[infrastructure] What platform is OSfA built on?

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009, Elizabeth Ziph wrote:

> Hi Greg,
> 
> I agree.  The CMS is OFBIZ -- Open For Business http://ofbiz.apache.org/

I don't know whether it's even useful to start this discussion, as the 
ship might already have sailed for good, and if this is an academic 
discussion, forgive me...

...but I wonder ofbiz might be too heavy for the org's purposes.

Here's the thing.  An application stack like ofbiz is not just a CMS; it's 
a whole business platform with full CRM/ERP implementation.  It's a great 
platform for a business that has those kinds of needs, and can pay staff 
to build a robust application that can run a business -- but OSfA isn't a 
business.  It's an advocacy project that will rely almost entirely on 
volunteer labor to accomplish its goals.

In the years I've come to rely on volunteer geek labor, I've found two 
rules to be paramount:

Rule #1. Create the lowest possible barriers to entry for participation.

Rule #2. Know thy contributor base.

Open Source for America has an *outstanding* opportunity to draw volunteer 
support from the rank and file of open source developers -- but 
infrastructure choices matter.  I personally know literally dozens of 
people who have played with Drupal.  Until today, I'd never even heard of 
ofbiz.  Now, that may be a function of the geeks I hang out with -- but 
the geeks I hang out with are the geeks who volunteer to do stuff, and I 
think it's a pretty representative sample.

So, again, this ship may have sailed, and I can respect that -- but as it 
stands, Ean is carrying an awfully heavy load, and there's no one I see 
with the expertise to backfill him.  Acquia is *the* Drupal company right 
now, and Drupal is *the* mass-market CMS leader, and you've got someone 
from Acquia on your infrastructure team.  It may be worth reconsidering 
some core infrastructure choices.  It can be painful to change gears, but 
if you're going to do it, better to do it sooner than later.

My $0.02.

--g

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