A good portion of the Sixie crew is now back from the superbly organized Plone Symposium Midwest (PSM) (hats off to Kim Nguyen and his companions) at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh, WI. It took the team a long week to recover as the conference kept us all very busy from the crack of dawn all the way till very late in the evening --- err, scratch that, early morning.
So, what do we take back from PSM this year? Where is Plone heading?
PSM being the largest Plone event in the US this year, saying it was a highly anticipated event is an understatement. Plone developers, integrators and users alike were looking forward to something better than tea leaves and crystal balls to answer the question of "where is Plone heading". And, oh boy, did we get the answer, loud and clear!
First, our own Chrissy Wainwright's training class on Plone theming quite literally sold out with a record of 19 people in her two-day session! This is twice as many sign-ups as she usually gets.
Then our CTO, Calvin Hendryx-Parker, totally filled a large computer lab with his a "Plone 101" intro session. All of us in
the Sixie support team, as well as the UWOSH crew, had to either sit on the floor or on a folding chair way at the back to be able to leave the computers to the trainees.
This was quite a workout for our PloneDemo.com website. At some point, I spotted 54 people logged in the system at once, and creating content simultaneously!
Then Ken Wasetis, from Contextual, presented an outstanding comparison between Plone and Drupal (Video). Now, now, we aren't here to bash Drupal. Drupal is huge and backed by a very wealthy organization. It powers very large and complex websites... too. And that's what's really cool about all of this: Ken concluded the two CMS are really side-by-side on many features. So, a lot of investment money doesn't necessarily buy a better technology. The Plone Community still manages to produce an outstanding enterprise web content management system. Oh, and, if you are looking for robust workflows, flexible collections, outstanding security, and granular versioning, you may still want to choose Plone over Drupal ;-)
The unforgettable Elizabeth Leddy also painted a very exciting picture of the Plone world, citing numerous stats and graphics. Two stand out specifically: Plone development sprints are up as we get closer to Plone 5, and 4 out of 5 of the top Plone core developers are twice as active than last year.
And did I mention the Symposium attendance pretty much doubled from last year?
All of this really confirmed what we had all intuitively known: the Plone community is definitely experiencing an exciting and healthy level of activity shared by both old-timers and newbies.
At the heart of this buzzing activity is one communal project: Plone 5. Officially announced. Described in detail (on paper, even!). Fervently debated. Actively developed by a myriad of world-wide busy bee developers all working together toward the same goal: releasing the next version of Plone.
Eric Steele's keynote "The State of Plone" (Video) gave the signal: we are done talking. Now we are in "doing" mode. Plone 5 IS going to happen, <expletive of your choice>!
Plone 5 will come with a clear set of themes:
This is the passion that fueled a whole week of trainings, presentations, lightning talks, debates and sprints at the Plone Symposium Midwest in Oshkosh, WI.
This is why we are supporting the Plone community more than ever:
Do you want to join a thriving, true open source community? Come to the Bastille Day sprint or contribute on the PayPal page. Do you need a feature that is currently missing in Plone? Tell us about it. Do you want a demo of Plone? Contact us.
Six Feet Up, Inc.
11208 Windermere Blvd.
Fishers, IN 46037 - USA
Phone: +1 (317) 861-5948
Email: info@sixfeetup.com
