vendredi 9 septembre 2005

Udell on XML, spreadsheets, Zope Jon Udell today writes about using Microsoft Excel's XML format, Zope page templates, and other parts of Zope. He refers Michael Tiller's post about using Zope to process that output, then combine with other content for simple expense reporting system. Jon notes how, even without Big Architectures, simply using XML can provide some benefits. 6:06:13 PM   comment []

Silva 1.3 release gives big wins Infrae has turned into a product machine these days, churning out releases of Silva, Kupu, Railroad, and machinery like Five and lxml. Silva 1.3 looks like a significant release: WebDAV, which anybody who knows me can imagine my reaction...yummy indeed Strong XML export/import Go grab the release and check it out. (Wonder if it has Kupu 1.3 in it?) 5:38:42 PM   comment []

CMSWatch vendor reviews for 2005 released Tony Byrne just released his review of the CMS marketplace with rankings in various categories for different products. He put "Plone" and "Zope/Plone" in several of the slots, giving it strong marks for many places, but also calling us on the carpet for shortcomings. (I am happy for the former and accept the latter.) In fact, "Zope/Plone" appeared to get twice the mentions as all other open source projects combined. 4:58:08 PM   comment []

ArsTechnica on developing Firefox extensions This is a loonnnngggg article on developing an extension for Firefox. Yes, I have sworn, repeatedly, that I was kicking the Mozilla development habit, but once again I've fallen off the wagon. I can blame Calvin Hendryx-Parker for my relapse. He is giving a talk at the Plone Conference this month on using XUL and Plone. 4:50:32 PM   comment []

EuroOSCON keynote Groovy, I was asked by Nat Torkington to give a 15-min keynote at O'Reilly's EuroOSCON this year. I'm also giving a tutorial on Model-Driven Ajax 4:21:24 PM   comment []

Goldegg Initiative Launched Open source has proven a productive way to aggregate work. Frankly, it is amazing that a volunteer-driven system like Plone appears on the competitive shortlist for people considering Interwoven. Amazing, but also worrisome for commercial vendors, I suspect. Still, there's a limit to scale on this. Aggregating the periodic contributions by the many requires planning and coordination by the few. For the largest projects, many of the core team are paid to do this kind of long-term project management and architectural planning. For example, Zope is Zope because ZC pays Jim Fulton to be the pope. More funding can provide more coordination, which can provide more scale, as long as the fundamental rules of fairness prevail. I'm privileged to have a chance to help make this happen. I'm working with Munwar Shariff, the CTO at CIGNEX, on a funding initiative called Goldegg to put money into the Zope/CMF/Plone software stack and help improve the way the layers in the stack plan together. We have a primer and an FAQ that provide plenty of detail on the project. There's an interesting twist on this. The funding is going to the existing team, in their existing jobs, to promote leadership and coordination. Goldegg is supporting what works by supporting the people doing the work. Even if the people aren't employees of the funder. In fact, although the funding source is a Plone customer, the majority of the funding is going outside Plone. The purpose of the first Goldegg funding initiative is to speed the adoption of Zope 3 technology into the CMF and Plone. Goldegg One is focused on the next release cycle of CMF (CMF 2.0) and Plone (Plone 2.2), thus keeping its scope in check. However, the deliverables will come about by working more closely in the CMF, with the CMF, using the license of the CMF, and helping the key players of the CMF with the roadmap. If you think coordinating this will be a challenge in the first go-around, well, you'd be right. There's are many challenges to overcome: details like purchase orders and tracking work, but also the social aspect with concerns about motives and outcomes. I have made a staggering number of phone calls, long email dialogs, IRC sessions, etc. to gradually and incrementally explain, listen, and update. Munwar and I will talk more about this in the Goldegg blog. We've been quiet about this for several weeks. But results are starting come in and it is time to start talking about the Goldegg idea. BTW, Munwar and CIGNEX are to thank for getting this going. Munwar convinced a customer to invest in the stack, and more importantly, to do so by investing in the people in the stack. Money is coming in thanks to CIGNEX, and going out to people in the community. We'll see how this goes. It's a neat idea with some really challenging details. Hard work but for a good purpose, which makes it a blast to be involved with. 4:15:30 PM   comment []

eBay's developer site based on Plone via Enfold The home page of Enfold Systems shows a nice new client: eBay. There's a quote from eBay about the developer site they launched with the help of Enfold. Plone got them interested, then Enfold helped get it delivered. 3:19:03 PM   comment []

'Plone' and the open source software reformation This registration-required article in The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, provides an interesting human-interest look on how Plone as an open source collaboration tool helps bring social services together. 3:15:40 PM   comment []

Trac gets eggs Trac is an increasingly-popular Python-based tracking system for development projects. Its claim-to-fame is the way it has married Subversion integration and Wiki words. There is a 0.9 version on the way that switches Trac to a plug-in based architecture with a little component model. For plugins, they are adopting Phillip Eby's Python Egg approach to packaging. 3:10:49 PM   comment []