[Zope-CMF] Re: RFC: backporting including python-package-product support to support Zope 2.8

[Martin Aspeli]

Lennart Regebro <regebro at ...> writes:

> 
> On 1/19/06, Martin Aspeli <optilude at ...> wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 00:22:02 -0000, Philipp von Weitershausen
> > <philipp at ...> wrote:
> >
> > > I think one year is a pretty big span. Today, for example, you would not
> > > start a project on Zope 2.8. You would do it with Zope 2.9 which is
> > > going to get bugfixes until the end of 2006.
> >
> > Not if you spend 18 months developing your application :-/
> 
> Well, in that case you should be able to at some time during that
> process, switch to a new Zope version... I do understand that Zope
> 2.9.0 may not be something you want to depend on, but most likely
> there will be a 2.9.1 out by May, so maybe you can consider switching
> then?

*I* wouldn't mind. Heck, I'd probably take 2.9.0 beta.

But the number one concern for a lot (if not most) people who consider using
open source when there are commercial alternatives is support and
maintainability. If the competition says, yeah, sure, this Zope thing's great,
but if you start developing against version 2.8 now, by the time you're done,
your version will be discontinued, oh, and by the way, you can buy support from
us for 10 years at least... it's not the easiest of things to argue with.

> > I do understand that it's hard to maintain three Zope 2 releases at the
> > same time (jebus). I'm just worried that this policy, especially if
> > explicit, would make Zope FUD a bit easier.
> 
> Zope is in a period of rapid change now, and that is indeed scary. ;)
> It's hard to avoid that, I think, without putting a huge break on the
> changing.

Absolutely - it's a double edged sword, though I certainly don't want to see
Zope's maturation process slow down. I'm just trying to raise some awareness
that for a lot of decision makers, the latest and greatest features matter less
than the security that their application won't break in the future.

Martin