[development] Very concerned over Drupal's core development

[fintan galvin]

I am not a coder so don't comment on this list much however I am the person
who makes the decisions about when we move to different versions and as such
"might" have something to offer this discussion of value (although probably
not).

The issue with people not moving to D6 and slow uptake on module upgrades
imo was nothing to do with how good D5 was (is), true its a great release
that does loads that we need, but still is nowhere near the level that we
need it to be.

The simple reason was there is nothing in D6 that is significant enough
commercially to justify moving to it.

We use D6 to some degree but if a significant module is missing we just use
D5 as the difference between the two is not that great and the value of the
contrib modules is greater than the differences.  We like most others had
coded our way around most of the issues D6 solved in D5.

I suspect that a  lot of drupal houses like us have stacks of running code
for doing the more arduous drupal tasks like content staging and D6 did not
offer us enough to justify moving wholeheartedly to it.

This is not the case with D7, this version brings real commercial value with
it specifically in replication / database abstraction / performance / RDF
etc.

Not only does this allow us to improve the way we currently do things but
also allows us to make some new money by building bigger / better sites.  I
believe that this will be the real driver behind modules being upgraded.

In short if you want to take Drupal to the moon, it costs a lot of money and
you have to get commercial support, that comes in many forms a lot of it
unseen.  The necessity for Drupal house's to make profit is not as well
supported in D6 as it is in D7 (helps that dries and co. now rely for their
living on commercial application of Drupal ;-) and this will be the core
driver (pun intended).

IMHO D6 will never get the level of support it needs and most people will
just jump straight to D7 as this is where the money changes are I.E. don't
slow D7 in favour of D6 or because modules have not been updated quickly
enough for D6, accept that D6 simply was not commercially compelling enough
to get people to move.

D7 is extremely compelling and will in my opinion get a much more rapid
uptake, so we should look to speed it up so that we can all build bigger and
better sites and make more money to support Drupal better.  The modules will
follow the money.

And I 100% support the concept of removing stuff from core as per Robert's
list and having a core framework, I still struggle every time I have to call
Drupal a CMS when its so much more.

Fin

2009/4/20 As If Productions <everyone at asifproductions.com>

> Nedjo Rogers and Robert Douglass said some great stuff.  Read them again!
>
> Core improvements are going in some great directions, but there is an
> obvious and growing disconnect between these new directions and their
> assimilation into methodology by contrib developers (and site developers).
> This gap could be narrowed by *writing more documentation* but we all know
> how popular that is.
>
> Nedjo's points about client development schedules are very pertinent now,
> much more than ever because Drupal has become mainstream-popular.  I've
> spent so much time patching/fixing/hacking modules for my D6 clients I
> haven't more than glanced at D7 yet.  But I can tell you this - it took A
> YEAR for D6 to stabilize to the point where I would consider it truly
> useful, and D5 is still a safer choice for any non-tiny job with a real
> deadline.  IMHO, the plan to release a major rev every year was the worst
> decision ever.  Personally I'd like to spend another year documenting the D6
> changes and patching the D6 contribs.
>
> LVX
> TF
>
> ---
> As If Productions
> http://www.asifproductions.com
> Interactive Worlds and Immersive Obsessions
>
>


-- 
Fintan Galvin
Managing Director

IO1 Limited
Skpye: johnfgalvin
http://twitter.com/suncao
Mobile: 44 773 8506781
Phone: 44 20 8816 7690
Website:  http://www.io1.biz
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