[Zope] Re: Zope is in trouble

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

Gregory Dudek wrote:
> A key factor is that from the zope.org web site it is not clear if the 
> community is healthy or not, and the general impression is that the 
> project is stalled since so many links are dead and defunct (and in fact 
> I am not so sure of the zope community health myself any longer, despite 
> the ongoing zope postings here).   In my opinion, making zope.org look 
> healthy and be usable is the MOST important obstacle for the Zope 
> community.  I believe this is both a symptom and a cause of disarray in 
> the Zope user/developer community.
> 
> Zope was always a bit hairy to get into, without saying anything about 
> Plone development or Zope 3, I just want to point out that without a 
> clear simple up-to-date main web site, things are looking really bad.  I 
> introduced some zope-based material in an introductory computer science 
> course a few years ago with moderate success, but am starting to doubt 
> it would be appropriate any longer.
> 
> I am not criticizing the people on this list or the other Zope 
> developers: I have enormous appreciation for what has been built, I just 
> would hate to see is dwindle in vitality and use.

Gregory, thanks for bringing this up. Please be assured that we're aware 
of this problem just as well. With the Zope Foundation in place, we can 
now tackle tasks like zope.org much better. But it takes time to get 
settled and we need volunteers. We've made some progress already, but 
we're not there yet. There's a committee which is actively planning on 
improving zope.org in the near future.

As far as zope.org's focus is concerned, it has shifted, as many already 
pointed out. We're no longer trying to make it a site with member 
accounts. Software is best released through the Python CheeseShop (aka 
PyPI) these days and bug collectors can be found on Launchpad. 
Outsourcing high-maintenance factors like these will allow us to focus 
on zope.org's actual message: promoting Zope.


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