[Zope3-dev] Question: Are principals (sometimes aka users) content or meta-content?

[Martijn Faassen]

Jim Fulton wrote:
> On IRC, Steve suggested that principals and "users" ("members") might be
> different objects and that principals are adapted to users, where principals
> are meta-content and users are content. Another way to look at this is
> that, perhaps, users/members are content and principals are associated with
> users. Users are content and (for some principals) you can get a user from a
> principal.

In Silva it works more or less this way (and I don't think Silva is unique).
Member objects are content and are associated with Zope 2 users. Association
happens on a username basis. Member objects contain/give access to information
that should be associated to users (such as an email address), and have
views where the user can edit this information. There may also be a screen
where a manager can 'approve' someone as a member -- the member object already
exists but only after approval can this member do things within a Silva site.
The notion that there is *always* a member object for a Zope 2 user simplifies
things a bit.

That's just one perspective on things, also of course influenced by Zope 2
constraints, but it may be helpful.

Regards,

Martijn