[Zope-dev] Plone/Metadata/FUD

[Paul Everitt]

On Thursday, Oct 3, 2002, at 03:54 Europe/Paris, James Johnson wrote:

> I've been around the Zope/Python scene for many years.  One thing I 
> see this group suffer I believe if from the groupthink mentality.  
> Imho Alexander Limi "2 cents worth" demonstrated Erik's point 
> perfectly.   applaud the effort made with plone.  I believe it to be a 
> spoon in which we can spoon feed newbies into the CMS side of the Zope 
> way.
>  Seem my post regarding Zopezen.org.  Plone is slow.  Zope with CMF is 
> slow... Not as slow as plone, but the issue is with ZPT.  There is no 
> way around it Erik is right.  Developer time being spent on speeding 
> up plone in order to backport the improvements to Zope/CMF sounds... 
> Well arse backwards.  Plone has its place, but I suspect some 
> doublespeak here, lets be realistic about it.

The Plone people are a layer above CMF, which is a layer above Zope, 
which is a layer above Python, which is a layer above the C library, 
which is...

Do the Plone people have responsibility for all the layers below them?  
Nope.  If there was a bug in the Python compiler (and in the last six 
months, there was one), should Plone have to fix it?  Should they also 
fix problems in the Linux virtual memory model if they find that too?  
Nope.

>   I debated a long time ago about CMS being the core of Zope anyway, 
> but lo and behold they pushed on with a "CMF" product.  I see plone as 
> being the same, a

Two errors here:

a. The Zope community, on the whole, doesn't want Zope narrowed 
exclusively to content management.

b. The CMF isn't a product.  It is a framework.  It specifically 
intends to not be a product.

>  product. Now my understanding is that with Zope3, they will roll a 
> lot of the CMF functionality into Zope3.... Hmm go figure?  All that 
> time wasted on maintaining 2

This isn't precise.  The CMF machinery, the part not unique to content 
management, is going into Zope 3.  The effort for content management in 
Zope 3 is being managed as a companion project:

   http://lists.zope.org/pipermail/zope3-dev/2002-September/002819.html

I'll note that you are neither subscribed to the Zope 3 mailing list, 
nor have you commented on the email above.  If you're not even 
participating, then you should be more circumspect when making 
assertions such as:

>  products Zope/CMF has proven cumbersome at the least imho.  Now just 
> imagine if the community would have listened to the lone voice 
> James-then/Erik-now where we

...this.  How can we listen to you if you're not participating?  But to 
your point: the Zope community does not want, IMO, Zope and CMF merged. 
  Content management is a piece of the Zope pie, not the whole pie.

>  would be today.  We all know that the decision back then was based on 
> commercial interest for ZC and others trying to market some industry 
> catch phrase.

I have no idea what you are claiming.  In fact, the reverse is true: ZC 
is focused on content management, but ZC realized others want to do 
different things with Zope.  Thus ZC didn't turn Zope into a 
CMS-exclusive thing.  Doing the CMF outside of Zope allowed the CMF to 
make rapid progress in a focused area without making promises that Zope 
itself would have to live with permanently.

This has worked perfectly.  We all now know a lot more about the 
patterns of content management.  We can now refine them, and refine 
Zope, with the work on Zope 3.

Tell me, do you think KDE should be merged into X11?  It is exactly the 
same analogy.

You're also claiming that Erik is voicing your opinion.  I don't 
believe Erik wants a one-size-fits-all CMS product that everyone must 
support, nor do I believe Erik wants Zope to be focused exclusively on 
content management.  However, I don't pretend to speak for Erik, so he 
can correct me if I'm wrong.

>   So I hear you Erik, you have these wonderful, bright people working 
> on special interest projects, but not on the core issues that allow 
> Zope to have that strong core that it needs to move it forward.

People work on what they want to work on.  Alex Limi knows CSS and 
doesn't want to learn how the ZPT compiler should be optimized in C.  
It is unfair that you demand that he learn how to program in C.

It is also wrong.  Zope has more people that know C than know CSS well. 
  We are lucky that Alex is filling an unmet need in the world of Zope.

>  With it being evident in how the "Release early/Release often" mantra 
> has been

Explain how this is thrown by the wayside.  You can, every single day, 
make a checkout of any part of Zope.  Sure there was a gap between 2.6 
alpha and 2.6 beta.  But that's a single datapoint.  Name another 
datapoint to support your conclusion.

>  thrown to the wayside, I'm left wondering what do I do next with my 
> 2.5.1 site?  Do I go the plone, 2.6, 2.7 or 3.0 route?

Going the Plone route is orthogonal to choosing a Zope version.

Not a single person in the world of Zope claims that 3.0 could even run 
a prototype system, much less a production system.  And there isn't 
even an alpha for 2.7.

Thus you have two choices: a clearly-advertised-as-released 2.5.1, and 
a clearly-advertised-as-beta 2.6b1.  It's up to you to make an informed 
decision between the two.

>   Like I said before, as a qoute from Mr limi" you should not mix in 
> the
>> Plone name if you do not intend to follow our guidelines.
> "TM.  Plone is a major benefit to the community.  Please keep up the 
> good work and effort.  I believe that the master minds behind it all 
> should be working to make Zope3 a

As noted above, the "masterminds" are trying.  It would help if people 
would participate, rather than accuse.  But alas, the latter is far 
easier.

>  reality for the plone product and not the other way around, hence 
> you'll screw up mixed-up people like me even more.  I hope I'm making 
> some sense with this.  I understand that this is "free" software, but 
> as I "community" we should work toward making sure that we all can 
> have a voice and benefit from plone/zope 2.5-2.6-2.7-3.0/CMF/Thingy.

I agree that there are too many choices in play, but these choices are 
meant to be discussions amongst insiders.  I don't think anything on 
zope.org is advertising to the world that 2.7, 3.0, or even 2.6 are 
something they should care about.

And as for Plone vs. CMF vs. Zope, they are all different pieces of the 
pie.  Just like Zope is different from Python -- imagine telling the 
world of Python that they are merged with Zope.  Now *that* would be 
pretty hilarious. :^)

Plone and CMF and Zope are positioned exactly as intended, IMO.  Plone 
is an end-user  product.  CMF and Zope are tools to build enduser 
products.

In the world of Zope 3, this distinction will be even more clear.  Zope 
2 unfortunately tried too much to be an enduser product, causing 
confusion.  Zope 3 will clearly say: "This is for developers."

--Paul