Re: www.gnome.org redesign status

[Paul Cutler <pcutler foresightlinux org>]

Hi all, I've been thinking about Murray and Vincent's recent emails
regarding the wgo redesign over the past few days, and after spending
the weekend doing some research around where we've been on this
project, I wanted to send an email.  (I apologize in advance for the
length of this email).

The things that grabbed my attention the most were some of the
comments in this email thread that we may not be able to complete the
wgo redesign using plone.  I think Vincent may be on to something in
the email below by having a small team investigate other options.

First, I'd like to thank Murray for all of his work in managing this
project over the last two and a half years - I can't imagine managing
the project for that long, and the frustrations that comes with the
job in seeing the progress start and stop.  I was part of Quim's team
back in early 2007 working on writing and editing the content for the
new wgo, and I feel that I still have a vested interest in seeing this
project succeed.

In a perfect world, if we had the people and resources, I would
propose having a new wgo by the time GNOME 3.0 launches a year from
now.  I know that goal is not very realistic, especially based on
where we've been over the last couple of years, but I wanted to throw
it out there.

Murray said at the beginning of this month in his email update
regarding the wgo redesign
(http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-web-list/2009-April/msg00002.html):

"There are still people working on a Plone site, though there hasn't
been much activity recently. I don't believe they will succeed,
because this has failed so often, but nobody should stop them from
trying as long as we don't have something else."  (Murray also
mentions that a large part of the work has been done as well).

Vincent later in the email thread added some comments, including
"plone is not the best choice for GNOME because we have nobody active
who will be able to take care of it." though he did go on to add he
didn't want to have a discussion of what CMS we should use without a
concrete plan to address it.

What's interesting to me about Vincent's comment specifically, is the
lgo page that discusses the choice of CMS back in 2006
(http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/CmsRequirements):

"The reasons for choosing Plone rely more on people than code, since
both tools could reach all the requirements with hacking and good
will. "

I think this statement is even more true today.

I'd like to propose that we follow up on Vincent's comments and form a
small team to investigate if any other solutions might be a better
fit.  It's possible in the last 2 1/2 years the technology and the
members in the community might have changed enough that we might want
to think about choosing a new CMS, based on the original requirements
at http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWeb/CmsRequirements.  My first instinct
would be to evaluate Plone, Midgard (as it came in #2 last time ) and
Drupal (as it seems to have grown greatly in its use over the last
couple of years, and the major reason it wasn't chosen was i18n which
may have changed in this time).

If it's possible to put a small working team together to evaluate
these choices over the next 6-8 weeks and report back to the
community, it may help to reinforce the current decision, or it may
encourage new volunteers to come forward to work on a new solution.  I
may not have the technical skills to evaluate the different solutions,
but I would like to volunteer to help organize activities around this,
including finding volunteers (with help from the community),
scheduling meetings, and sharing progress and status updates with the
GNOME community.

I don't mean to take anything away from everyone who has been working
on the wgo revamp.  But with GNOME 3.0 a year away, we have a unique
opportunity to build on the GNOME brand through marketing activities,
including the website, and I wanted to at least ask the question.

Respectfully,

Paul

On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org> wrote:
> Le vendredi 03 avril 2009, à 22:49 +0200, Carsten Senger a écrit :
> > Hi Jens,
> >
> > Jens W. Klein schrieb:
> > > What are the problems with using Plone? I build Plone sites all day
> > > long for public sites and intranets, ... So I use Gnome (within
> > > Ubuntu). So if I can help, tell me. I think I'am also good in solving
> > > difficult problems with Plone, its my business. Just give me some
> > > pointers and access: Where are  buildout, code, design skcetches,
> > > concept, ...?
> >
> > It's a long, unsuccessful story that has nothing to do with Plone
> > itself. I don't know the details before last fall, but the position of
> > the gnome folks is correct. Today it's mostly about people loosing track
> > for work or personal reasons, including me.
>
> Just stepping back a bit... This long unsuccessful story might mean
> something about plone for GNOME: maybe plone is not the best choice for
> GNOME because we have nobody active who will be able to take care of it.
> (don't get me wrong: it's nothing about plone or about the people)
>
> I mean: if some people can finish the current work, then great. But what
> will happen next time we need to do something big? I don't think we'd
> want to wait n years again.
>
> On the other hand, I don't want to start yet another discussion about
> what we should use and I don't have a concrete plan to fix this. I guess
> my point is that it might be worth having a small team investigate other
> solutions that are better suited to our community.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Vincent
>
> --
> Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.
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