7.2. Overview

You and Plone

How does your role compare to other user roles in these different scenarios?

In the following pages, comparisons are made to show the range of possibilities.  You could have a limited role on the Plone site you use, but by learning about other examples, there will be a greater awareness for understanding the potential, and for appreciating the level of sophistication already present on the Plone web site you use. We pick a few examples here that are by no means exhaustive, but hopefully offer a fair illustration.

The Nature of Plone

Now that you have an appreciation of how Plone works, and before we get into the example scenarios, a few comments about the open-source, collaborative nature of Plone's development are appropriate.  People involved in writing code, documenting, and testing Plone share a vision of support for open-source sofware. The term refers to the openness of code to community development, and for use by whomever wants to use it, even those interested in commercial uses and derivatives. This stands in sharp contrast to so-called proprietary software, wherein an individual author or a company creates and improves code as their judgment and needs dictate. Proprietary software isn't bad, it is just different. Plone, along with most other open-source software, uses the GNU General Public License, or GPL, which offers needed protections against unfair exploitation, but serves to engender a greater sense of community and the power of common will toward the greater good.

Often people misinterpret some aspects of open-source software, by immediately, and superficially, associating the concept with a simple notion of being "free." First, they miss the point that it might not actually be free (See the GNU FAQ and their discussion of free software concepts.). Second, open-source software really shouldn't be thought of as "free," because a great deal of monetary resources go into it. There is a cost for humans doing practically anything. Consider the electricity to run computers and lights for people working on software, or the cost of plane tickets for programmers to attend a collaborative development jam-session called a sprint, or salaries or parts of salaries.  The individual participants may be lone citizen developers or writers or testers, who contribute out of their pocket, or they may be employees of non-profit organizations or for-profit businesses, who are on salary. Regardless, there is money involved in development of open source software -- lots of it.  Furthermore, Plone has a typical modern-day scale. Development of software such as Plone is a global effort, with many countries the world over having several active individuals involved.

From this discussion, you may gather why proponents of open-source software recognize it as first-class software, not software that should automatically, or necessarily, play second-fiddle to proprietary software.

Developers of Plone believe that the open-source model is viable and preferred for much software development. This doesn't imply that proponents of open source software such as Plone snub their noses at all commercially developed software. No, they simply recognize the viability of the model, and use it when they can.

But isn't Plone free for people to use?  True, usually there is no price tag associated with downloading and installing Plone (Again, see the discussion of free software concepts).  Don't forget the costs associated with paying for a web server computer and bandwidth, custom installation and maintenance, and the cost of training.  These costs would be necessary, even if Plone cost $1,000,000 to download, but just because it doesn't, they should not be ignored. Nothing is free. Companies, organizations, and other institutions who help with Plone development understand this idea, and see a good return on investment, and embracing the leverage afforded by the open-source model.

Once you have examined the potential of the open-source model, you feel the common spirit. 

Now for some example scenarios of using Plone.

Next: The Nature of Plone Previous: Initial (pre-doccom sprint) list-oriented manual items