Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Plone themes and Denis Mishunov Also at the conference, I spent a good bit of time hanging out with Denis Mishunov. (Disclaimer: that was Day Three of the conference. If you roomed with Calvin "Drill Sergeant" Hendryx-Parker for 3 days, you'd look like I do in that picture. I'm lucky to be alive.) Over the last 14 months, I've worked with Denis on 2 projects related to CSS, design, and XSLT front ends that capture the presentation logic the customer wants. He learned XSLT, alone, in 2 days and was basically better than me from that point forward. He was always very, very disciplined in getting tasks done, submitting time sheets, and communicating on everything. And it was always fun with him. Even though he lives in the Ukraine, it felt like we were working in the same office. Denis gave a standing-room only talk on Plone themes at the conference. I could tell he put a lot of effort into the presentation, making it both fun and information-from-an-expert. 12:30:07 PM   comment []

Plone Solutions becomes Jarn Out of all the things that has happened recently, this one is probably the coolest. So, we have Plone the software....likely the best or one of the top 3 open source CMS packages.  We have Plone the Foundation, which a previous blog post showed was doing quite well. Plone Solutions, started by Alex Limi (Plone co-founder), Geir Baekholt, and Helge Tesdal, is one of the original Plone companies.  They have given more to Plone than perhaps any company.  If anyone was going to get a perpetual right to use the word Plone in their company name, these guys would probably be the only ones granted such a right. But instead, they recently chose to remove the word "Plone" from their name and rebrand themselves as Jarn (old Norse for "iron".)  From the announcement: "It was time to level the playing field for all companies and organizations involved in the Plone world." As I said in the announcement: "Instead, they voluntarily changed their name to support the idea that Plone is owned by the community and bigger than any one company. This gracious step is evidence of both Plone's democracy and Jarn's virtue." It is rather amazing to see a company put the shared success of the community about their own commercial interests in such a fundamental way.  The Jarn guys, well, they get it, in a Cluetrain Manifesto kind of way.  Not only that, they are promoting the 10% Plone Manifesto which others have already started endorsing. So congratulations to Us for making a level playing field.  But eternal thanks to the Jarnsters.  This gesture sets a hell of a precedent. 10:56:33 AM   comment []

Plone trademark wrapped up..."we" own "Plone" Also at the Plone Conference, I signed the papers on behalf of the Plone Foundation to finalize the trademark transfer. The community, via the Plone Foundation, now "owns" the word Plone in nearly all areas of the world. As background, when the Plone Foundation started its bootstrapping process in 2004, securing the trademark was one of the first tasks under the "Protect and Promote" mission.  Two issues, though: (a) the PF didn't exist yet and (b) the money hadn't been transfered yet. So Zea Partners (then Zope Europe Association) was used as a non-profit agent to do the trademark work, contractually-obligated to transfer the trademarks at the end of the process. Additionally, 10 or so companies pooled money to front the PF for the costs.  Later, when the PF came into existence and had the money, these 10 (really cool) companies were re-paid, as was Zea for the registration work. In late September 2007, just before the conference, the last shoe dropped: the registration finished in one of the last remaining countries. Xavier Heymans from Zea prepared the papers, I signed at the conference, and the work is done. This is so cool in so many ways.  It's fair: the playing field is level and managed by "us". It's effective: Plone the Foundation can set a goal, execute it, and get a high-quality result. It's motivating: small companies around the world can see the value of having a neutral brand, and actually front money to make it happen. Major kudos to all involved, especially Xavier (and Dominique Crassaerts, our trademark expert in Brussels) for the hard work over the years. Want to show your appreciation?  Ping me about pitching in on the PF trademark committee. 10:44:17 AM   comment []

Plone Conference 2007 Afterthoughts I saw that Jon Stahl did a nice writeup on his thoughts returning from the Plone Conference 2 weeks ago in Naples. I'm belated, but better late than never. 1) First, of course, hats off to Vincenzo Barone and Abstract Open Solutions (and Plone.net entry) for such an amazing job organizing the conference and finding an ideal facility. It felt well organized from the moment I walked in the door the night before the conference. Vincenzo is wonderful to speak with and spend time around. Well done, Abstract! 2) This was my first time seeing Joel's "Humane CMS" talk/tutorial. Joel is one of my best friends in Ploneland and I'm ashamed to admit that, after 723 years together, I hadn't seen it. Wish I had earlier. Joel has such a subtle ear for what "civilians" (to borrow a Jon Udell expression) suffer through and a deft touch on communicating it back to us. Joel is a strategic asset for Plone, one that we should better leverage. 3) In a related note, I'll second Jon's statements about what should Plone's next big idea: "in the year ahead, we need to take advantage of the power of our framework to build out a new generation of tools that make Plone more approachable for first-time site builders" (from the link above.) I found this to be a recurring theme also. 4) I loved seeing Luciano Ramalho again. Luciano goes back to the original days of Zope. Each time I see him, he brings a smile to my face and an insightful point to any discussion. 5) Plone certainly has a New Guard. Looking at the new board, my guess is that 3 of the 7 weren't using Python/Zope/Plone 4 years ago. Many of the best talks that I attended were by rock stars that weren't originals in the community. 6) Combine that point with the very-healthy Plone Foundation, and you get to a community and software product where the future is very bright. Plone.net lists 207 providers in 44 countries. Our board vote had a very high percentage of participants even though we have a large-ish, merit-based membership. There's lots of talk about a number of Plone events around the world in 2008. Not just one big Plone Conference, but smaller events to broaden the base. Interested in hosting something? Put out a proposal, invite some core folks, and let's get our mojo going, baby. 10:31:30 AM   comment []