (Becky?) was at Ploneability, FWIW.  

They clearly got an in-person pitch from CivicActions, a Drupal shop.  I
would hope that they asked SOMEONE about Plone somewhere.

best,
jon

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[Martin Aspeli-2]

Jon Stahl wrote:
>> It seems to me that they could be doing themselves a
>> disservice by not talking to the Plone community. What if
>> they'd come on this list, or on plone-users? I bet there
>> would've been dozens if not hundreds of responses from people
>> eager to share experiences and dispel myths.
>
> They claim that they DID talk to Plone-folk, but I don't know who.

It's a bit difficult, I guess, to adjust to the idea of talking to a
community. But if they were open about their requirements anyway, a post
to plone-users would've gone a really long way.

> Someone from their team (Becky?) was at Ploneability, FWIW.  

Really? Shame I didn't meet her, I would've gladly had a longer talk
with her later on.

> They clearly got an in-person pitch from CivicActions, a Drupal shop.  I
> would hope that they asked SOMEONE about Plone somewhere.

Hehe. :)

Martin


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[Zahid Malik]

On 6/26/06, Martin Aspeli <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Jon Stahl wrote:
> >> It seems to me that they could be doing themselves a
> >> disservice by not talking to the Plone community. What if
> >> they'd come on this list, or on plone-users? I bet there
> >> would've been dozens if not hundreds of responses from people
> >> eager to share experiences and dispel myths.
> >
> > They claim that they DID talk to Plone-folk, but I don't know who.
>
> It's a bit difficult, I guess, to adjust to the idea of talking to a
> community. But if they were open about their requirements anyway, a post
> to plone-users would've gone a really long way.
>

I might be wrong but I've got a vague memory of Paul Everitt
mentioning this a month or so ago.

Zahif
--
Dr Zahid Malik
FRY-IT Limited
503 Enterprise House
1/2 Hatfields
London SE1 9PG
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Web: http://www.fry-it.com

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[Jon Stahl]

> Jon Stahl wrote:
> >> It seems to me that they could be doing themselves a disservice by
> >> not talking to the Plone community. What if they'd come on
> this list,
> >> or on plone-users? I bet there would've been dozens if not
> hundreds
> >> of responses from people eager to share experiences and
> dispel myths.
> >
> > They claim that they DID talk to Plone-folk, but I don't know who.
>
> It's a bit difficult, I guess, to adjust to the idea of
> talking to a community. But if they were open about their
> requirements anyway, a post to plone-users would've gone a
> really long way.

As it turns out, at http://importantprojects.com/archives/000081.php,
Rob writes out that Jean-Paul Ladage of Zest delivered a presentation on
Plone to the GP-UK folk, which Rob just described to me via email as
"excellent."

best,
jon


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[fairsay]

> > It seems to me that they could be doing themselves a
> > disservice by not talking to the Plone community. What if
> > they'd come on this list, or on plone-users? I bet there
> > would've been dozens if not hundreds of responses
> > from people
> > eager to share experiences and dispel myths.

Actually - as I also know Rob (who project managed the GP
requirements process) I tried to get a few Plone networks to
respond.  I both emailed ZEA Partners and the ZopeUK Association
lead 3-4 weeks before the presentation happened - and on the
issue of GP UK bid I heard nothing back as to if someone acted on
it (someone obviously did - but I don't know if it came via one
of those networks) - all despite chasing several times.

My company - FairSay - does work with Zope-Plone, but more as a
secondary objective as the primary one is around supporting
e-campaigning (as in activism).  We've developed a number of
e-campaigning products that are in production and will be
released soon (need to find time to finish off the documentation
and other stuff).  But we weren't in a position to present or bid
for this as we focus just on activism and this was a wider CMS
project.

I'd have loved to have GP UK use Zope-Plone (and agree they
under-rated Plone in a wide range of areas) - but there need to
be an obvious place to announce these opportunities which I
suppose this list is (and it didn't exist when the opportunity
arose)

Martin Wrote:
> It's a bit difficult, I guess, to adjust to the idea of talking
to a
> community.

Not for the GP web team - they are all very open source friendly
people and Drupal is also a community so equivalent there.
Drupal just mobilised and evangelised better this time.

Martin Wrote:
> But if they were open about their requirements anyway, a post
> to plone-users would've gone a really long way.

Rob posted everything on the www.importantproject.com site and
this was referenced in the emails to Zea Partners and ZopeUK
Association.  Has I known a post to plone-users would have gone
further I'd have done that too (note I wasn't formally involved
in this - just trying to help ensure Plone was selected).

> They claim that they DID talk to Plone-folk, but I
> don't know who.

According to Rob's web site (
http://www.importantprojects.com/ ) - it was "Jean-Paul Ladage of
Zest Software" ( http://www.zestsoftware.nl/ )

> Someone from their team (Becky?) was at Ploneability, FWIW.

Tracy actually - and both I and Sisi (Friends of the Earth
International who are also Plone users) were at Ploneability and
chatted to her at various times over the day - but by this time
it was almost too late as we both sensed their decision was
already made and just hoped the show of strength from the Plone
community would help sway things.


I think we should use this to look forward and galvanise the
Plone-NGO community around developing the few gaps that the GP UK
proposal identified and other that people have identified on this
list.

It is known that GP Intl will be looking to replace Planet2
(OpenACS) in the next 1-2 years and many other NGO are
considering Plone.  Drupal sells itself on having existing
products (vs potential ones) and this is one of the reasons GP UK
made its decision.  If Plone is to compete (and it better IMHO)
Plone needs to offer similar 'certainty' to potential clients.

Cheers,

Duane

PS - Perhaps we should have regular Plone NGO meetings (physical)
in various countries  and chats (virtual) to organise for the
next time.  I'm up for organising one London/Oxford UK

===========================================================
Duane Raymond
FairSay
http://www.fairsay.com


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[Martin Aspeli-2]

Duane Raymond wrote:
> Actually - as I also know Rob (who project managed the GP
> requirements process) I tried to get a few Plone networks to
> respond.  I both emailed ZEA Partners and the ZopeUK Association
> lead 3-4 weeks before the presentation happened - and on the
> issue of GP UK bid I heard nothing back as to if someone acted on
> it (someone obviously did - but I don't know if it came via one
> of those networks) - all despite chasing several times.

If that's the case, it is indeed a shame. My point was more general,
though - if organisations want to evaluate Plone, you don't (only) have
to go out and find a vendor who's willing to make a bid; with a list of
requirements as detailed as the one they had, they could've engaged with
the whole community via the mailing lists and probably got a more
balanced response back - if anything, it would've made them better
informed buyers of the final product.

> My company - FairSay - does work with Zope-Plone, but more as a
> secondary objective as the primary one is around supporting
> e-campaigning (as in activism).  We've developed a number of
> e-campaigning products that are in production and will be
> released soon (need to find time to finish off the documentation
> and other stuff).

That's wonderful news! Let us know if you need any assistance getting
this released - can't promise anything, obviously, but I'm sure a lot of
people here would be interested.

 > But we weren't in a position to present or bid
> for this as we focus just on activism and this was a wider CMS
> project.

Right.

> I'd have loved to have GP UK use Zope-Plone (and agree they
> under-rated Plone in a wide range of areas) - but there need to
> be an obvious place to announce these opportunities which I
> suppose this list is (and it didn't exist when the opportunity
> arose)

Indeed. In general, ZEA is a channel to be used, at least for larger
scale projects. Putting out some feelers (even of the, "does Plone do
this") on the public lists is probably a good idea anyway. It may feel a
bit counter-intuitive to be so open about it, but chances are people in
the community will be more honest with you than anyone else, and you'll
connect with others who have solved your problems before you.

Martin


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[Jon Stahl]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Martin Aspeli

> Indeed. In general, ZEA is a channel to be used, at least for
> larger scale projects. Putting out some feelers (even of the,
> "does Plone do this") on the public lists is probably a good idea
anyway. It
> may feel a bit counter-intuitive to be so open about it, but
> chances are people in the community will be more honest with
> you than anyone else, and you'll connect with others who have
> solved your problems before you.

FWIW, I did email Plone-users about this back in April, with a link to
their requirements, urging UK Plone-folk to get in touch with Rob:
http://www.nabble.com/Greenpeace-UK-is-looking-for-some-help-evaluating-
Plone-t1497308.html#a4058277

I am not sure what results it might have had.

For the record, CivicActions invested its time not in a bid, but in
presenting the Drupal platform itself.  I suspect (and hope) that Zest
did the same.  Now that the platform choice is made, GP will be
soliticing bids from several Drupal shops.  I am sure that CivicActions
will be among them.

All in all, I take this as a lesson that the Plone community needs to do
a better job of making Plone's power more discoverable and easier to
compare against solutions that have a lot of mindshare, be they Drupal,
Documentum or what have you.



best,
jon

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[Jon Stahl]

> My company - FairSay - does work with Zope-Plone, but more as
> a secondary objective as the primary one is around supporting
> e-campaigning (as in activism).  We've developed a number of
> e-campaigning products that are in production and will be
> released soon (need to find time to finish off the
> documentation and other stuff).  But we weren't in a position
> to present or bid for this as we focus just on activism and
> this was a wider CMS project.

Duane-

I'd *love* to hear more about what you've got in the pipeline, and what
if anything we can do to accelerate release/adoption.

My organization, ONE/Northwest, works exclusively with environmental
NGOs here in the Northwest US & British Columbia, so of course
advocacy/e-campaigning is of massive interest to them.

And it goes without saying that Plone could use a big jolt of
energy/innovation here.

Time to decloak! ;-)

best,
jon

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[Martin Aspeli-2]

Jon Stahl wrote:

> FWIW, I did email Plone-users about this back in April, with a link to
> their requirements, urging UK Plone-folk to get in touch with Rob:
> http://www.nabble.com/Greenpeace-UK-is-looking-for-some-help-evaluating-
> Plone-t1497308.html#a4058277
>
> I am not sure what results it might have had.

Oh, must've missed that one... but honestly, the barrier to responding
is way, way lower if we can hit 'reply' in the mailing list (even if
they ask for off-list replies, but preferably on-list) than having to
read document, get to grips with their story and writing an email to
someone who may not even be listening. Not that you didn't do a great
thing by letting us know, but realistically they would've almost
certainly gotten answers had they posted an email to the list directly.
If Plone was in the last three they considered, that probably wasn't an
unrealistic thing for them to do, had they thought about it or wanted
to. Of course there may be internal reasons why you wouldn't want to
engage with a community at that level, but I'm trying to make the point
that it could have a lot of benefits :)

> For the record, CivicActions invested its time not in a bid, but in
> presenting the Drupal platform itself.  I suspect (and hope) that Zest
> did the same.  Now that the platform choice is made, GP will be
> soliticing bids from several Drupal shops.  I am sure that CivicActions
> will be among them.

And I'm sure they'll be first in line given they were first in the door,
consciously or unconsciously - that's the way these things work. Not
that they didn't do a great thing, or that a Plone shop wouldn't have
done the same thing for all the right reasons.

> All in all, I take this as a lesson that the Plone community needs to do
> a better job of making Plone's power more discoverable and easier to
> compare against solutions that have a lot of mindshare, be they Drupal,
> Documentum or what have you.

Absolutely true, of course. :)

There is a question of who will do that kind of abstract marketing,
though. I mean... *I* am not very likely to receive much kickback from
spending hours pleading Plone's case. Typically, this is left more up to
people like the foundation and the consultancies who stand to gain in
the long run.

Martin


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[Aaron VanDerlip]

Jon Stahl wrote:
>
>
> All in all, I take this as a lesson that the Plone community needs to do
> a better job of making Plone's power more discoverable and easier to
> compare against solutions that have a lot of mindshare, be they Drupal,
> Documentum or what have you.
>
>  
This could be as simple as creating sample listing of Plone
configurations, meaning Plone + (blessed) Plone Products  + External
Services and software, with options for complexity.

So for example

Need: email newsletter to members
Solutions:
    simple: PloneGazette (add-on product)
    advanced: PHPList (external software)
    professional: WhatCounts (external service)

Obviously this would need to be fleshed out more, but showing at least
what some of the solutions to these problems domains at a glance would
go a long way.  Prospective users can see these configurations in action
as well.  It gets a bit sticky around advocating for commercial
services, not sure what the appropriate solutions is.


--
Aaron VanDerlip
Programmer

NetCorps
Eugene Oregon
541 465 1127 x104



Reclaim Your Inbox!
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[Sam Stainsby-2]

Jon Stahl wrote:
> Thought y'all might be interested to see the results of GPs' recent
> evaluation of Plone vs. Drupal (vs Planet2, an in-house OpenACS solution).
It was interesting to see that there was nothing about process-oriented
requirements. e.g. workflow/staging/versioning requirements,
authorisation levels, security, etc. I've seen similar skewed
requirements sets occur in another organisation where the IT team was
completely left out of the requirements process. Yes, the end users'
requirements are paramount, but there needs to be more, because they
often don't think of things like this. I have evaluated Drupal versus
Plone in the past, and workflows, authorisation, security flexibility
etc. was where there was a large difference. Maybe it has improved since
then (but now Plone also has the joys of Placeful Workflows).

Reuse of content: what about exporting and importing content in Plone?
What are they getting at here?

Cheers,
Sam.

--
Sam Stainsby  -  Managing Director
Sustainable Software Pty Ltd
"open knowledge :: social conscience"
ABN:     32 117 186 286
WWW:     http://sustainablesoftware.com.au/
E-mail:  [hidden email]
Jabber:  [hidden email]
Tel/Fax: [phone]    Mobile: [phone]


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[Zahid Malik]

> This could be as simple as creating sample listing of Plone
> configurations, meaning Plone + (blessed) Plone Products  + External
> Services and software, with options for complexity.
>
> So for example
>
> Need: email newsletter to members
> Solutions:
>     simple: PloneGazette (add-on product)
>     advanced: PHPList (external software)
>     professional: WhatCounts (external service)
>
> Obviously this would need to be fleshed out more, but showing at least
> what some of the solutions to these problems domains at a glance would
> go a long way.  Prospective users can see these configurations in action
> as well.  It gets a bit sticky around advocating for commercial
> services, not sure what the appropriate solutions is.
>
>

I think that there might be a potential problem in this approach:
trying to mix too many different systems could cause problems with
data transfer, sign-on and just general learning and support. I am not
advocating a one product fits all approach but I think too much mixing
and matching could become a pain for the NGO's.

I do think that having some kind of "endorsment" or ranking, by NGO's,
of what the best Plone products are for various tasks would save
people a lot of time. People have discussed having an NGO distribution
& I think this would be good idea in the sense of a set of recommended
Plone products & how they are useful.


--
Dr Zahid Malik
FRY-IT Limited
503 Enterprise House
1/2 Hatfields
London SE1 9PG
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Web: http://www.fry-it.com

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[Paul Everitt-2]

On Jun 26, 2006, at 10:32 PM, Duane Raymond wrote:

>
>>> It seems to me that they could be doing themselves a
>>> disservice by not talking to the Plone community. What if
>>> they'd come on this list, or on plone-users? I bet there
>>> would've been dozens if not hundreds of responses
>>> from people
>>> eager to share experiences and dispel myths.
>
> Actually - as I also know Rob (who project managed the GP
> requirements process) I tried to get a few Plone networks to
> respond.  I both emailed ZEA Partners and the ZopeUK Association
> lead 3-4 weeks before the presentation happened - and on the
> issue of GP UK bid I heard nothing back as to if someone acted on
> it (someone obviously did - but I don't know if it came via one
> of those networks) - all despite chasing several times.

I spent two hours chatting with Rob, even though he said he wasn't  
going the Zea network route, I still made an appointment and tried to  
help out.  He did get an in-person pitch from a Plone company, I  
believe.

--Paul


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[David Bain-5]

Just to say - I agree with the idea of an NGO distribution. Just my 2 cents.


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[Jon Stahl]

> Jon Stahl wrote:
> >
> >
> > All in all, I take this as a lesson that the Plone
> community needs to
> > do a better job of making Plone's power more discoverable
> and easier
> > to compare against solutions that have a lot of mindshare, be they
> > Drupal, Documentum or what have you.
> >
> >  
> This could be as simple as creating sample listing of Plone
> configurations, meaning Plone + (blessed) Plone Products  +
> External Services and software, with options for complexity.
>
> So for example
>
> Need: email newsletter to members
> Solutions:
>     simple: PloneGazette (add-on product)
>     advanced: PHPList (external software)
>     professional: WhatCounts (external service)
>
> Obviously this would need to be fleshed out more, but showing
> at least what some of the solutions to these problems domains
> at a glance would go a long way.  Prospective users can see
> these configurations in action as well.  It gets a bit sticky
> around advocating for commercial services, not sure what the
> appropriate solutions is.

Aaron,

I could really see this as a simple, useful set of FAQs at Plone.org...
no endorsement need be express or implied, simply "This is what has
worked for the author"  others could of course comment and the document
be refined.

I don't think there is a problem with saying "such and such commercial
product" offers features and functions at a level of sophistication that
Plone does not.  

I will take responsibility for starting an email newsletter integration
FAQ to see if this is workable.

best,
jon

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[fairsay]

Warning: long email - only read if interested in activism tools
for Plone

> I'd *love* to hear more about what you've got in the pipeline,
> and what if anything we can do to accelerate release/adoption.

Well - you asked for it :-)

Thanks to a little push by Jon, Martin and Sisi - here is some
more information about the activism tools FairSay has developed
(but not formally released yet) or is working on.

1) Activator Product
- Allows the configuration of letter actions and petitions +
other action
  types if you are creative (most actions are generally
variations on
  these two types)

- Developed for GCAP ( www.whiteband.org ) and in production use
for 12 months
  (no actions are currently live there)

- Features include:
  - Configurable action form fields and layout
  - Ensures thank-you pages and thank-you emails (both good from
cross-promotion)
  - Data download in CSV format
  - Basic statistics including ability to display live action
count on any page
    (local or remote)
  - Super duper tracking so you know where people taking actions
have come from
  - Can 'syndicate' action page/form (don't confuse with RSS) so
others can host
    it on their sites but it is all stored in the same place.

- Conceptually it works on the basis that 'Campaigns' contain one
or more
  'Actions' that consist of one or more 'Action Editions'.  It is
the 'Action
   Editions' which you actually configure.

We haven't yet put together all the necessary elements for an
open source release (documentation, issue tracker, open svn,
etc.) and won't have until the end of August (due to client work
taking precedence) - however Friends of the Earth International
(Sisi) and Netherlands (Paul) have tentatively agreed to help
test and document it towards that end - and now Jon, Martin seem
willing to chip in as well :-)

So - anyone who wants to play with it can get it from:
http://www.fairsay.com/static/eCampaigning018.zip
(this is a temporary location so don't link to it or it will
break in 1-2 months) We've still to determine the best license to
release it under - but it will be something like LGPL or GPL (or
equivalent).

I've had preliminary conversations with Friends of the Earth
International & FoE Netherlands (Milieudefensie) about them
investing some time in both testing/documentation and in actual
development - plus the suggestion that if a number of
organisations want to contribute budget then a developer could
work on further improving this product.

If anyone else wants to help improve this product, we'd be
excited to work with you.


OTHER PROJECTS
(aka vapourware until we have a working product but extensive
work has gone into these):

1) Mobiliser:
A tool for NGO to enable their supporters to organise and connect
locally to each other by identifying those closest' to each other
(similar to Meetup or Greenpeace's Melt project
http://melt.staging.greenpeace.org/ ) (70% to first release)

2) GeoRosetta:
The global dataset (for Mobiliser) of countries, regions and
cities with longitude and latitude in multiple languages.  This
data already exists out there - but with horrible duplications,
errors, gaps, etc. so this is an attempt to 'structure' and clean
it.  Plus it add an Ajax client using a RESTful approach to
navigate the hierarchy of data in xml files on a file system (for
maximum scalability).  Could be VERY useful for other
applications that need to be geo-location aware. (similar to
http://www.geonames.org/ which we didn't know of when we started)
(70% to first release).  Greenpeace is already using a
pre-release of the GeoRosetta data for their Melt project.

3) Campaigning Benchmarking System:
A system for collecting data on a range of campaigns / campaign
actions and comparing these results vs. other campaigns /
campaign actions.  This is currently in an early phase and
initially it will simply collect and archive campaigning emails
and actions so they can be 'mined' for good ideas, what was done
when, who is doing what, etc. ( 1% of system vision, 90% of first
'archival' element)

So to paraphrase Jon - I have now "decloaked".

No technical progress on any of these will happen from FairSay's
side during July due to Petri (FairSay's Technical Director)
enjoying the summer (as we all should for those in the northern
hemisphere).

However during July I'll have some time to work on:
1) Discussing ways to collaborate on one or more of these
projects
2) Documenting and collecting issues on the 'pre-release' of the
eCampaigning project
3) Maybe (if 1 & 2 give me time) continue to work on GeoRosetta.

So - Jon, Martin, Sisi, Paul, others - if you want to talk about
any of these more - let me know (Note: I am offline from June
30 - July 10)

Cheers,

Duane

PS - I normally hesitate to promote these things until they are
released so I can deliver what I promise when I promise it (I
hate vaporware) - and that is determoned by either a client
driving it or enough free time to advance it.

===========================================================
Duane Raymond
FairSay
[phone]
http://www.fairsay.com


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