[drupal-devel] DrupalForge?

[Dan Robinson]

>> Jeff Robbins wrote:
>>
>>> And just for reference, Mambo features an entire website dedicated 
>>> to its modules, components, and themes:
>>> http://mamboforge.net
>>
>>
>> I find it fairly easy through SourceForge's interface (and by 
>> extension MamboForge and others like it) to figure out what's useful 
>> and what's crap (mostly by looking at a module's activity level and 
>> status). It's much harder in Drupal, despite the relatively small 
>> number of modules (as compared to SF projects!), to figure out what's 
>> useful.
>
>
> XOOPS and Postnuke use the SourceForge software as well.  Wordpress 
> uses Trac.  Plone has its own module/plugin management software.
>
> Personally, I prefer to devote my time improving the project module.  
> The fact that we eat our own food, motivates us to improve, refactor 
> and tune Drupal to become a better platform.
>
>
Well I find this a fascinating conversation.  I've come across Mambo now 
in a couple of situations and don't really know much about it.  However 
my observations are:

1) Their website is geared heavily towards a less-technical community.  
They are focussed on end-users, web designers and web masters.
2) Their admin panel gives great demo.
3) Their look is polished and professional.

While their product may be technically inferior, their marketing is 
better (assuming you want more users).  Remember - betamax got beat by vhs.

I completely understand the "eat your own dogfood approach".  I also 
understand the "focus, focus, focus" approach as well as the "do what 
you do best" approach.   I think that the project module is a great 
example.  My experience with the project module (for bug/feature 
tracking) is in comparison with bugzilla.  Bugzilla looks and feels 
really terrible - however it really gets the job done.  What is the 
relative importance in having a great drupal project module to other 
important features?  How is this communicated within the community?

What is more of a motivation - saying that we're using something of 
inferior quality and hoping that the pain of using it will encourage 
developers to meet the challenge? or using something that does the job 
well and being embarrased that it isn't native drupal?  (one thing I 
noticed is that the forum discussion boards at MamboServer are using a 
3rd party commercial product :) ).

Anyway - interesting discussion.

Dan