Re: [libreoffice-website] What's the official policy about the LibO website: Drupal or no Drupal?

Hi, :-)

There is also the question of who would administer a Drupal site. I'm
not currently aware of any candidates with the right profile, unless
Christian was willing to do it.

Administering one of TDF's Web resources requires a lot of technical
knowledge and experience. It's not the same as simply setting-up a
site, theming it, installing a choice of modules and away we go.

The code base behind the website is managed via a TDF-managed git
repository. You can't just tweak and edit files on the server. The
admin has to have the knowledge to be able to configure site modules
in a way that properly interacts and works with the server and other
TDF resources possibly affected. Christian will be able to tell you a
lot more about those technical aspects.

The admin has to be someone known and trusted by TDF and Ooodevs De,
because he/she will have access to important project resources. Even
if one found someone from outside with the necessary knowledge and
experience of Drupal *and* of system admin, that person would still
have to go through at least the "qualification" period (currently
stated as 3 months in the soon-to-be-applicable community bylaws [1])
before being a possible candidate.

> From the past discussions of Drupal, I'm not aware of any candidates
for the job - unless Christian himself were to take on the task. By
candidate, I mean someone with the necessary technical qualifications
*plus* the motivation, desire and long-term commitment to steering and
handling the changeover, and to dealing with the site administration
on an on-going basis.

In addition, before being adopted as LibO's new CMS, a
fully-operational, full-featured demo has to be offered for *thorough
prior evaluation*. It's not enough to be evangelizing Drupal and
saying it *can* do this and it *can* do that. It has to be proven and
concretely demonstrated that it's a superior choice and that TDF/LibO
really *needs* it. True meritocracy is supposed to be the driving
force behind this project.

No official decision has yet been taken by the SC/BoD (i.e. via a vote
that complies with the community bylaws), so Drupal is presently a
possible choice for consideration, but not more. You only have to read
the SC meeting minutes [2] to be clear about that:

"vote if to start with Silverstripe or Drupal
result: 6 for Silverstripe vs. 2 for Drupal -> 2/3rd majority for Silverstripe
reason to vote for Silverstripe was in most cases that a fast go-live
is expected and that there are people to do administration and take
care about content
reason to vote for Drupal was the higher flexibility (and therefore
better long-term solution) as well as having several people with good
knowledge about drupal
suggestion is that the website team should do some more planning, what
we need regarding website, additional services, and see how this can
be achieved with drupal. We see the need of a more sophisticated CMS
in the future."

Let me say that it's not that I'm against the adoption of Drupal per
se. But I think that it would have to be proven that it's in the
community's interests, and I would not like to see the project
bulldozed through hype, disinformation and hypothetical claims.

[1] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/CommunityBylaws
[2] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Steering_Committee_Meetings#Minutes_2010-10-27

David Nelson

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