Zope.net (was Re: [ZWeb] Zope.org and New zope.org status)

[Paul Everitt]

On dimanche, jan 12, 2003, at 22:08 Europe/Paris, Jeffrey P Shell wrote:

> On Sunday, January 12, 2003, at 12:03  PM, Paul Everitt wrote:
>> Maybe there should be a "zope.net" idea, where we could tap into the 
>> community as a large, loosely-coupled content management system.  
>> Others are doing it, obviously Zope is capable.  Certainly not 
>> something to discuss actively in the next three months though, until 
>> after nzo launches.
>
> Isn't that what Zope.org is doing now?  I actually wouldn't mind 
> separating the community aspect of CZO from

Yes, but CZO all runs at one place, and when those folks have higher 
priority things, stuff stalls.  There isn't much room for innovation 
because you have to try hard to get involved, though I expect this to 
improve.

Loosely-coupled is more, well, loosely-coupled.  For instance, 
freezope.org is doing a good job of servicing the sites of individual 
Zope users, from the reports I've been getting.  They're responsive and 
provide a fair bit of access.  OTOH, nzo is going in the opposite 
direction (DTML and ZPT are outlawed for most users).  This leaves an 
unmet need.

Is there a way to let people do some of their own thing, while still 
allowing information to flow around?  Certainly the blog universe, as 
you know very well, has made progress on this approach.  This problem 
doesn't necessarily require a cathedral.

I'm not sure the answer to this problem.  But I'm interested in a party 
line that says to the world of Zope, "What you're doing is good, can we 
cooperate with your site?"  This can help bring network effects which, 
in the blog world, are quite obvious.

> a site to get documentation and downloads, and a development site.  
> The two could be interconnected, because I think the community aspect 
> of CZO has been what's made CZO actually work.  There are lots of new 
> products and news items being posted (I expanded the "Recent News" box 
> on the front page recently because some cool news items disappeared 
> too quickly).

Cool!

> Separating the core content from the community content would probably 
> improve general maintenance of the site, and keep the speed up.  It's 
> just a thought.  For what it is, <http://www.php.net/> is not a bad 
> site to visit - it's like Zope.org without the community parts.  
> <http://www.php.net/sites.php> lists affiliated sites in the network.

That's indeed a good point.  The core content should be centralized, 
fast, and relatively controlled.  The cathedral.  Other stuff could be 
flowing, dynamic, and chaotic.  The bazaar.

> I do think the community aspects of CZO are very nice, but we do know 
> the burden that it places on the ZODB and maintenance of the site.  It 
> might be good to separate them somewhat, but still have things like 
> "Latest Zope.net uploads" and "Latest Zope.net news items" on a 
> hypothetical Zope.org front page.

Or better still, leverage the work others are already doing.

Zope.org isn't likely to do a better job of news than ZopeZen.  It 
isn't likely to do a better job of recipes than ZopeLabs.  And let's 
not discuss downloads. :^)

--Paul