Steven Noels wrote:
I agree with your general assumption that a content management system is pure marketing bullshit since there is no one size that fits all.
That's more or less what I'm saying, yes.
In fact, in my personal view, Lenya is an effort to build a community around the various problems of content management and that will probably generate a "Content Management Framework" rather than a ready-to-be-deployed solution.
Things like workflows, repository integration, integration with semi-structured editors will probably be components (cocoon blocks?)
My main concern is the fact that Lenya does not come only with a community, but also with a code base. That code base is in use already at a selected number of commercial installations (which is good, of course). I hope to be proven wrong, yet I fear the existing codebase is intimately linked with these installations - hence the number of publications in CVS. The main group of committers _might_ also depend (financially) on supporting these installations. OK, I'm FUDing here, but I have seen how some other candidate contributions were received lately, and I want to make sure we don't just do the 'huuray - a CMS project at Apache' thing.
Please understand me: if you and some Wyona guys and some other CMS-oriented folks would jump up and invite people to join a CMS project, I would have a vested interest in joining that community. Now if joining that community means supporting an existing, massive codebase instead of proper [RT]-ing with sufficient blank space to be filled in, I would feel less challenged. I'm not saying this will happen, and I find it great that Wyona people went the extra mile and open-sourced their stuff, but I'm not sure whether your grand vision of an ASF CMF will escape from this (codebase) donation.
Of course, I should shut up and get involved (I'll do that). Still, the idea behind Incubation Proposals is that people can react upon them. I'm only voicing my concerns, and I would love to be proven wrong.
* A sh*tload of (even Cocoon-based) (half-baked) CMS solutions exist already, which might or might not be willing to join ASF in the future. What will happen if Lenya (nice name BTW) comes and claims that area?
"claims that area"? how can it possibly happen? Apache is not something that you go and homestead. Here we are talking about incubating a community around problems that affict many people (and you as well).
If you have a better proposal or codebase to start from, I'm happy to hear about it.
Gee - I knew that one was coming ;-)
I have a customer asking me about a Cocoon-based CMS [it's a long-term project, so I don't need it right now, so please don't send me quotes for all your homebrewn CMS solutions, beloved colleagues ;-)]. I have a number of options:
* try to find out if Lenya fits my requirements and use it
- be happy with it as-is (just be a user)
- find holes which I can help to plug
- wreak havoc while trying to apply Lenya to a use-case it hasn't been designed for
* pretend it doesn't exist and write my own one
- closed source
- open source
- cocoondev.org
- donation to ASFSo eventually, given some time, I might have a codebase, but it is still very uncertain.
Now at this time however, there _are_ already people with CMS codebases. These people might not be willing to work on Lenya, since they are bound to have a different vision and/or implementation, and working on Lenya might mean killing their own baby. I'm afraid (and I repeat: please show me where I'm wrong) that CMS is an area where it is very hard to come up with a decent, generic framework if you don't put many people together right from the start. Even then, there's only a slim chance.
Will it be the reference ASF CMS tool?
There is no *reference* anything inside apache. It's software darwinism, the community success decides what lives and what not. Tomcat might be the 'official' servlet engine, yet Cocoon ships Jetty and everybody is happier than ever.
The system works, it's adaptive, impartial and meritocratic.
Sure, and I'm wondering out loud whether the move to Apache will be good for Lenya. They have a community, there's buzz, a diverse set of committers so-they-say, and soon they might find themselves in the midst of a much larger community. Does Wyona/Lenya needs the ASF brand to succeed? To attract new committers? Given OSCOM and quite some vocal people working on it, I'm pretty sure Lenya receives a fair bit of attention. But as you say, the system is there and it works. We are allowed to try and do some future-telling, aren't we?
Can CMS be considered an area where the ASF wants to operate in, like Zope (CMF) is...?
The ASF is for the evolution of web technologies. Would you state that making structured content production and management easier is a goal the ASF shouldn't deal with?
Aren't we doing that yet? We have XML parsers, XSLT engines, WebDAV stacks, servlet containers, and much more (like mod_perl and AxKit, Matt ;-). Assembling those into a product will not necessarily evolve web technology IMHO.
Or do we stick to supporting technology like servlet containers, http stacks, build tools ... I know there is no policy at ASF that states only one CMS project can exist under the ASF umbrella, but still there is only one JetSpeed, one Tomcat, one Cocoon, etc etc - I hope my point is clear.
It's clear that you don't understand what we are trying to do.
I'm _trying_ to understand. Which is better than silently ignoring ;-)
We don't want to *homestead* the CMS niche of the ASF (whatever that means in OSS terms!), we want to build a community that will focus on serious content management and, so far, there is no such community in the ASF since Slide is repository-oriented (no publishing nor editing layer) and Forrest is publishing-oriented (no repository nor editing layer).
Sure thing. Since Lenya does publishing too, what is the future of Forrest in your scenario? This is not a pun nor a cynical remark: I'm honestly asking. It seems like you guys have spend some serious thoughts in preparing this proposal, and I would like to understand the rationale behind it.
We believe that the best architecture for CMS is the one described by Lenya where there is a clear separation between 'content editing', 'content repository' and 'content publishing', all of them left as 'framework' for developers to build customized CMS services upon.
I reckon that. I would like to see it better articulated in that way in the existing codebase, however.
We have most of the technology we need, we just need a community with a more detailed focus on these problems and so far the ASf doesn't have it.
* from what I read here [http://www.wyona.org/roadmap.html#1.0], there is extensive refactoring planned _before_ reaching 1.0, yet this is envisioned to be done as an incubating ASF (Cocoon sub-) project. I am wondering whether it wouldn't be better if this high-impact stuff is done before being moved to Apache (it also sounds a bit like the Lenya people take the move to ASF as a given, which might perhaps be a bit too premature).
This is a good point.
Pfew! :-)
At the same time, I'd love to see refactoring done *after* entering apache because that would allow the community to steer the project before it's carved in stone (as it happened for xindice and it's now much harder to refactor)
I have been lurking on Xindice since it was moved to Apache, and the Xindice scenario is exactly what is inspiring me when reading this proposal. There are some similarities IMHO.
* reviewing the archived commit messages, I wonder whether the proposed list of initial committers reflects reality, or that the list has been expanded so that we won't have the suspicion it is mainly one company/group working on the codebase (as is the case with xreporter.cocoondev.org right now).
Wow, that's very close to be insulting, Steven. Careful.
It wasn't meant that way. It's a rough and possibly faulthy analysis, while trying to verify what word-of-mouth told me. If I insulted anyone, I'm sorry. But I very much value that criteria for becoming an ASF project, so I think the question _should_ be asked.
Anyway, I agree that the wyona community is not very diverse, yet, if Wyona had a successful and diverse community, we wouldn't pass thru
incubation.
OK.
But I wouldn't say "expanded" since all the people listed *did* in fact, work on the codebase and are interested in keep an eye on it (which is as good as you can get these days), the incubation stage will decide what happen.
* Xopus has recently had some troubles w.r.t. its licensing policy (open, not open, etc...) Are these things effectively solved right now?
q42 has troubles understanding the oss business model. we are helping them privately. so far with very positive responses and some friction points we are trying to solve.
What part of Xopus will be inside Lenya CVS?
None. If we reach an agreement with q42, Xopus will be submitted as another incubation proposal, apache licensed and they will be part of the community.
Ah. Thanks for sharing! :-)
In any case, lenya will keep the editing layer totally separated, yet design the proper hooks for them.
As I said, these are 'just remarks'. The fact I'm posting them means I actually care about this proposal, in a positive sense.
Hopefully my comments give you more insights.
Sure thing. Hope I didn't offended anyone. I'm here because I care.
</Steven> -- Steven Noels http://outerthought.org/ Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center Read my weblog at http://blogs.cocoondev.org/stevenn/ stevenn at outerthought.org stevenn at apache.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
