[Plone-NGOs] Re: Initial thoughts on a

[Martin Aspeli]

George Lee wrote:

> * CalendarX on Zope3 (I've sent to Lupa and maybe the calendarx-users list)
> * A migration tool that mimics portal_migration but for other products
> * A product that allows filtering of showing the byline based on what roles a
> user has
> * A modified contact form that allows for contacting "web site administrators"
> and "organization staff"
> * A half-baked product that allows more flexible display of date/time and
> date/time ranges
> * A product that allows importing of content from a folder in the filesystem
> based on a folder structure and lots of boilerplate __init__.py files throughout
> that structure
> * A intra/extra workflow
> * A product that allows you to set up a GenericSetup xml file to add a role
> (e.g., "Partial Manager"), base it on an existing role ("Manager"), and tweak
> the permissions ("Manage portal? Not so much.")
> * A tool that generates images from text using renderpm
> * A simplified vocabulary manager that is less intense than ATVocabularyManager

Wow :)

There's definitely stuff in here that people may want to gain from. The 
migration thing could become a standard tool if it's done right. 
Filesystem import may be interesting to some (and also to the 
semi-stalled plone.app.contextualhelp product); intranet/extranet 
workflow will likely be part of 3.0, but this needs more testing so 
maybe you can contribute your real use cases; simplified vocabulary 
management would be very cool, too, as would images from text (but have 
you seen Chimera?).

> I hate the feeling of adding semi-good quality stuff into a collective to be
> lost forever with people wondering, "Why isn't this maintained?" and "How good
> is that product anyway?" I admit that as I see all these releases in
> http://plone.org/products, before the Add On Products vision is realized (which
> I sadly don't have time to help with), sometimes I can't help but roll my eyes
> and wonder "Look, more products that are just going to sit there."

Well, it depends on how you brand it.

> Of course I find the products I made tremendously useful, especially when I see
> that I can use them in multiple sites, so maybe others will find them useful
> too. Although I'm not a professional programmer, I'm trying hard to use best
> practices, use Zope3 technology when appropriate, and use good programming
> design to make things easily customizable / adaptable.

I've kept an eye on some of the questions you're asking. I wish I could 
see some of your code (no promises on time, but still), because I think 
there's a lot of potential there.

> Any suggestions on how I
> decide what is helpful to release and how I can do it in a meaningful and
> productive way? Will people be good at giving real feedback on the quality of
> code? Is it really worth releasing a product if I know I mostly likely will not
> have time to maintain it?

Well, no-one will be able to help you develop stuff if it's just on your 
own machine. You can of course import some of these to the Collective 
without making a plone.org/products page yet. A short mail to plone-user 
explaining what you've just imported if you did a bunch of them, plus 
some useful README files can go a long way. If any of them near release 
quality, you can create the plone.org/products package and publish it to 
the public. Developers will be able to look for it in the Collective, 
and may end up fixing it up for you if they need it for their own purposes.

> I guess a good way to do it is to first take a cue when people express interest
> -- the newsletter product (which still needs a good deal of work), the import
> tool product, the migration product have gotten some interest. I may try to
> polish those up and get them out there, but still some answers to the above
> questions would help.

You'll always end up taking some responsibility. Good/successful 
community programmers own one or more tools that people use, and 
exercise some control over them. You may find that it's not as much work 
as you think, though, and that it's very rewarding to get something out 
there (also in terms of future sponsorship or reputation) that feels 
"finished".

Martin