[development] Re: Drupal 4.5 unsupported

[blogdiva at culturekitchen.com]

Karoly,

This has nothing to do with the software but the way drupal  
developers let be Drupal and Drupal.org. And please, notice how I am  
parsing these different Drupals.

Yes, I understand there are security issues with the software; but  
there are people running Drupal 4.5 anyway.

Why do you want to pull the rug from under them?

What do you, as a developer, get from pulling the rug from under  
people still running 4.5?

What does Drupal.org get from throwing out a whole history of  
comments and tips for earlier versions?

Comments like

>> you need to sweat a little if you do not yet know that.

is killing the reputation of Drupal.

This is arrogance. Period. Yes, I know where to find what I am  
looking for but that's ME. I am not talking about effing me. I am  
talking here about a whole different way to think about the product,  
the users, tech support, etc.

Honestly ... up to last May I was evangelizing for CivicSpace --Zack  
knows this. But this kind of attitude from people like you has  
actually stopped me from recommending Drupal to bloggers in need to  
upgrade to community management software.

It's a pitty because there are good people working with this software  
(CivicActions, Development Seed, PingV and the now retired Lynn  
Siprelle are some who come to mind) but the market that I see opening  
for use of this product ---bloggers in need of community building  
software-- do not have the budgets of companies or political  
campaigns ... yet.

Back in 2002, MovableType had a boom of transitional users who left  
Blogger, wanted something nicer than Greymatter, lost out of b2  
(which became WordPress and b2evolution)  or were tired of  
Dreamweaving their blogs. There were developers who basically lived  
off the bounties people put together for their modules. MovableType  
was what all FOSS should be. Which is why people felt totally  
betrayed when the company reclaimed their proprietary rights and  
basically took away the potlatch economy from them. But that's what  
companies built on proprietary software are meant to do.

Drupal is primed for re-capturing that growth; especially as the 2008  
elections inch closer. Blogs are passé because they can't scale  
commenters into communities. And as MySpace and Facebook grow, more  
bloggers will want to have the ability to replicate that kind of  
social networking in their own spaces while networking with other  
sites into affinity networks.

It's happening among early adopters. Give it 18 months for the masses  
to follow.

Community management systems will be de-riguer. Can drupal  
developers  get out of the way of potential users? Can you start by  
letting the Drupal community manage itself? Because, again, do what  
you have to do in terms of development.

Y'all can't support 4.5 with any updates? Cool, no problem. Does it  
mean the community has to unsupport 4.5 users? No, it doesn't. So  
archive the information and make it easily accessible for people in  
the community to pick up that slack.

Deal with the code, which is what you do best. Let others deal with  
users.

/ liza







On  27.May.2006, at 11:12 PM, Karoly Negyesi wrote:

>> Why would anybody consider TECH SUPPORT equal to letting consumers  
>> of a product have access to older versions of the product? It is  
>> not and this is the point I am trying to make.
>
> You surely skipped Steven Peck's long writing on the subject.
>
> 4.5 is somewhat insecure, thus providing access to it is not  
> perceived as a good idea. You can check it out from CVS, and yes,  
> you need to sweat a little if you do not yet know that. But only a  
> little, TortoiseCVS is _really_ easy, have you ever tried it?
>