Today the Apache Lenya team announced the release of version 1.2.2. This release includes upgrades to the WYSIWYG editors (Kupu and BXE) and some minor UI improvements. Also, a migration to Cocoon 2.1.6 leverages new features such as more rubust caching, multi-channel output, and improvements to form handling.
Enfold Systems recently announced how Oxfam's Plone-based website helped Oxfam respond to the Tsunami tragedy by rapidly publishing information about relief efforts and raising $14 million in donations. The article also discusses how nicely the system scaled to the increased traffic. From the article:> When the Tsunami crisis occurred, the system was put to the test. "In the course of ten days during the Tsunami crisis, Oxfam had almost half of its typical yearly visits, and almost 1/3 of its yearly bandwidth - the system performed beautifully", said Internet Manager Nicholas Rabinowitz. "Our public website offered timely, critical content to our users, while providing a solid gateway to our online donation system."
The Wiki software Media Wiki is also playing a prominent role in Tsunami relief by powering the collaborative information sharing website Tsunami Help.
There was an interesting thread on the CM Professionals mail list about the applicability of OS CMS for Policy and Procedures manuals. Apparently, this is an important enough issue that there is a group within CM Pros that wants to create an interest group on "Compliance Systems."
While much of the discussion was about special requirements that a P&P system has (access control, auditing content history, and who has read what) there was also disagreement over whether open source could be the platform for or could deliver such a system. The initial argument against was that this use of a CMS was so specialized it was doubtful that there would be enough interest within the OS community to support it. I find that hard to believe since the existence of the thread and the proposal for setting up an interest group is evidence of a common need. Also, the same argument could be made to disbelieve the existence of commercial products in this space - just substitute the word "market" for "community". That argument died out pretty quickly.
The second argument, which is even more interesting, is that you want to buy a commercial product so you have someone to sue if something goes wrong (such as a bug, I guess). This was made by the representative of a vendor. I wonder if the insurance companies know that their coverage is considered a primary benefit of their customers' product. There has been a lot of talk about lawsuits as a risk of using open source software: such as getting wrapped up in the SCO lawsuit. Some software companies offer indemnification for licensing violations. Now it seems we are jumping the legal shark by naming lawsuits as feature. I guess this means that the concern about support for open source (the old FUD factor) is dying down.
I recently started tracking the Graffito project. Graffito is a very early stage open source Java-based CMS project being incubated by the Apache Software Foundation. What interests me the most about Graffito is that it seems to be the answer to a need that I have been hearing a lot recently: a Java-based CMS that integrates into an existing presentation tier.
Graffito is a set of components that can work with different repositories and integrate with other various Java based presentation layers. Graffito provides functionality that people need out of a CMS:
A repository abstraction layer which gives a common API to access content (documents, folders, etc.) from a relational database (through OJB), WebDav (such as Slide), or a JCR based repository. Currently, the OJB connector is the only one that has been implemented.
Concurrency management so that multiple users do not interfere with each others work.
Security
Content integration which can integrate content from multiple repositories into one tree
Workflow
Graffito is closely tied to and integrates with Jetspeed 2, which is one of the Apache portal projects. I have a feeling that Jetspeed 2 may give Graffito some momentum as Jetspeed 2 users look for a CMS to put content on their portals.
Recently the Graffito project website has been showing lots of change. Broken links are being fixed and a lot of new information is being added. This should be a good project to watch if not participate in.
James Robertson, of Step Two Designs, is doing some research for a study on Intranet Teams. His study is focused on answering questions including
Where in organizations are intranet teams located
How big are intranet teams
What skills do they have
James has an online survey to collect information (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=48049868860).
I am looking forward to reading the results.
This post is an experiment on the concept of a weekly summary of development activity on an open source project. One of the great things about open source software is the transparency. All discussions happen out in the open on mail lists and forums so an enormous amount of knowledge is captured in an archivable format. On the downside, following these lists takes an inordinate amount of time for someone with other priorities. Therefore, I was thinking a human filtered and summarized digest would be something of value to users of an open source software product.
I am trying to determine the appropriate level of detail. The targeted audience is a manager of either software development or network operations - someone who does not have time to read the full list but wants a little more information than what one would get with announcements. I would appreciate feedback as to whether this type of information is useful. Now, on with the show.....
This Week in Plone
Release 2.1 is scheduled for May 2005. It will run on Zope 2.x rather than the new Zope 3.x
Three developers (Philip Auersperg, Jadok Batlogg, and Jens Klein) have started an initiative to enhance Plone's content editing forms by adding some client side scripting to perform functions like validation and multiple object editing without reloading the page. This is in response to PLIP 53. The team has a mockup available for review.
This Week in Lenya
A new feature which enables XMLHTTP was submitted by Josias Theony and checked into the trunk on February 9th. For those who do not know, XMLHTTP allows a page to call back to the server to get more data without an entire page reload. Probably the most famous example of XMLHTTP in action is Google Labs' Google Suggests. Try typing in the search box and watch common search terms start appearing.
An enhancement to make the menuing system cleaner and more flexible has been added to the trunk.
There have been a few updates to improve the installation guide.
On February 8, a massive patch (1.2 MB) was applied to the trunk. This was the result of code cleanup effort by Gregor Rothfuss. The update adds missing javadocs, fixes some resource leaks, and makes exception handling more explicit. Now the Eclipse Find Bugs plugin is more useful on the Lenya code base.
Version 1.4 of Lenya will introduce a replacement to Lenya Usescases (sequences of pages) called UsecaseFramework which uses Cocoon Flow. There is some updated information on the Wiki
TYPO3 announced today the creation of a Switzerland Typo3 Association which will serve as a holding organization which will help set direction for the product and handle financial and legal matters. TYPO3 originator, Kasper Skårhøj, heads the Association.
According the website, the TYPO3 Association was first founded in Fall of 2004. It seems to be a slight variation on a trend of Open Source projects developing a foundation (such as the Apache Software Foundation and the Plone Foundation) to handle things like money and legal liability. TYPO3'S Association appears to be organized more as a membership organization. There are Active Members, who regularly contribute code, and Supporting Members (either companies or individuals), who pay membership fees. Active Members have the right to vote on matters. Supporting membership seems to be more of a vehicle for sponsorhsip.
The first international TYPO3 conference (TYCON3) will take place in Karlsruhe, Germany in September 2005. Two of the key initiatives that the TYPO3 Association will introduce are a certification program for individuals and developers, and adapting TYPO3 to international standards.
TYPO3 has long been a well organized and very professional project. It seems like the Association helps take TYPO3 a little farther by creating a more official legal entity behind the project.
Sun's announcement that they are opening up 1,600 patents, coupled with I.B.M. announcing that they are opening up 500, reminds me of an anthropology class in college where we learned about the "Big Man" social organization structure. In the Big Man system (practiced in some isolated islands in the SouthWestern Pacific), leaders vie for popularity and influence by outdoing each other throwing feasts and giving gifts.
The Big Man - almost always a male - is an elaborate version of a village leader, but unlike a village leader, he often has supporters in several villages and is a somewhat more effective regulator of regional political organization. Big Men combine a small amount of interest in their group's welfare with a great deal of self-interested entrepreneurialship for personal gain.
Is this what Sun and IBM are doing?
EContent Magazine recently announced the 7th edition of CMS Watch's CMS Report. According to the article, one of the big trends identified by the latest CMS Report is that the mid market of CMS products has really taken off. I too have noticed an increase attention paid to mid-market CMS vendors and have attributed it largely to a rejection of the big vendor's push towards ECM. Clients that I have spoken to are starting to be suspicious of the ECM vision and monolithic architectures. They are turning to targeted, best of breed solutions. These systems can be deployed with smaller initiatives that are more closely aligned with the needs of the users and enjoy a shorter time to benefit. There is also considerable interest in ASP solutions offered by CrownPeak and Atomz. By the way, the same market forces that are helping out mid-market CMS products are also driving adoption of Open Source CMS products. Clients are recognizing the practicality and benefits of a heterogeneous CMS infrastructure and are thinking of content integration strategies rather than ECM.
In addition to being less complicated and easier to use, targeted content management solutions are considerably cheaper than ECM products. The evolution of mid-market ECM is going to be very interesting to watch. Some of these companies will be acquired by the major players. Others may turn into the next generation of ECM companies by filling out their functionality either through acquisition or organically.
If you are selecting a CMS, you should consider targeted solutions and actively manage the risk that is introduced by this market volatility. Plan an exit strategy as part of the selection. Look for open standards and interoperability that will make the solution substitutable, wholly or in part. Make sure that your content is does not get locked up in proprietary formats. Stick with technologies that you feel comfortable supporting. Spread your bets. Your content will outlive any technology choice you make today. Plan for it.
I noticed this article in the New York Times today. I not sure what making "software patents freely available to anyone working on open-source projects" actually means but it sounds like a significant change in strategy. Such a nice reversal from the ridiculous patent squatting practices of the 90's.