[infrastructure] What platform is OSfA built on?

Thu Sep 17 08:24:49 CDT 2009

*sigh*

I really don't want us to get into a platform war.  No one is ever happy in the end.

Ean has put a LOT of time into this, and whatever he wants to use is fine with me. He will be the person that is the lead on the tech side of the OSfA website. So long as we can recruit 5-10 solid volunteers to help him administer the site and keep up with OSfA's increasing demands, I'm happy. 

--mel

----- "Jay Batson" <batsonjay at gmail.com> wrote:

| (Sorry I'm running behind on this thread; work has kept me off the  
| list.)
| 
| On Sep 15, 2009, at 6:38 PM, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
| 
| > On Tue, 15 Sep 2009, Ean Schuessler wrote:
| >
| >> A clearer statement would be that we are running OFBiz under Apache
|  
| >> Tomcat. Drupal is a fine content management system but I think its 
| 
| >> CRM capabilities are weaker than OFBiz. Managing member  
| >> relationships is a critical function.
| 
| I guess I'd raise the question "What CRM capabilities are important?" 
|  
| Are we doing fundraising and actual cash transactions, and are we  
| doing marketing campaigns where we want to track click-backs to  
| individual sales?  If so, then that dictates a set of CRM  
| capabilities.  There _are_ Drupal-based CRM features of this type,  
| though if you really want a CRM, don't you want something like
| SugarCRM?
| 
| If what you _really_ want is social-networking style capabilities to 
| 
| encourage member relationships -- enabling people to be able to  
| create / associate with / join groups, be able to communicate with the
|  
| membership (and them with each other), etc., then this isn't really  
| CRM-ish - it's "Web 2.0"-ish.  This is where a good Web app platform 
| 
| (Drupal) will help.  Drupal excels in social-style websites.
| 
| CRM orientation is for "Customers".  Drupal is for "users."
| 
| > Fair enough.  But that means it's a function that you are going to 
| 
| > have to own -- until you can bring up someone else to implement new 
| 
| > features, that is.  :)
| 
| Which is where Drupal shines.... It's community is huge - much bigger 
| 
| than OFBiz - and there is already a plug-in module for virtually  
| anything you want.  Currently, there's over 4,500 plug-in functional 
| 
| add-ons to Drupal.  In the Drupal world, we have a saying:  "You want 
| 
| XX??  There's a Module for that."  Which cuts development time and  
| accelerates progress.
| 
| >> If you would like to run Drupal in the same context we could  
| >> accomodate you with Caucho Resin. I don't think managing content  
| >> with the current system has been problematic, so If I'm going to  
| >> take time to set that up I would like commitments on what will be 
| 
| >> built with it. Terri or Melanie, have you found editing content to 
| 
| >> be a problem?
| 
| We've seen some experience with Resin / Drupal.  It works "ok" - but 
| 
| Resin is a full PHP interpreter written in (and executing as) Java;  
| thus, it's always some releases behind the core PHP release.  Which  
| isn't usually important until, say, you want things like security  
| patches.....
| 
| While don't really hate it, we don't actively encourage this.  There's
|  
| just too many rough edges still.
| 
| > It's not the front end that matters; it's the backend.  A web  
| > content UI is a web content UI.
| 
| This is where most people's understanding of Drupal falls short.  I  
| don't know what Greg's familiarity is, but Drupal has grown WAY beyond
|  
| a web content UI / system.  The current release - Drupal 6 - is _both_
|  
| a back-end platform as well as a fully-functional front-end system.  
| 
| Drupal should be viewed as a web application system - not a web page 
| 
| front end.
| 
| (BTW - Drupal 7 - which just hit code freeze - is even more so,  
| cleaning up a variety of things that were left in D6 that weren't  
| fully abstracted.  Not to say Drupal 6 couldn't handle it; it's just 
| 
| evidence of it's continuing evolution as a platform.)
| 
| Which leads to...:
| 
| > What matters is the ease with which a newbie developer can show up 
| 
| > on the mailing list, see a thread entitled "need help with X," and 
| 
| > be able to step up and say "I know your technology well enough to  
| > help with X."
| 
| Which is why the project lead for Drupal - a guy with a PhD in Java VM
|  
| systems - chose to write Drupal in PHP, not Java.  Php is  
| approachable, and you can grow a bigger community and bigger  
| participation by using it.
| 
| Evidence:  The Drupal community pretty much doubles every year.   
| Drupalcon DC - in March this year - had 1,600 people, up from 850 the 
| 
| year before in Boston.  Drupalcon Paris (just finished) had 1,200  
| people, up from 700 the year before.
| 
| And it turns out that tons of Drupal community participants are  
| passionate about government and politics.  It's biggest boost came  
| when it got used by the Dean campaign.  If the Drupal community learns
|  
| that OSfA is based on Drupal, we'll have GOBS of people volunteering 
| 
| to add feature X.  All I need to do is to use our company Twitter  
| account and Tweet that we need Drupalers to get involved in this  
| infrastructure group, and you'll have 50 people volunteering within  
| the hour to write code.
| 
| Which is more scaleable than Ean.  ;-)
| 
| I strongly suggest we consider re-opening the CMS discussion, and  
| discuss (a) the extent of CRM needs that are actually required, vs.  
| (b) the need to get visitor - driven content / participation, and  
| human network effects, as well as wide-scale participation in site  
| development - most of which Drupal can overwhelmingly dominate.
| 
| -jb
| 
| ------
| Jay Batson
| batsonjay at gmail.com
| 978-758-1599 (m)
| 978-296-5217 (w)
| 
| 
| PPhil on the Iban Mayo's Tour win, Stage 8, 2003:
| 
| This is the wonderful moment
| when you come alone to the summit of Alpe d'Huez.
| Time, at this minute, is not important
| when you're winning the stage at Alpe d'Huez,
| it's all about success.
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
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-- 
Melanie Chernoff
Public Policy Manager
Red Hat, Inc.
(919) 754-4723