[NGO] Plone v. Drupal v. Joomla

[Martin Aspeli]

Hi Aaron,

> I realize that you can't compare software in the same way that hardware
> can be compared.  But I do think that these comparisons could dive a
> little into how the systems work from an end users point of view,
> something that is missing in the majority of the comparison articles
> that I read concerning Plone and other systems.  My complaint is more of
> an appeal to folks who are writing these comparisons to provide more
> detail and frame their assumptions.

Completely agree. Unfortuately, most reviews are based on fairly
superficial use of the system (install, toy for a couple of hours
maybe, read a bit of background). It's hard to find people with enough
insight into enough systems to make a really deep comparison.

> > Again, this depends very much on what you're entering into. If you're
> > just wanting a place to stuff your documents, then Plone probably has
> > a lower barrier to entry.
> >From and end-user point of view, Plone is a place to put their content.
> Part of our decision to start deploying Plone years ago, was based on
> the user interface.  We had to have a system that was user friendly
> enough for groups to be self supporting, so that the technology
> effectively faded into the background.

Yep. This is one of the biggest benefits that Plone offers, and one of
the main drivers for new users that we see. Go Limi! :)

> >  But frankly if you are
> > running the local Boy Scouts outfit and you have $35/mo of web
> > maintenance budget, then Plone isn't for you. Nothing wrong with that
> > - we just didn't make the system for that kind of an audience
> Heh, you just described the budget of a good chunk of the groups we work
> with :).  But of course, we are providing the hosting capacity for them.

So you are a hosting charity? :)

> You are correct in pointing out there is false economy in the cheap
> developer.  The other developer to be wary of is the COED, Cousin Of
> Executive Director, who will do the site for free, and support it until
> they decide to go backpacking in Costa Rica :).

Or Peru (sorry Laurence, if you're reading this).

Worse - I've been that guy - alternately helpful and keen high school
student, money-starved undergrad student and honour-bound master's
student. It gets tricky.

I think that there is good mileage to be had from such people - they
can be very talented and very cheap. However, it means you have to
manage them appropriately. You have to give them enough time to work
out specifications and test their work (you can't expect it all to
"just work" any more than you can with a bigger company that will
harass you until you spec and test properly), and you need to have the
support/maintenance discussion up-front.

One model that could work, is to say that the student builds the
system (you need to check that they're actually good at what they do,
but some of our finest Plone contributors are or were recently
students), but to work out support contingencies. If you can find a
suitable (but more expensive) Plone consultancy who are able to do
incident-based support if/when the cheap resource is not capable or
available, with some risk planning you can probably work out a cheaper
way of getting your system. The danger is that the student builds
something that is unmaintanble, hence you need to have the quality
discussion.

Cheers,
Martin