[consulting] DrupalCOM: european Small Business distro

[Dries Buytaert]

> Now the funny thing with all this is: its so darn simple!. It is so  
> simple,
> that drupal cannot do it! Drupal adds complexity all over the  
> place. And most
> often the biggest bulk of the work lies in getting rid of that  
> complexity and
> getting rid of all these pages, links, read-counters, attachement- 
> lists,
> user-profiles, post-dates, and what more.

Make no mistake.  Much of this is not specific or limited to small  
businesses.  It are core improvements.

I'd like to see most of the improvements that come out of this  
discussion to go straight into Drupal core!  No, not to a DrupalCOM  
distribution.  Why?  Because if you want to build a community  
website, an e-commerce website, a campaign website, a news website, a  
classroom website, or any other level 3+ website, you still need  
_all_ the level 3 functionality.  Everyone needs a contact form,  
everyone needs an about page, everyone has to manage one or two  
custom blocks, everyone has to create a navigation structure,  
everyone needs to upload some documents/images.  Everyone.  As easy  
to use as possible.

None of the complaints or features in this thread were specific or  
limited to small businesses ... except for the business-specific pre- 
configured navigation structure, maybe.  The DrupalCOM distribution  
should be a 50-line MySQL file.  All the other improvements should go  
to core.

Keep in mind that Drupal 4.7 is what you'll have to sell to your  
customers in 2006.  If your business depends on Drupal, there is  
still time to get many small improvements into Drupal 4.7.0 (eg.  
improved default configuration, improved out-of-the-box experiences,  
improved interfaces, less configuration overhead).  All it takes is  
some of your time and resources and all of us (including your own  
business) get to benefit from it for months to come.  You better be  
quick though.

--
Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/