Ron Arts wrote: [snip]
1. Difficult installation.
Most people want to install a binary package these days (in practice this means RPM). When you look at the downloads, you see that the latest RPM is not the most recent Zope version. Oops! I thought, is this a serious product? (Please note: this first impression is important)
Another thing: how to install? PCGI? ZServer? There is no recommended way. Documentation is sparse on this matter.
The windows install is good, but you're missing most of the opensource community if the unix/linux people don't install zope. And many people *only* install rpm (if only for easy removal).
I have a completely different opinion on that matter. Making rpms is a real hell for software which depends anything else, at least as far as I can see in opensource land. OSS projects delivering _no_ rpms (other than from third parties) include: linux kernel, php, kde, apache httpd, perl, python ... In fact I don't know any project which takes the maintainance burden and even tries to deliver rpms, and nearly all of the above state the same reasons I do for not providing rpms. Zope-x.y.z-src's difference to nearly all of them is that it doesn't touch any files/directorys outside the directory you unpack it in. So removing zope from a system is as easy as rm -rf yourzopepath/ . Zope is included in all major distributions, it just has the problem, which is hopefully temporary, that it's dependencies on python-x.y.z change too fast. From an outside view, it seems that the development process of python itself is responsible for that. I really don't think that people not being able to comprehend tar xvfz zope-2.n.n-src.tar.gz python wo_pcgi.py start will have much fun with zope, anyway. And I strongly doubt these people are the unix/linux users of the "opensource community".
2. Unclear direction.
When I started browsing www.zope.org and all the dopcumentation, I came about three confusing differences: DTML, ZAL, and Zope3. It all was unclear to me, and if I will build a site in Zope I don't want to be on a dead trail. It is unclear to me which route I should take.
You are right, OTOH there were some statements here on some lists which did cover some topics of compatiblity of zope3 etc. Also, using google http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22zope+3%22+dtml+%22zope+... yields the following link at the third place: http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/2001-December/014313.html
3. downloadable product list.
Many products I downloaded did not work with my zope 2.5.0. ZopeGUD is broken. I could not even create an RPM for ZMySQLDA, even though I asked around on this list. So I still don't have MySQL access. Other products are listed as unmaintained. Why are they still on the list? Also there are duplicate products. The difference between them is not outlined, and nothing is recommended. Are some products far superior to others even though they seem to accomplish the same thing? I am forced to find out myself.
Yes, you are. Without adding the usual "unless you pay for it, that's open source" flamefest-attractor, I think it might be worth considering some technical helpers to mitigate some of these problems. Perhaps making products discussable on zope.org. Or adding some sort of a "compability feedback form", which automatically lists all existing zope versions (and OS variations, this is another problem) and people could post if it [works,doesn't work,needs small modifications to work}. These feedbacks should be counted, naturally, because individuals might make other mistakes etc. cheers, oliver