[steering-discuss] Fwd: Re: LibO Drupal site

Forwarding in agreement with James to this public list
What are your thoughts on this?

Hi all

I am not a CMS expert, just frequent visitor of some Drupal sites, and maybe SilverStripe as well but I did't noticed it.

Anyway, I have no problems to give appropriate credits and visibility to those experts who help us. I just want a more long range vision of this partnership.

What comes to my mind is CMS maintenance and upgrades. As an exampple, BrOffice.org is stuck in old version of Drupal and to revamp/upgrade it costs us a lot in terms of energy and time, and we are on hold on that issue.

Can our Drupal friends address continuity somehow?

Olivier

Hi Flo, *,

Forwarding in agreement with James to this public list
What are your thoughts on this?

Well - nothing against giving appropriate credit - but the question is
what does he think is appropriate?

The problem I personally have with this is that the result then is not
community knowledge, think in therms of bus-factor and the like.
They might provide a nice looking site and whatnot, but I don't know
whether it fits with requirements that change along the way, thinks
that you just cannot plan ahead completely.

Who will then maintain the site, etc.

My honest opinion is that the targeted timeframe of April for the
drupal-review should be enough to get a site going by the community
alone. If 4/5 month are not enough to get it setup by the community,
then I don't see the point in having someone else setup an initial
site and then we sit in front of a non-maintainable site....

Also the visual part is important factor in forming the community
IMHO. Shaping the looks, hearing peoples opinions, work together on
the branding. If someone else presents a nice theme, we're back at
"friß oder stirb".. While professional assistance surely could help,
I'm not 100% supportive of the idea.

ciao
Christian

Now that a non-SC member replied, I can't hold back either: I wouldn't
be that sceptical :slight_smile:

Well - nothing against giving appropriate credit - but the question is
what does he think is appropriate?

We can always propose and ask. :). But given that we have a page where
we already credit around 500 people, it can't hurt to also insert a
section that thanks them for helping to set up the website.

The problem I personally have with this is that the result then is not
community knowledge, think in therms of bus-factor and the like.

I don't see it as that bad. We have many alleged drupal fans, and I bet
they will be able to switch out the themes or modules or whatnot.

In fact, I think it would be dumb to refuse an offer from a commercial
entity to help us, just because they are not in the community yet. The
point of LO is to get more people (and firms) involved in our community,
and allowing them to help us set up a professional website would
demonstrate our openness to such contributions by other firms. If we
don't like it we are always free to refuse or exchange it later.

Sebastian

1+

Andy

Now that a non-SC member replied, I can't hold back either: I wouldn't
be that sceptical :slight_smile:

> Well - nothing against giving appropriate credit - but the question is
> what does he think is appropriate?

This would be my first question and would have to be negotiated. SUN/Oracle
have a small banner at the bottom of each page on the OOo site and contribute
over a hundred devs and all the infrastructure which is probably appropriate
for them. Contributing some hours to site design would mean that
"appropriate" would be somewhat less than that. A mention on "Commercial
contributors" page perhaps

We can always propose and ask. :). But given that we have a page where
we already credit around 500 people, it can't hurt to also insert a
section that thanks them for helping to set up the website.

> The problem I personally have with this is that the result then is not
> community knowledge, think in therms of bus-factor and the like.

Agreed, That's always a danger, but then as long as the community holds the
reins and defines the interaction, that can probably be mitigated

I don't see it as that bad. We have many alleged drupal fans, and I bet
they will be able to switch out the themes or modules or whatnot.

The amount of Drupal expertise that we seem to have certainly makes any
negative results for the community less likely.

In fact, I think it would be dumb to refuse an offer from a commercial
entity to help us, just because they are not in the community yet. The
point of LO is to get more people (and firms) involved in our community,
and allowing them to help us set up a professional website would
demonstrate our openness to such contributions by other firms. If we
don't like it we are always free to refuse or exchange it later.

Sebastian

I must admit that my first reaction was something like Christian's, however on
thinking about it, we are working on a different paradigm here. So perhaps
there is room to at least look and discuss.

cheers
GL

Hi Graham, *,

In fact, I think it would be dumb to refuse an offer from a commercial
entity to help us, just because they are not in the community yet.

If it is helping, then I'm all for it. But as I understood it it would
not be helping, but they'd create the full thing and "donate" it to
us.
Really helping would be much more effort for them (all that
communication, all that interacting with people that slows them
compared to them working on it by themselves alone, maybe only having
a few guidelines by the community.

I'm not against professional help, if my post did make that
impression, then I'd like to correct it here.
But it should not be "we'll do it all for you, you don't have to do
anything" style of help.
It's kind of difficult to get professionals into interaction with the
community - and that is where my concerns are.

I must admit that my first reaction was something like Christian's, however on
thinking about it, we are working on a different paradigm here. So perhaps
there is room to at least look and discuss.

Yes - helping is OK, but also those other dupal advocates on the
website list are professionals wrt drupal. They also run business with
drupal, and in parts already have made similar offers. I'm glad I'm
not the one who has to make a decision here :slight_smile:

ciao
Christian

Riight - and really, I personally don't want to go back to a
corporately branded world. Conference sponsorship is something different
of course.

  Fighting out how much of whose logo we put where, is just too silly & a
waste of time :slight_smile: if we get one, then we get many - since we want to
involve many companies. I would suggest that just a statement of support
on the documentfoundation web-site, mentioning their contribution would
be enough, at least for now.

  "We love LibreOffice" says JimBob, Director of Awesomeness at
Drupal-helpers Inc. "This is why we are investing so much in helping
make their website rock with our drupal skills"

  or whatever :wink:

  Regards,

    Michael.

Hi,

Forwarding in agreement with James to this public list
What are your thoughts on this?

I'll try to sum up the current discussion:

- basically, crediting a commercial contributor the same way we do it for noncommercial contributors is fine

- however, we don't want a site we can't maintain, but rather seek support in establishing structures and processes in the community, so we can manage the site as community

Correct?

Florian