[consulting] Planning for future versions

[Boris Mann]

On 8/17/07, Dries Buytaert <dries.buytaert at gmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> On 17 Aug 2007, at 02:14, Boris Mann wrote:
> > * For D5, we were out within days, in part because install profiles
> > were in core, which was yet another custom piece we didn't have to
> > maintain anymore -- current backports maintained will be the watchdog
> > logging one, and there is some funky color module optimization for
> > alpha blending of logos
> > * I foresee D6 being another relatively easy transition
>
> What would be the next steps for a setup like Bryght's?  Do you still
> maintain a lot of custom code to make it all work (other than what
> you mentioned)?  Better support for install profiles in D7 come to
> mind.  It's a bit off-topic, but I'd be interested in seeing a
> prioritized list of possible next steps for mass hosting services
> built on Drupal.

We have never had a lot of custom code... the install profiles was the
biggie. Backports make up most of the rest of the changes.

I'll get a complete list from Steven / Adrian, but off the top of my head:
* some changes to allow connections to multiple DBs, since our account
management runs on a centralized PostgreSQL DB

...and actually, I think that's all there is.

Desired:
* easy way to set values in install profiles / settings.php so they
show as "greyed out" in Drupal / non user editable -- e.g. files path
and other areas

CivicSpace has some interesting tools around "packages" that have good
tools around the kind of next level of install profiles, which we
should look at integrating the best of for D7.

Other than that, there is the need for more tools for managing
multisites -- a type of dashboard, as it were. These will be built out
on Drupal 6 as part of our Hostmaster2 build out. See
http://groups.drupal.org/hostmaster2

e.g. multisite cron, user, spam, content, etc. management, and
statistics -- some of this may actually best be implemented as
XML-RPC.

Hope that's of interest. Cheers,

-- 
Boris Mann
Office 604-682-2889
Skype borismann
http://www.bryght.com