The following is a report on a broad, but interesting panel discussion that took place on Tuesday, November 28, 2006, at the 3rd Annual Gilbane Conference on Content Technologies.
OPEN SOURCE WEB CMS
Presentation and Panel Discussion:
Seth Gottlieb, Director Content Management Practice,
Optaros
Terry Barbounis, CTO,
Christian Science Monitor
Eric Benson, Director of Interactive Communications,
Boomer Consulting
Renaud Richardet, COO America,
Wyona
Nate Aune, CTO and Owner,
Jazkarta Consulting
Open source software is gaining attention within the content management industry. According to Seth Gottlieb of Optaros, many open source Web CMS solutions are feature-rich, fully baked applications that compete favorably in the market space and suffer only because they lack the sales and marketing that drive the success of most commercial offerings - for now. While commercial Web CMS providers staff only a relative few who actually develop and test their products, open source projects are driven almost entirely by programmers who can build and release new features, enhancements, and bug-fixes to the public much more quickly than any commercial (resource limited and bottom-line driven) enterprise.
Renaud Richardet, COO of Wyona described the cooperative and organizational dynamics of open source communities. Formed organically, these communities collaborate using Web-based tools such as code repositories, bulletin boards, blogs and wikis to support and execute a project - all the while making it available to the public under the GNU open source licensing model. As open source projects grow in size and complexity, core groups of developers organize around a project lead - which can be the project’s originator, a commercial sponsor, or a non-profit foundation. Drawing on internal expertise, feature requests, testing and feedback from the greater community, the core group continues to contribute to the project’s functionality, extend support to users and generate documentation.
As explained by Gottlieb, it’s the community that differentiates open source offerings, and which is key to separating the wheat from the chaff. If an open source project achieves significant maturity and broad distribution, it may eventually be supported by commercial vendors or consultants. If the community is weak, the project will lose direction and steam, and could die on the vine quite suddenly. When considering open source Web CMS, Gottlieb recommends that you scrutinize open source communities as you would commercial vendors, and look for a solution with a developer base that is:
* Active, with frequent identification of bug fixes and implementation of purposeful product enhancements.
* Diverse, including developers and end-users from a broad array of perspectives, organizations and even locales.
* Approachable, with mechanisms for actively soliciting and a track record of openly accepting and supporting new community members, ideas, and recommendations.
* Supportive of relevant and long-term technology and communications standards that can be sustained or enhanced in-house.
* Organized, with documented plans for future releases that include clearly articulated and defined strategy, milestones and goals.
* Willing to integrate with existing commercial systems. Open source solutions shouldn’t mandate wholesale infrastructural change.
* Willing to recognize and embrace the business needs that drive development.
In addition to cost and support advantages, the community orientation of open source initiatives can yield other benefits: better targeted solutions with improved user adoption, explained Terry Barbounis, CTO of Christian Science Monitor. Barbounis and Christian Science Monitor measure the efficacy of the IT resources they deploy in terms of user adoption, frustration, and learning-curves. To improve results, both technical and non-technical users are invited to contribute to open-source communities to drive CMS feature development based on real business needs. The company has discovered that community participation fosters buy-in by putting user needs first, minimizes organizational conflict by promoting collaboration and decision-making, and results in more precisely targeted results. Though open source communities are still generally dominated by “propeller-heads,” Terry suggests that end-user participation is a growing trend that will ultimately benefit these communities and the open source products that they develop.
Plone is one example of a popular and successful open source project with a sophisticated user community that rivals commercial contenders in many areas important to Web CMS decision makers. A favorite of managers of community-oriented Web sites and portals, the quality and quantity of Plone documentation available in print and online rivals any other Web CMS - open source and commercial. In a market where products are constantly disappearing, being acquired or sold, Plone’s community base has been growing steadily for 5 years. Further, Plone is protected from becoming a closed, proprietary application by the Plone Foundation, which exists to further the development, marketing, and legal affairs of Plone and the Plone community. According to Nate Aune, owner Jazkarta Consulting, Plone is a legitimate choice for organizations looking for all of the features offered by the major players in the Web CMS space, without vendor lock-in, obsolescence due to abandonment, costly licensing, or poor support.
“I try to get my clients to realize that software isn’t an asset,” explained Aune. “Actually, it’s a liability. After you’ve paid for it, you’re stuck with the costs of customization and maintenance - forever.” With open source, you effectively have dozens, hundreds, potentially thousands of developers working to help meet your business software needs.
Copyright 2006
ACTIONREACTION
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ACTIONREACTION / Innovation, delivered.
