[Zope] WebDAV, Zope, M$ and implications...

[Mitch Pirtle]

On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 11:51, seb bacon wrote:
>
> There is an enormous difference here: *YOU* get paid by customers to do
> the things which they ask you to do.  Are *YOU* going to pay someone to
> write up the HOWTO?
>=20
> You just can't expect Zope as a free application to follow the laws of
> the proprietary software market, much as we'd all like to see Zope
> overtake PortalSiteServer 4.6 or whatever.

First off, to keep up with the commercial products you would actually
need to delete over half of your documentation, leaving only the
"CREDITS", "GETTING STARTED" and "DISCLAIMER" sections.

	-;^>=3D

More importantly, forget about the commercial competitors and look at an
excellent OSS rolemodel: PHP.  Pick on their implementation, hairstyles
or whatever, but their documentation just plain rocks the house.  I
could be a complete moron (unfurtunately a common debate) but with PHP I
will most definitely find the answer to all my questions.  Even if I
cannot figure it out, there is example code that I can cut-n-paste to
muck about with.

With Zope, folks, we just aren't there yet.  The ZDP (zdp.zope.org) is
trying to get a handle on things, but it seems more of a past-tense
thing that just petered out.  E.g., last document change was
02/07/2001.  And the mailing list archive for February was 50% spam (ok,
2 out of 4 messages, that is).

What is it about Zope that makes it so difficult to document?  Yes, I
will help - but only with purpose!  Is this the right place to sign up?

--=20

Mitch Pirtle
Corporate Security Officer
K=FChne & Nagel Management AG
Tel: +41 1 786 96 45
Fax: +41 1 786 95 95