[Zope-CMF] Plone/Metadata/FUD

[Erik Lange]

At 04:04 PM 10/4/02, Chris Withers wrote:
>Florent Guillaume wrote:

<snip>


>>Ok, maybe CMFDefault should be distributed separately from CMFCore, and
>>called CMFExamples, but really that's splitting hairs.

<snip>

>I really don't think it's splitting hairs though. A lot of Mr Lange's 
>complaints may not have surfaced had this divide been clearer from the start.

I've thougt a lot about this the last few days... I'll try to explain my 
"complaints" in a more civalized manor this time - I hope...

The CMF started as an idea of a 'PTK' - Portal Tool Kit. To me it was 
correct to change the name to CMF - Content Management Framework - because 
a framework must be the core of a PTK, but keeping a 'base' of just the 
framework, makes it possible to create both PTK's and other content 
management solutions, that not necesserally are build as portals/communities.

Where now moving towards Zope3 where CMF will be integrated in Zope - 
CMFCore that is, as far as I have understood...

Meanwhile Plone has evolved and is today almost a true killer app. (I 
belive it will be whwn it hits 1.0, so it's not to offend anyone, that I 
don't recognize it as such just yet - it's almost there...).

As I see Plone today, it's actually what the CMF started out wanting to be 
- a Portal Tool Kit ! :-)

Going back to the early evolution of CMF, when it was called PTK, I believe 
it's important that we now re-define if it is a CMF, or a PTK, that we want 
to integrate in Zope3... I belive we should only integrate the base framework.

The easy way out, would be to integrate Plone as a PTK, but I belive this 
would limit, or at least obscour, the possibillities of the framework. So 
what I would like to see, is Zope with an powerfull integrated content 
management framework, and nothing more. CMFCore stille needs some work or 
system-design to qualify for this - as this thread has shown. On top of 
this, people can then install a PTK (like Plone, or the upcomming CMF 
Portlets) if that's what they need, or build their own 'layers' on the 
framework.

I've seen a tendency these last month in the community, where people are 
percieving Plone as an extended CMF-implementation, that people like so 
much, that there's talk of porting Plone back into the CMF (Core or 
Default). This I belive would be a major design-error for Zope3, where I 
belive we should keep a clean framework that can be used as a base for both 
the PTK's and other types of products... i.e we're building automated 
production solutions for broadcasters, and they have very little need for 
all the stuff in Plone, just like most Plone-users won't have anything to 
use our streaming media CMS for... it's just two very different worlds, 
that have very different needs, but both worlds should build on the same 
framework, without _having_ to interfer with eachother... so I don't see 
any reason for porting anything from Plone back into CMF, but it would be 
nice if the various parts of Plone was available as individual products, 
that could be used as needed - on an opt-in basis.

In short; Plone is great for those that needs a portal-like site, but it's 
way to heavy to base the next generation of the CMF/Zope3 on it.

Hmm... does this make sense ? Hope I haven't offended anyone...

Regards,
Erik