Re: Zope?

[Todd Boyle]

My understanding is, that if Zope were the foundation of GNUE,
it would not prevent or inhibit any of the higher goals of GNUE.
In other words, that GNUE could be just as stable, secure,
and well-performing using the "libraries" in Zope as with
GNUE's native Python applications.

So, the general picture is that a Zope GNUE would be
implemented by a larger number of users and wouldn't
sacrifice any of GNUEs goals.   (I guess, those GNUE
requirements not part of zcatalog would have been extensions
on zcatalog for example.)

The general picture is also that a huge amount of work has
already been done on the existing code, somehow, contributed
to the public domain, by numerous developers within their existing
matrix of needs, incentives etc.   This is quite a remarkable
phenomenon, in itself and not to be messed with.  I would
assume that if there were any calculus, among the existing
developer community to switch to Zope they would have done
it earlier.   In other words, they have looked at Zope and
decided to do it themselves, the GNUE way.

I guess, I don't understand WHY the GNUe developers rejected
Zope but that would be a very, very interesting information to
me, and probably a lot of people, not the least being the Zope
community.   Jason, Derek, Reinhard, if you have time, I'd appreciate
a candid, even blunt report on this!   What are the top 3 or 4 or 5
reasons why the GNUE developers, themselves, rejected Zope
as well as, why they won't switch to Zope?

I'm going to guess that the main advantage: wider adoption and
more users.  Main disadvantage: the cost of the migration or
in other words, the developers just ain't gonna do it because
they're getting what they need, they already donated once and
that's that.   And by implication: the developers probably assume
that the move to Zope might not bring in enough new developers
to matter, or perhaps, the GNUE components are already
sufficiently complete for the things the developers need and want?

Also---new members always have their own goals and desires,
which puts stress on the existing web of desires that have
already been reflected in a lot of code.  Therefore, whatever
code emerged after the Migration to Zope would not perform
the same mix of functions as today's GNUE.   (i.e. developers
would lose some control over the final product)...

Another disadvantage that possibly results is, lots of unsophisticated
Zope users would build hundreds of goofy addons, similar to
the Excel macro phenomenon.  Administrators would basicallly
lose platform control and control over data and control over the
workflow out in the departments.  In 25 years in accounting and
software I have seen this in SO many ways, as the controller
fights the accounting or front office, as the Glass Room fights
the PC, and today the CXOs who dominate todays' information,
fight P2P.

Another disadvange of Zope is that anything that results in lots
of code and dependencies on the Official Distribution of GNUE Zope
would paralyze it, sooner or later.  Any good software company,
eg Microsoft, needs to churn the code every 2-3 years to prevent
the whole, vast community of VARs and users from forming
a critical mass of resistance to modernizing the platform,

Todd



At 07:25 AM 5/17/02, Jason Cater wrote:
> Hi Malek,
>
> This is certainly a valid question. Several of the core developers use 
> Zope as web/portal servers at their places of work. GNUe is even switching 
> to a Zope backend for our website.
>
> While it's true that Zope is an application server, it is our opinion that 
> Zope is a specialized, targeted web application server -- it's targeted at 
> serving web applications / content. Even their site says this:
>
>     "Zope is a leading open source application server,
>      specializing in content management, portals, and
>      custom applications."
>
> However, I could be way off base... sometimes free/open source projects 
> are more general-purpose than they at first comes across. In any case, our 
> tools are fairly modular in nature, so if someone wanted to use Zope as a 
> backend, our tools should support it.
>
> I hope this was somewhat helpful.
>
>
> Jason Cater
> GNU Enterprise
> http://www.gnue.org/
>
>
> On Fri, 17 May 2002 11:23:28 +0200
> "Malek Hadj-Ali" <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > Hi everybody,
> >
> > I have a (maybe stupid) question, why aren't you guys using Zope as an
> > application server?
> > It has a lot of features that could be reused (ZCatalog, ZSQLCatalog, ...),
> > it's written in python, it has a big community of developper, and so on...
> >
> > Just curious
> >
> >
> > Malek
> >
> > PS: please keep in mind I'm not a developper, so I don't understand
> > immediately if there is some background incompatibility.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Gnue mailing list
> > address@hidden
> > http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnue
>
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