WARNING(virus check bypassed): Re: [development] One, core, many distributions

[Charlie Lowe]

NK wrote:

"Lisa tried to provoke a flame war. Succeeded.

Of course the developers and I am sure Gerhard too cares about the
community -- why do you think he answers the forums, shepherds the
translators and manages CVS accounts besides coding?"

Sorry. It was not my intention to flame and I hadn't even thought of 
this discussion as a flame war (well, except for the highly inflammatory 
nature of Liza's post). It seems quite civil :) And I might be wrong, 
but as direct as Gerhard likes to be, I suspect he didn't take my 
response personally.

But I do believe that more community focus, more end user focus, would 
benefit everyone in the long term. The payoff's not immediately apparent 
up front, but one must invest in the future. This, I believe, is the 
crux of Liza's complaint, and it's a perception of balance. More short 
term reward with less emphasis on long term marketing benefits vs. 
weighing promotion through more sensitiviy of end user needs as the 
means to long term prosperity.

So the everyone does their own thing, "that's it," is not the mantra I 
would choose for Drupal. Maybe I'm wrong, but I happen to believe in the 
collaborative process and facilitating it as the best means to the end, 
and that process depends on everyone. For instance, I would suspect that 
if Drupal made a major push to focus on a mini-usability release for 4.8 
with significantly improved documentation (no long waits for newer 
features), that the pay off in the next few years would be incredible.