[consulting] preparing clients for Drupal 5 obsolesence

[Jim Taylor]

Fascinating discussion.  I'm in the living breathing camp, and one who also
talks to my clients about Drupal's versions and the need to upgrade right
out of the gate.  In fact my client's responsibility to upgrade or pay for
support do this and my lack of responsibility to support them it they don't
is in  my contract.   Of course I offer annual support as a service and most
of my clients take me up on that offer.

One thing missing here is all clients would say security is in their scope
which is one of the major improvements that come with new versions.  Now I'm
not versed in all aspects of security upgrades in core (yet:)), but I would
point out the password strength checks and use of openID as examples where
security was enhanced from D5->D6.

It seems to me even the smallest non-profit could budget $3-500 for annual
upgrades, and I have yet to run into one client who doesn't understand that
software is a living breathing thing that needs maintained.

Jim

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 3:13 PM, Sam Cohen <sam at samcohen.com> wrote:

> > Only if they ask for new functionality and the cost of implementing it
>> > is cheaper if an upgrade is involved should the client be expected to
>> > change to the new shiny Drupal
>>
>> This is where I disagree, in regards to making the decision based on
>> what is cheaper (right now).
>>
>> What I am advocating is that consultants make the Drupal 6 upgrade
>> required before implementing new features on a Drupal 5 site, even if
>> that is MORE expensive (right now) than implementing said features in
>> Drupal 5.
>>
>
> Matt,
>
> Are you actually suggesting that developers should refuse to add features
> to Drupal 5 sites  even if they never told the client when they first built
> the Drupal 5 site that they were going to be doing this?
>
> That seems incredibly unfair to clients, especially those with limited
> budgets.
>
> In truth, I wouldn't even consider having clients agree to this for future
> sites.  If I did, I'd have to say, ok, I'm going to build your site in
> Drupal 6 today, but at some point in the future I'm going to refuse to add
> any new features unless you spend X dollars to upgrade to Drupal 7 -- and if
> we're talking about a heavily customized site that X can be many thousands
> of dollars.
>
> I've still got a couple of 4.7 sites that are serving nonprofit clients
> very well and they are very happy with them.  I'd like it if they paid for
> an upgrade, but I can't imagine requiring them to do so.
>
> Sam
>
>
>
>
>
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>


-- 
Jim Taylor
Rooty Hollow LLC, Owner
jim at rootyhollow.com
www.rootyhollow.com
(614) 886-5530

Twitter: jalama
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rootyhollow
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