The conference call held on April 13th was quite productive. We built some of our core team and created some direction to the project. We also were able to define what the project has and what it still needs. I was able to take some notes while on the call to help inform those who weren't able to participate, and get everyone up to speed. The call was 2 1/2 hours long - here is the short version (as short as I can make it) and my perspective.
Before the call I created a roadmap draft with the information and contributions received on the project up to this point. Our project manager, Hans Dekker, will be using this information along with the details of our conference call to work on a definitive roadmap and our future project plan. These things and the timing will depend on all of us. We need to know who is involved, how big the team is, who the developers are, etc., and how well we can involve new people in the project. We also need to note that this is a volunteer project - we intend to work in teams for reasons of redundancy and dependability. The communication aspect alone will be a lot of work and will require the participation of more than one person. Working in teams rather than individually is for the best interest of the project and those involved.
The main topic of the conversation was the back end development of the platform and the various things that will be involved with that. We also discussed hosting, site models, use cases, principles and process for checking code quality. We are putting off the front end of Gnomepal in favor of developing the back end functions first. With this in mind, we created some teams for researching use cases and hosting options (for a controlled environment). We have a communication team that will be doing the marketing for Gnomepal - news and announcements, twittering and blogging, along with other things meant for public knowledge. With Chris Pirillo as the public figure and spokesman of sorts for our project, the communication team will also advise on the information he gives to the public. This team consists so far of Bram Wessel and myself. For now, the marketing message will be simple. For users - this is why you need this. For Devs - this is why you need to be involved.
The target audience of Gnomepal.org can be categorized in three different groups; Module Developers, Consultants/integrators, Community Owners and Users of Gnomepal based sites.
Hans has created a mockup of what the admin interface should look like, and you can see it here. We need to have a framework to make things easy, and some research needs to be done. Rolling out features, administering features, installing, hosting, etc. To make this possible, we need to have an overlay to the existing Drupal admin. For example, you want to ad the wiki? One click will install the wiki and the supporting modules. Another click will allow you edit the options for that feature. How do we create an interface that can talk to other modules? How can we handle updates and module changes? Adam Kalsey and John Sechrest will be in charge of this research for the admin overlay.
We have registered several domains with the intention of defining live code, support and hosting solutions. Gnomepal.org is for the code and support, Gnomepal.com will be for the hosted model. We intend to follow some model sites such as Ubercart, WordPress, Ubuntu and others in Gnomepal development.
There is no clear-cut "who can do what" for anyone. What you need to ask yourself is what "bucket" you fit in, and put yourself in it: Hosting, Design, Module Development, etc. Because we have We will be building these definitions. User profiles (for the private dev area) should be intelligent, and help us define these roles for the team.
We also discussed hosting and assigned Tim Burke and Chris (2) to do some research on our options. We have been approached by Go-Daddy, and we need to assess the value of that. I fleshed out a hosting tier earlier in the week in the Assembla Trac system, but it needs to be further detailed and specific to a hosting vendor (or multiple vendors). Please see Trac for more details and the updates on their assignment. Specific things we are looking for:
* Be cheap at the beginning
* Be scaleable
* Have infrastructure stability
* Is responsive to needs
* Support for domain
* One click Have-A-Site, like WordPress
Next thing was Use Cases. Chris Pirillo has already been approached by people asking for Gnomepal. For this assignment John Sechrest will lead the Use Case Interview process with participation and contributions by Chris Prillo and Bram Wessel. What features are they looking for in a community site? What types of communities would use Gnomepal? Possible communities and users would be:
* Alumni associations (Kathy Gill - UofW professor who approached Chris)
* Churches
* Neighborhood
* Classes
* User Groups
* Affinity groups
* Hobby groups
* Fraternal Groups
The possibilities are nearly endless. Use Case draft is to be submitted to Hans, with notes in the Assembla wiki and blog posts about who is currently being interviewed. Click here for a great read on Interaction Design. Chris Pirillo will also be our "User Advocate". While discussing this, it was brought up that we will need to set up Google Docs for shared documents that are messy, and not use the wiki for them. We should also install GoogleApps and have that as a starting point for all our documents.
Some standards need to be set for Code Quality and contributions. We will need to have a document describing Code Quality, and a process to test it.
Urgent needs were discussed towards the end of the call. What do we have to have now? First, we need to create our identity and need a logo to brand our product. We need a final theme that Gnomepal.org will be using. We also will need structure for user documentation - an install guide, FAQ, etc. We need to take an inventory of the wiki and see what features we have/need. Most importantly - developer recruiting. In order for Chris to find the code developers we will need to work on this project, we need to have a definitive list of roles and best practices for development so he will be able to communicate our need for these individuals. Michael Angeles of urlgreyhot.com could be a potential collaborator.
Next on the agenda (we are almost to the end, really!) was user interaction and user experience. We would like to have Chris Saad from DataPortability.org as a contributor and consultant for OpenSocial best practices. Users need a single sign on, and a privacy filter set. The profile a user has on one Gnomepal-driven site should work across any other. This data should go with the user. Widgets often bleed community knowledge - should we make a Gnomepal widget? We will need to weigh integration against a wigeted version. The Use Case studies should discuss data portability and what they are expecting and looking for.
Where is all the data for Gnomepal going to go? The subdomain of dev.gnomepal.org should be used as either the live dogfood site or our private developer community - or both. Assembla is uses for SVN and for Trac - Adam was concerned over the proliferation of accounts and where the information is being stored. It seems as if Assembla has an all-or-nothing admin setting. Developers have write access where the rest can only read. I recommended to the team we look into http://www.hosted-projects.com for more flexibility and permission options.
Money was next. Are we going to accept donations to the project? A PayPal account needs to be set up to accept donations to the non-profit, which Chris and Ponzi are working on getting. They are not experienced with non-profit setup (501c3) and they are requesting that anyone with knowledge of the process to assist them in accomplishing this. The Knight Foundation, who offers grants for Drupal project development, is where we intend on sending our proposal. To have a complete proposal, our budget and roles need to be defined. Ken is the liason between Drupal and the Knight Foundation. In our proposal, we need to justify what we are asking for, who is responsible for each component, and what we need to make this project a success. Along with this, we are looking for a Legal Liaison.
After all was said and done, Hans asked for the notes from this call to be ordered and ready to offer as the first responsibility of the communication team. Thank you for your patience as all the information was sifted, reorganized and defined.
That is it for the call. Below you will find the chat transcript to help fill in some of the blanks. Please comment and let me know what you think.
JCgeekGirl
aka Jamie
----------------------------
IRC Log
12:15pm PDT
sechrest: So he is saying we need drupal module developers.
sechrest: There are three Drupal camps happening over the next 3 months: Portland, Seattle and Vancouver.
sechrest: Is there a marketing component for this project that would allow us to carry this idea to these drupal camps?
wanderingstan: we certainly should have a presense at these camps to build excitement, recruit developers, get people on board with the vision.
JCgeekGirl: The task management I started to put that into trac. I don't know what hans plans on using...
JCgeekGirl: assembla/trac
theunabonger: found you, greetings.
TimBurke: what's going on?
theunabonger: I complain about IRC, but will use it if necessary. :P
theunabonger: chris is talking?
TimBurke: yup
JCgeekGirl: yes
Ewan_McLean: what do you mean by chris is talking? :)
sechrest: Can we put any kind of project management into the gnomepal site using drupal and have it work?
theunabonger: on the conference call.
farchord: lol
wanderingstan: "Software Development Cooridination Site" is one of the standard community use cases that Gnomepal should eventually cover, but we shouldn't eat our dogfood until we're a little further along.
farchord: love my business phone, can put it on speaker with the mic muted
theunabonger: project management is the real problem. Some have used basecamp, most people use a variety of disconnected tools
JCgeekGirl: ewan you missed it!
TimBurke: Farchord: I'm stuck on my POS Motorola RAZR, sadly
TimBurke: Cisco VoIP is down at work
farchord: heh
Ewan_McLean: JCgeekGirl|AFK: i wasnt really intending to make an international call for it tbh :P
theunabonger: so by "dog-fooding", you guys mean "making it available for use by less than academic users"?
JCgeekGirl: haha, use skype!
Ewan_McLean: is it free? :P
theunabonger: yeah, no shit, why aren't we doing this on skype. :P
farchord: JCgeekGirl|AFK: yeah i dont have unlimited calling, only got 3$ in the account atm
farchord: o
JCgeekGirl: darn
farchord: ic n
farchord: nm
JCgeekGirl: well if everyone on the call can talk to those here that are not (we've got some great people that are not on the call)... we can keep them up to date
TimBurke: most everyone has unlimited weekend calls..
theunabonger: w()()+ , yes in the U.S.
Ewan_McLean: TimBurke: not if you're in a different continent. i still think a free voip solution wouldve been better
TimBurke: yeah
theunabonger: the developers will get involved after the "platform" is available. . . ?
TimBurke: good point
theunabonger: i think.
JCgeekGirl: like any other open source platform, we should have a community supportive site, for downloads, forums, self help, advertising the product.... etc. I think that's what adam just said.
theunabonger: yeah, I was agreeing, and saying that drupal developers WILL get involved more after the platform is designed.
JCgeekGirl: no forking
JCgeekGirl: :)
farchord: I thought we were starting with the drupal code
sechrest: So two sites: One for user community and one for technology development.
ChrisPirillo: Yes, I believe so
theunabonger: that is a good idea. You need a "back-channel" for techie discussions.
sechrest: I agree.
sechrest: I sure hope we don't use drupal forums for community discussions.
ChrisPirillo: And JCGeekGirl - I may have a couple of leads for Design leadership, which Hans has received, but I will reiterate.
ChrisPirillo: which is *severely* lacking.
theunabonger: There's always "basecamp"
sechrest: Should we be inviting PHP/drupal module developers? Like the CivicAction guys?
theunabonger: which is what a lot of the big drupal sites developers are using. .. (not mentioning names)
JCgeekGirl: k. I haven't heard from my other contact either. So at this point I'd say he's out.
theunabonger: AN OS/Hosting Forum
godane: where are you chris?
godane: can't see you in the live stream
theunabonger: users=bloggers ?
godane: too dark
ChrisPirillo: Assembla is built for Devs.
ChrisPirillo: sechrest - Sure, I don't think that's a bad idea.
theunabonger: right, hosting/integration is definately separate from development.
theunabonger: sheeple. ;)
***theunabonger is twittering. . tweeting . . . whatever.
JCgeekGirl: next person that talks tell adam he talks too fast! :D
JCgeekGirl: wow, bram can't hear you
JCgeekGirl: yes
theunabonger: better
JCgeekGirl: Chris is one person with many projects. I agree with bram
theunabonger: marketing 'face' ?
JCgeekGirl: yeah, if he doesn't have a problem with that - it is called GNOMEpal. :D
theunabonger: hee.
JCgeekGirl: a reliability/feedback loop. a team
theunabonger: command structure. . .
sechrest: Teams of two or more?
sechrest: What about having any coordinating roles like scrum masters/ sprint coordinators?
Ewan_McLean: i assume someone is recording this?
JCgeekGirl: adam has that atm
JCgeekGirl: and chris and hans are both recording
theunabonger: Chris is surely recording
sechrest: I think we each have an idea of what WE think about this, but we probably don't have a common shared vision yet.
theunabonger: through the former "liveconferencing" wervice
sechrest: Is this IRC session being archived?
theunabonger: I'm waiting for the vision thing too. . . . . :P
JCgeekGirl: I can archive it sechrest
theunabonger: IRC is always archived, call the NSA in Virginia.
JCgeekGirl: I log all.
theunabonger: aha, waiting for this point in the agenda . . .
ChrisPirillo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lockergnome/2411402596/
ChrisPirillo: Hans mockup ^^^^^^
JCgeekGirl: it's a nice mockup
wanderingstan: this is a good point ... layering another admin interface on the existing one will be tricky
TimBurke_: Good mockup, imo
sechrest: The problem with Drupal is that it is TOO configurable for the average bear.
hansdekker: thanks chris
theunabonger: I like the admin menu-drop down module for drupal.
sechrest: So this is an abstraction layer above drupal to make it easier.
ChrisPirillo: n/p
ChrisPirillo: yes.
theunabonger: yeah
sechrest: Is this then a drupal module itself? Or is it a Bryght style hosting solution?
ChrisPirillo: this is why i think the hosted model is crucial, becasue we can control it easier for communities.
ChrisPirillo: in a "known" envionment.
theunabonger: aha, hosting. Again.
sechrest: I think that this is a key design point.
sechrest: And does this translate into a hosted solution that generate revenue.
wanderingstan: best is a drupal module itself. that is technically possible, for sure
ChrisPirillo: yes
ChrisPirillo: both adam and i know how to turn hosting into rev gen.
theunabonger: I've been working with Amazon EC2, setup Drupal 6.2 on Ubuntu as a test.
sechrest: Theunabonger, do you have a way to distribute drupal across EC2?
theunabonger: I know how to host, but not how to generate revenue, as can be attested to by my $9 linkshare check on my desk.
theunabonger: EC2 is distributed.
ChrisPirillo: jcgeekgirl - highlight that: we need someone to build a working admin overlay.
wanderingstan: setting options in other modules is technically possible (its all just DB settings), but then we have to be careful when those other modules change
theunabonger: depends on how much scalability you need, hence the "elastic" in the Amazon product name. Yeah.
sechrest: Yes, but putting drupal across many machine instances.
JCgeekGirl: yes... I'm writing like crazy
JCgeekGirl: :D
theunabonger: you distribute your OS instance across multiple machines, adding memory and storage as necessary.
ChrisPirillo: theunabonger - i know how to monetize, that's not a "challenge" for me. ad sharing, data upsells (more storage), or enterprise-level gateways. mozilla makes crazy money on the google search bar, for example. that's a model equal to our approach to hosting, even with free hosted comunities.
theunabonger: Yup. That's why we all love you Chris. LMAO
JCgeekGirl: a granular look and simple milestones w/existing modules
sechrest: One of the places that Drupal ends up biting me is in the explicit lack of backward compatability. And so you have a big problem with continuity
theunabonger: that is always very painful, yes.
wanderingstan: but the gnomepal release would ship with the versions of the modules that we support. then it's up to us to stay up to date with latest revs of modules we use
ChrisPirillo: Hans still needs someone here. :)
wanderingstan: yes, like civiccrm.
theunabonger: keeping a Gnomepal CVS repository would keep things in check until they were ready, yes?
theunabonger: yes
wanderingstan: Hans, I would like to help out with the admin research. Should have some time this week. :)
ChrisPirillo: wanderingstan - or minimize the amount of third-party modules integrated. best practices?
sechrest: Civicrm is a difficult one to keep up with as a user.
wanderingstan: yes, it seems like for the features we use, its just a very few core modules we're talking about.
sechrest: Every 6 months there are new drupal thoughts to adapt to.
theunabonger: Chris is right, look at Wordpress as an example....
sechrest: The easy solution is to drive things down to CCK + views + panels
JCgeekGirl: I agree with chris. either through us or through some affilate host. and I think it's something that we should not only recommend to those who are implementing this, but encourage.
wanderingstan: like wordpress, you can have the "download and install myself" option, but then people are on their own. you gotta have the hosted solution available.
sechrest: I agree with chris about hosting.
sechrest: We did the SixHourStartup event this weekend, building a drupal site. Here is the module list that we used: http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/SiteFinder/DrupalModuleList
theunabonger: tnx.
sechrest: I think that module list can be trimmed and still make things work well.
wanderingstan: yes
sechrest: There are things that gnomepal can do which drupal can not do now.
TimBurke_ is now known as TimBurke
theunabonger: O Captain, My Captain!
sechrest: Specifically, the organic groups process approaches the problem, but does not deal with the specific community issues that need to be addressed.
theunabonger: organic groups is very hard to understand for most users.
sechrest: And organic groups is brittle.
JCgeekGirl: it's great for sandboxing too
JCgeekGirl: (the free hosted option)
wanderingstan: so the plan is for gnomepal itself to offer hosting, incorporated as a non profit?
sechrest: I wonder how the IRS will process this.
theunabonger: "trickle-down" theory of web revenue generation
sechrest: How does the hosted experience get managed by a group of support people? volunteer support or paid support?
JCgeekGirl: haha knitting circle
theunabonger: you purchase hosting, managed by the open-source "community"
sechrest: As someone who has setup and run an ISP, my hardest problem was managing the user support.
ChrisPirillo: if it's not a non-profit, we're dealing with more complexities, i believe.
theunabonger: as someone who as setup and run two ISPs, I concur.
ChrisPirillo: non-profits can be profitable.
theunabonger: ;)
ChrisPirillo: i.e., Mozilla
TimBurke: yup
ChrisPirillo: er... e.g.
JCgeekGirl: it's what you do with the money that what calls you non-profit
sechrest: How can you differentiate this from the google apps experience as it evolves?
JCgeekGirl: chris mentioned godaddy
ChrisPirillo: we don't own the data.
wanderingstan: nonprofit also makes it easier for other companies to ralley around -- much better than doing a deal with another for-profit. gnomepal could be THE online community.
theunabonger: anybody running Xex virtualization.
theunabonger: ?
sechrest: What are the issues that we need from a hosting partner?
theunabonger: xen
TimBurke: i run vmware server
sechrest: I run Xen.
ChrisPirillo: Need Hosting Best Practices
sechrest: What is the size of this market? How many people in the next year will sign up for this?
ChrisPirillo: sechrest - how many 'communities' do you have?
JCgeekGirl: we should figure out a co-brand of hosting
ChrisPirillo: more importantly, how many non-tech communities are you in? church? local? family? etc.?
JCgeekGirl: our name, their support
sechrest: I am touching over 15 communities now.
sechrest: I manage over 60 mailing lists.
ChrisPirillo: This is NOT Google Apps.
theunabonger: As part of my learning experience, I have setup a fresh drupal install, running on Amazon EC2, you can take the xen image you create to any hosting partner. (or other virtualized image)
wanderingstan: anecdotally, i know *tons* of people who bought domains last year hoping to set up a community site (local charity, church) but then ran into a wall trying to do anything with it.
sechrest: So I could see this to grow VERY rapidly
ChrisPirillo: wanderingstan - bingo.
sechrest: So Scalability is important.
sechrest: WordPress as a example target site.
ChrisPirillo: wanderingstan - part of the hosted eperience is asking if they have a domain, or don't have a domain (and then make referall revenue if they register a new domain).
theunabonger: this is exactly what I'm talking about.
ChrisPirillo: scalability in options, sechrest
ChrisPirillo: theunabonger - are you looking at helping sketch best practices for hosting?
theunabonger: yeah
sechrest: scalability of drupal over EC2 , is still one drupal (or many) per instance, I was wondering about a very active site, where you need multiple servers for just one drupal environment.
JCgeekGirl: I'm hearing a lot that is in that roadmap. There is a hosting tier ticket inside Trac - that was what Chris was talking about that I did... it's just an idea that needs to be expanded on. Thanks
ChrisPirillo: to me, civicrm is confusing... even ubercart is confusing. too confusing. i don't "get it" like i do if i visit wordpres.org or wordpress.com.
sechrest: Time and who else are going to be the EC2 guys?
sechrest: Tim..
theunabonger: yeah
TimBurke: i'm right here
wanderingstan: i agree: for our blogging component, we should really rip off the wordpress interface as much as possible.
ChrisPirillo: "be inspired by" :)
theunabonger: look to wordpress as an example.
TimBurke: here's my email for those who are working on the hosting side of this: tb@tim-burke.net
ChrisPirillo: hosting referrals in install profiles is also another profit point.
TimBurke: or toburke@comcast.net, which ever one you would like to contact me at
theunabonger: Tim, are you on skype?
TimBurke: yeah
wanderingstan: I've got to run to a 1:30 appt ... please continue to do discuss in IRC so I can read later
TimBurke: aeflextim is my skype
JCgeekGirl: OK... rackspace?
TimBurke: rackspace are a ripoff
theunabonger: I'm liking Amazon, but it could become pricey
TimBurke: yeah
TimBurke: i have to disconnect from the conference, cell phone is going crazy
TimBurke: if you need to get in touch with me, email is toburke@comcast.net, skype is aeflextim
theunabonger: I added you in skype, we'll chat later.
TimBurke: alright
sechrest: Amazon is about $80/month per instance.
TimBurke: I'm thinking layeredtech
theunabonger: smaill instance yes,
TimBurke: or softlayer
theunabonger: plust bandwidth
farchord: I had to get off phone a while ago, not sure if it was blocking business calls
theunabonger: you would only need two or three instances, one for SVN repositories, one for distributed multisite drupal.
theunabonger: one for backup.
JCgeekGirl: a backup module...
TimBurke: I've dealt with Layered Tech in the past, they're really damn good
theunabonger: rsync is nice
JCgeekGirl: Use cases
ChrisPirillo: i'd like to lead that.
ChrisPirillo: Schools, Churches, Neighborhoods, Classes, Alumni, Affinities / Hobbies,
JCgeekGirl: I think that you have the best seat for that, Chris
sechrest: I would like to sit down with you chris and draw a diagram of all of this.
sechrest: I think we have a lot of Use Cases right in our pocket, since we have already been setting these up already.
theunabonger: add "Fraternal Groups" to that list of communities.
***nio_ is quietly observing. This is interesting, I can learn things here..)
JCgeekGirl: a lot of this is in the wiki on the front page but needs to be much more detailed
JCgeekGirl: which john
JCgeekGirl: :D
sechrest: John + Chris doing Use Case Interviewing ...
JCgeekGirl: yes but I believe there were two johns on the phone
sechrest: Only one that I know of (me)
JCgeekGirl: oh.
JCgeekGirl: ok then. :)
JCgeekGirl: woot, déjà vu. :D
bramwessel: sechrest: do you have a methodology in mind for this user interviewing effort?
sechrest: I did not have a specific one. I have some experience doing client interviewing and translating those into requirements.
theunabonger: true, Chris can deliver.
sechrest: Any specific suggestions for methodology?
bramwessel: yes
sechrest: Chris , how about Aviel for designer?
bramwessel: Alan Cooper's About Face (there's 3 editions) has a methodology specifically for that kind of thing
bramwessel: i own the second edition
sechrest: Ok. I will take a look at it. Are you in the Seattle area?
bramwessel: yes
theunabonger: drupal logo is ugly.
bramwessel: Lake City
theunabonger: Olympia, ha.
sechrest: Ok. I am up hear most weekends and pass thru olympia twice a week.
bramwessel: sechrest: i pinged you on linked in
sechrest: Ok.
ChrisPirillo: Aviel?
sechrest: Aviel Ginzburg did the logo for our SixHourStartup
JCgeekGirl: earl grey hot? heh, I didn't hear that well
sechrest: That was what I heard too.
ChrisPirillo: urlgreyhot.com
ChrisPirillo: http://urlgreyhot.com/
JCgeekGirl: k
ChrisPirillo: for UX = User eXperience
JCgeekGirl: OpenSocial/OAuth
bramwessel: chrispirillo: sechrest: the user interview effort feeds directly into UX, and Cooper in About Face has a pathway for that
bramwessel: I sure Michael Angeles will be familiar with Cooper
sechrest: http://www.amazon.com/About-Face-Essentials-Interaction-Design/dp/047008...
bramwessel: yes
sechrest: Data Portability as a future part of the project
theunabonger: widgets to access community data once in place, like from your chumby!
sechrest: Different than OpenID?
JCgeekGirl: yeah, I'm lost.
JCgeekGirl: k
JCgeekGirl: movin on!
JCgeekGirl: :D
sechrest: good call.... focus on the short term task.
theunabonger: How was the weather in Utrecht today, Hans?
JCgeekGirl: agree with adam
hansdekker: don't know, was inside lan-gaming
JCgeekGirl: I was actually thinking about that as well, good idea (googleapps)
JCgeekGirl: then we need to move to hosted-projects.com
ChrisPirillo: ?
JCgeekGirl: they have different security.
theunabonger: haha, "Geek Weekend"!!
ChrisPirillo: dev.gnomepal.org please
ChrisPirillo: keep the url short. :)
JCgeekGirl: yes.
JCgeekGirl: I agree with adam
JCgeekGirl: heh, bozo filter? I like that
sechrest: Non-profit 501C3
bramwessel: 501c3
sechrest: We can talk about how to do this later.
sechrest: http://groups.drupal.org/knight-drupal-initiative
theunabonger: thanks Hans! Good job. ..
sechrest: What is jamie's address?
sechrest: Thanks for the fine call.
JCgeekGirl: jcleftie@gmail.com
bramwessel: thanks Hans!
sechrest: tnx
JCgeekGirl: if I can get a copy of the recording from chris or hans, that would be great.
hansdekker: of course
JCgeekGirl: wow, good thing I've got free weekends ><
sechrest: Yes indeed.
theunabonger: ditto.
ChrisPirillo: LOL
theunabonger: now must shower and get dressed, forgot to get Dingo birthday cake yesterday, so she's sending me out. .. . . .
hansdekker: guys thanks again
2:20pm PDT

I noticed some discussion in this conference call about a few topics and wanted to share my ideas. I've got some experience in Drupal as a developer and general community member, so that's my frame of reference.
My first reaction to the project is split:
1) This is awesome! It will get more people involved in Drupal.
2) This is a bummer. It gets them involved in a separate group with separate (but really similar) goals and the separate group may fork.
So, I think that to get knowledgable developers interested you are going to have to do two things a little better:
1) Make it louder and more clear that you are not going to fork! There was only one mention of this idea. It would be nice to see the "it's not a fork" message a little more prominent and consistent. In the footer maybe? But more specifically, it would be nice to see policies about contributing upstream. Will documentation that's about Gnomepal but also about Drupal be contributed back upstream? Is the goal for the Gnomepal admin panel to become the default? Will lots of stuff be maintained as Gnomepal specific modules? If any modules are created will they be hosted on *.gnomepal.* or will they be hosted on Drupal.org? etc.
2) Be sure to use Drupal as much as possible. There's mention of using Trac and for _not_ using the Drupal forums. Why? The Drupal project* module is awesome, but it needs help. Perhaps you can provide some of that help to make it more usable. Same for forums. Etc. If you want to be taken seriously as a responsible Drupal distribution (which will be necessary, IMO, if you want to attract current Drupal develoeprs) then you are going to need to be committed to using Drupal tools as much as possible.
I think that perhaps some of these things have been addressed in the time since the meeting (especially having seen this) but just wanted to give my thoughts on the topic.
I echo greggles' concerns and recommendations around forking. It does seem that the UI goals of the Drupal crew are the same as the Gnomepal goals.
I also see some challenge in keeping things coordinated with the current Drupal efforts. Not only did Drupal 6 add lots of improved admin and web 2.0 fudge topping, but Drupal 7 is bringing even more. Same for installation process.
greggles mentioned the Drupal project* module which is now nearly overshadowed by Actions, Workflow ng, and the latest CCK and Views. These are super-powerful modules that can produce web apps fast and functional. Meaning, I can build a better project management system using those modules faster than we can code up improvements to the project* module.
Which leads me to think that another angle to accomplishing Gnomepal goals is figuring out how to package how-to's, recipes, admin education, and exportable & importable packs containing CCK/Views/Actions/Workflow records sets. This would make for "loadable apps" for Drupal.
Because of these kinds of factors, I'm wondering if perhaps a good 30%-50% of the Gnomepal energy and efforts should be committed to tracking, coordinating and supporting the current Drupal module dev teams (specifically, the installer and key modules). And maybe more to producing educational & how-to materials?
Whatcha think?
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