Karoly, This has nothing to do with the software but the way drupal developers let be Drupal and Drupal.org. And please, notice how I am parsing these different Drupals. Yes, I understand there are security issues with the software; but there are people running Drupal 4.5 anyway. Why do you want to pull the rug from under them? What do you, as a developer, get from pulling the rug from under people still running 4.5? What does Drupal.org get from throwing out a whole history of comments and tips for earlier versions? Comments like
you need to sweat a little if you do not yet know that.
is killing the reputation of Drupal. This is arrogance. Period. Yes, I know where to find what I am looking for but that's ME. I am not talking about effing me. I am talking here about a whole different way to think about the product, the users, tech support, etc. Honestly ... up to last May I was evangelizing for CivicSpace --Zack knows this. But this kind of attitude from people like you has actually stopped me from recommending Drupal to bloggers in need to upgrade to community management software. It's a pitty because there are good people working with this software (CivicActions, Development Seed, PingV and the now retired Lynn Siprelle are some who come to mind) but the market that I see opening for use of this product ---bloggers in need of community building software-- do not have the budgets of companies or political campaigns ... yet. Back in 2002, MovableType had a boom of transitional users who left Blogger, wanted something nicer than Greymatter, lost out of b2 (which became WordPress and b2evolution) or were tired of Dreamweaving their blogs. There were developers who basically lived off the bounties people put together for their modules. MovableType was what all FOSS should be. Which is why people felt totally betrayed when the company reclaimed their proprietary rights and basically took away the potlatch economy from them. But that's what companies built on proprietary software are meant to do. Drupal is primed for re-capturing that growth; especially as the 2008 elections inch closer. Blogs are passé because they can't scale commenters into communities. And as MySpace and Facebook grow, more bloggers will want to have the ability to replicate that kind of social networking in their own spaces while networking with other sites into affinity networks. It's happening among early adopters. Give it 18 months for the masses to follow. Community management systems will be de-riguer. Can drupal developers get out of the way of potential users? Can you start by letting the Drupal community manage itself? Because, again, do what you have to do in terms of development. Y'all can't support 4.5 with any updates? Cool, no problem. Does it mean the community has to unsupport 4.5 users? No, it doesn't. So archive the information and make it easily accessible for people in the community to pick up that slack. Deal with the code, which is what you do best. Let others deal with users. / liza On 27.May.2006, at 11:12 PM, Karoly Negyesi wrote:
Why would anybody consider TECH SUPPORT equal to letting consumers of a product have access to older versions of the product? It is not and this is the point I am trying to make.
You surely skipped Steven Peck's long writing on the subject.
4.5 is somewhat insecure, thus providing access to it is not perceived as a good idea. You can check it out from CVS, and yes, you need to sweat a little if you do not yet know that. But only a little, TortoiseCVS is _really_ easy, have you ever tried it?