[libreoffice-website] Fwd: Libreoffice and Drupal Security

Forwarded at the request of Benjamin Horst:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: James Benstead <jim@codeloom.net>
Date: Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 7:27 PM
Subject: Re: Libreoffice and Drupal Security
To: David Nelson <commerce@traduction.biz>
Cc: greg@knaddison.com, Benjamin Benjamin Horst <bhorst@mac.com>, Alex
Giorgi-Coll <alex@codeloom.net>


Hi David et al,

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 6:27 PM, David Nelson <commerce@traduction.biz>wrote:

> Hi Greg, :-)
>
> Thanks a lot for your answers. There, in fact you did indeed tell me
> what I was curious to know. I read through your report, too. I've been
> monitoring the discussions on the list... Keith Williams, notably, is
> arguing hard for Drupal. Me, I'm simply an observer of this
> discussion, so anything I say will be simply uninvited butting-in. I
> could recommend you to jump into this thread:
>
> http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/website/msg00300.html
>
> There are SilverStripe proponents citing notably the admin interface
> and the initial configuration of Drupal as cons for its adoption.
> Security is not what's at issue for them. They seem to feel that
> Drupal's admin interface is not easy to use, notably for admins with
> no Drupal experience.

While this is true of the default Drupal admin interface, it is possible to
build any admin interface you like for Drupal. There are a number of "admin
themes" that can be set to kick in when an administrator wants to make
changes to their site: see
http://mogdesign.eu/blog/10-drupal-administration-themes/ as an example.

Secondly, a huge amount of UI/UX work has been put into D7 so that the admin
interface is usable out of the box. This work was headed up by Mark Boulton
(http://www.markboulton.co.uk/), largely in response to a 2008 University of
Baltimore study which examined the out-of-the-box usability of Drupal 6:
http://drupal.org/usability-test-university-baltimore-community-solutions

Please let me know if you would like me to contact Mark Boulton - he is
highly unlikely to want to join the discussion but I am happy to put
questions to him directly.

Thirdly, the usability of any specific D6 site is really down to the culture
of the individual or team that builds that site. I would not claim to be a
designer (our Creative Director, Alex Giorgi-Coll, is copied into this
email) but I have a strong interest in UI/UX from my days teaching web
skills to people with disabilities. codeloom prioritises the UI/UX of the
sites we produce.


> They haven't seen a convincing demo site with sufficient content on it
> to properly showcase Drupal. Also, they are worried about their lack
> of experience with it, and that if things go wrong they'll have no-one
> to turn to. If they could get some ongoing and reliable support from
> some Drupal people, and if they could get a look at the backend of a
> live, operational site of some consequence, I'd say that could help
> swing things.

We're aiming to produce just such a site on http://codeloom.net - I'll let
you know when this is live. In the meantime, have you seen Drupal Gardens
at http://www.drupalgardens.com/?  That may go some way to properly
showcasing Drupal.

As far as support goes, this will take time and therefore potentially money.
One place to  enquire is http://openflows.org/ - we're due to be working
with them on an education project, so let me know if you'd like me to
mention the potential LibreOffice Drupal site to them.


> They need a wiki and forums, and there are voices that want those as
> add-on modules integrated with Drupal. Some people seem to think that
> it's better to have a dedicated product for each (CMS, forums and
> Wiki). If you can convince them Drupal has an integrated answer that
> is more advantageous than separate products, you can win the day.

This is an interesting one - Drupal has wiki-like capabilities but my
current position would be to use Mediawiki for a specific wiki. I'd be
really interested to hear of any Drupal-specific solutions, though.


> Some people also seem to have doubts about the ease of theming with
> Drupal templates... Plus how to handle special data types...

With regards to Drupal theming, it is a technical challenge, especially to
graphic designers with little PHP/jQuery knowledge. The D6 theming system
can be learnt and taught relatively easily though; there are great tutorial
DVDs available from http://www.lullabot.com, for example.

As for handling special data types, can you be a litte more specific? I'm
relatively non-technical ;)

J.


> I hope this helps you plan your attack... You might care to liaise
> with Keith Williams about this?
>
> Of course, if I can be of any help, please do let me know. My own
> experience has been with small, personal sites done with Zikula
> (ex-PostNuke), which I can happily hack and theme. And, more recently
> with WordPress. But I'm a complete outsider and recent observer of the
> TDF/LibO project. However, I'm looking for an opportunity to get
> involved.
>
> Suggestion: Drupal people are the only CMS guys to have actively taken
> an interest in the TDF sites project, but beware of discussion about
> WorPress/Pods/BuddyPress gaining momentum...?
>
> Hope this helps, and thanks for the info. Personally, I reckon Drupal
> deserves to win the day...
>
> Good luck, and all the best, :-)
>
> David Nelson

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