On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 11:02 PM, Pasi Lallinaho <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello again xubuntu-devels (CC: newZ :), > > My comments are inline. I hope it isn't *too* complicated to read > the thread already. > > 2009/5/27 Matthew Nuzum <[email protected]> > >> Wordpress is a great blogging platform. There are few tools as easy to >> use for publishing blog or news related information. If your content >> largely falls into this format it's an excellent choice. You can use >> wordpress to create standard web pages (i.e. not blog pages) but once >> you start getting too much away from a blog-like site you quickly >> outgrow WP. > > > I see your point here, but being watched the Xubuntu website in the last, > what, 9 months, I definitely feel that it's not going to overgrow WP with > this amount of activity. > You have a valid point here but I think our website can do more. For example, its always been my intention to investigate the possibility of reusing the drupal module that I suspect powers the download section on the Ubuntu website. Furthermore, I'm also interested in using the launchpad integration modules created for Drupal. Matthew: Do you know if it would be possible for us to use the download stuff from Ubuntu's website? Open sourcing it would not necessarily be a requirement. > >> Drupal is not as much a CMS as it is a web development framework with >> a simplistic CMS application built in. If you want to describe and >> publish all kinds of information or build simple dynamic content >> applications Drupal is an excellent option. Another thing it excels at >> is themeing. It has a very simple to use themeing system and doesn't >> in the least sacrifice flexibility. It is unfortunately much more >> challenging to configure and use. > > > I have to say that my personal opinion somewhat differs here. I've also > developed on Drupal (and WP), and I must say that the theming system of WP > is way more logical in my hands than Drupals. I see that Drupal (theming) > doesn't sacrifice flexibility at all, but the question to be asked is that > do we really need that much *complexity*? > The toughest part is creating the actual styling and html which is why I have tons of respect for folks like you and Matthew. As for converting that into a "theme" for Drupal or WP, that can easily be done with folks who have the necessary experience working with the targetted software. > >> >> As you know, I've banked on Drupal for ubuntu.com. I've spent several >> years now creating a base environment and core set of modules so that >> I can do what I want to with minimal fuss. This lets me deploy >> blog-like sites, including the ability to aggregate content from >> multiple sources, or advanced multi-user content rich websites with >> complex manager-sign-off workflows. Drupal has plenty of warts but if >> you want flexibility it is hard to beat. To illustrate this further, >> I'll soon be migrating the Ubuntu Jobs page from a custom django app I >> built to Drupal using the views and cck modules. I'll be able to do >> this without writing any code at all (except for theme code). I didn't >> think I'd ever be bragging about building web apps by simply pointing >> and clicking but here I am. :-) > > > Yes, the point where you are now is built over several years. Even if I > think that's wonderful for you, I don't think that is something *we* should > try to achieve by all means. Xubuntu barely needs the basic elements of > Drupal (and not even all of that) so we definitely don't need complex > modules/plugins. > I think what Matthew was trying to point out here is Drupal has some very powerful modules that can be pieced together to provide flexible solutions/functionality without needing to touch any code. > On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 2:43 AM, Pasi Lallinaho <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> >> >> > On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 2:08 PM, Pasi Lallinaho <[email protected]> >> >> > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> > >> >> > Cody A.W. Somerville wrote: >> >> > > >> >> > > >> >> > > On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Pasi Lallinaho <[email protected] >> > >> >> > <mailto:[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > > >> > >> > >> >> >> >> If we decide to set up a team blog which has no aggregated posts from >> >> the authors own blogs, we are growing our workload quite a lot. We have >> >> been very lazy in updating our website, the wiki etc. etc., but most of >> >> us have written our personal blogs quite conscientious. Gathering a >> >> Xubuntu Planet would in this light make some sense. The content would >> be >> >> quite easily updated, even if the post quality and appropriateness >> would >> >> not be as great as it would be with blog with no aggregated posts. >> > >> > I don't buy this. A team blog would be a communication vehicle to share >> news >> > and stories about Xubuntu in a professional yet informal matter. Content >> > would be planned and intentional, be peer reviewed before publication, >> and >> > have a clear objective/purpose. Aggregating personal personal blog >> content >> > would be counter-intuitive to achieving that. >> > > What ever the goal was, we are in the situation that *we need a blog*. > That's what WP is good at. > I don't disagree. > >> > >> >> > >> >> > With regards to our current site are the RSS Feeds for Xubuntu.org >> >> > broken? Is Drupal limited in how well it can configure RSS feeds, or >> >> > are we just not using it right? Pasi, it sounds like you are >> >> > suggesting that we move Xubuntu.org to Worpress MU, correct? >> >> If you are in any other page than home page, the RSS link in the left >> is >> >> not working. It seems like a bug in the HTML creating code, not sure if >> >> it is my fault. >> >> >> >> Yes, I suggest and stand for WPMU. >> > >> > This is a bug in the website, yes. I imagine that it does not matter >> what >> > software we use, we will run into these. I also imagine that this bug is >> > entirely resolvable. >> > > I imagine it is just some minutes of hacking with Drupal and the bug is > fixed by me. > > The problem is that it is really hard to test the commits made to the > website branch as we don't even have a testing server and pushing to > production needs your absence. And even if you were available, the code > might still be flawed (this has happened many times - I admit that I'm a > terrible coder!) and we need to work on the BZR ring again - together. That > eats your time quite a lot and I don't think it's worth it in many cases. > However, this is a completely different problem and we might have to think > for solutions to it. > Unfortunately, deploying updates to the website's codebase will always require my participation for the time being. As for testing your changes, I'm happy to assist you in setting up a local development server. > > >> >> >> >> > >> >> > All things being equal, I would like to stay with Drupal to stay >> >> > consistent with the other Ubuntu flavors, if possible. If an upgrade >> >> > to Drupal, or adding in additional modules, would give us more >> >> > features (or fix existing features), I think we should look at that >> >> > before considering moving everything over to Wordpress. >> >> I don't know how much consistency really matters in this situation. >> >> There is no place where the sites should be working together or >> >> exchanging content. And Xubuntu is a community-driven project after >> all. >> > >> > Jim didn't mention exchanging content. What he did mention though are >> > excellent points and very much do matter. The fact that Xubuntu is a >> > community-driver project makes them even more so. >> > > Unfortunately I don't see the very excellent points (could you repeat > them?). I'm not saying that updates to Drupal or adding modules to Drupal > wouldn't give us more features and fixing the existing. Every software has > to be updated to be in shape. And as we are talking about Drupal and WP, > they both have modules/extensions, which can give more features. > We're talking about modules, bug fixes, knowledge sharing, etc. with other members in the Ubuntu community. For example, the launchpad modules. > Also as we are in the situation where only you can do the updates, fixing > important bugs will take more time than with a personal site of an active > developer, for example, or a community site, where the admin really *has* > the time to work on things all the time. This would of course be the case > with WP also, but my picture is that Drupal has had more security related > bugs than WP (also because it has so much bigger codebase) and I've partly > lost my faith in Drupal not having those bad found-yet-another-security-bug > weeks. This is my personal opinion, though. > IS is gracious enough to ensure that security patches get applied. > >> > >> > I appreciate that you're more familiar with wordpress than drupal but I >> > don't think thats strong enough motivation to migrate our website to >> that >> > software. >> > > I think it is, as I'm the one doing the core maintenance. We might also > need to ask the opinion of Vincent as he's the web team leader, but if I > understood correctly, he's more responsible for the content. > > The motivation to migrate to WP is locked inside me. It wants to be free! > ;) > The fact that you want to migrate to WP and that you're doing the work for the website has tremendous weight. Please don't feel otherwise. Cheers, -- Cody A.W. Somerville Software Systems Release Engineer Foundations Team Custom Engineering Solutions Group Canonical OEM Services Phone: +1-781-850-2087 Cell: +1-506-471-8402 Email: [email protected]
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