[development] One core, many distributions

[Dries Buytaert]

On 23 Nov 2005, at 15:20, John VanDyk wrote:
> Liza makes some good points, and we should be mature enough to  
> recognize the points she makes and ignore her offensive style  
> instead of lashing back, which accomplishes nothing. Yes, Drupal  
> has a marketing problem. Yes, most of us don't care about that and  
> feel that if she thinks Drupal has a marketing problem she should  
> start marketing Drupal and get involved with decision making, and  
> maybe roll her own easy-to-use distribution (maybe pathauto will  
> even be on by default!). Or maybe she could fund implementation of  
> session remembrance.

I agree that Liza made some good points, as well as bad points.  Liza  
has high expectations of Drupal (a good thing), and it shows.   
Fortunately, we're well aware of most points.  If she did her  
research, she would have known, and she would not have to offend the  
many contributors that donate time, money and resources trying to  
advance Drupal.

Either way, let's focus on constructive action points as how to  
overcome some of Liza's concerns, and see if someone steps forward to  
take on the work it takes.  Let's define a number of manageable tasks  
that could be implemented ...

> She is also right that 4.7 is going to be a lot of work for a lot  
> of people without a lot of tangible benefit and we should recognize  
> that (I know I do). I don't have a problem with that if we are  
> steadily working towards best practices in everything. 4.7 is an  
> example of best practices with forms, since they are now (more)  
> secure.

Whether 4.7 will have tangible benefit depends on your situation.   
Fact is that 4.7 comes with many improvements that are visible to the  
user; better templating, free-tagging, contact forms, better search,  
better syndication, and usability improvements all over the map.  At  
the same time, there are many improvements that are less visible to  
the user, but that are essential to advance Drupal's technical  
capabilities; the new forms API and the improved node revisions being  
prominent examples.  Changes like this will help advance the many  
contributed modules to become simpler and/or more feature-rich.  For  
example, the forms API will help flexinode/CCK, the improved node  
revisions will help the wiki module(s).  It is what it takes, and  
unfortunately, it can be disruptive.  As both you point, the  
challenge is to get Drupal 4.7 out, to update the contributed  
projects, and to simplify the migration process for those who want to  
upgrade to Drupal 4.7.

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