[Zope-dev] Re: [Plone-developers] PAULA: bringing Zope 3's authentication to Plone and beyond

[Martin Aspeli]

Jens Vagelpohl wrote:

> I call BS here. PAS is not a "custom solution", it's much more of a  
> standard than PAU is.
> 
> The question remains, "why?". You're reinventing wheels for Zope 2  
> that do not need to be reinvented. One day when PAU has indeed  
> surpassed PAS in terms of functionality and plugins then it may make  
> sense. But not now.

I think it's worth displaying some sensitivity to the context of Google 
Summer of Code here. I too worry that PAULA may throw the baby (PAS) out 
with the bathwater.

However, GSoC is an excellent incubator of R&D, and has secondary goals 
such as bringing more people into the community and engaging with 
students so that they become the future contributors of our projects. 
Shooing them down in flames is not going to help.

I wish that some of these discussions had been had in the open so that 
more people could weigh in. However, most people who aren't used to the 
open source way (and plenty who are, even) find it difficult to address 
a whole community on a public mailing list and understand the nuances of 
the responses. That very thing is part of the learning curve that GSoC 
seeks to address.

On balance, I think it's great that Florian is exploring new territory 
here. PAULA may or may become a part of Zope and/or Plone in the future. 
It may be that we use bits of it and let other bits evolve separately. 
It may be that it dies, but at least then we have a clear idea about 
what PAU is and what benefits it can bring. The notion of having a 
bridge component certainly sounds sensible to me.

So, please, let's not be too harsh until we've seen the final product 
and given it a fair chance.

Cheers,
Martin

-- 
Author of `Professional Plone Development`, a book for developers who
want to work with Plone. See http://martinaspeli.net/plone-book