At PloneConf 2019 in Ferrara I had a feeling of realization, That I had a misconception of the current state of Plone and development. In talks at the conference I also have seen that others have the same problem, as we speak of very different things.
The overall question that raised is “What is Plone for you?” and what is the future of Plone.
For me Plone is a vision, to empower users. Volto caries this vision. Therefore I can only recommend to endorse Volto as the future of Plone.
The Role of IoT and Sensor Technology in Cargo Cloud Solutions.pptx
The Plone is dead, long live the Plone!
1. The Plone is dead,
long live the Plone!
A problem of misconception
Alexander Loechel
2. This talk cites explicit copyright licensed work:
● Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of ViacomCBS
● The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy based upon the novel by Douglas Adams, the film is produced and
trademark of Touchstone Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, Hammer & Tongs, Everyman Pictures
those images are used for this presentation
under fair use conditions due to
non-profit & non-commercial nature of this
presentation and fandom aspects
All other Images are directly marked with licence and origin, if not CC0/Public domain
CC0
3. Sources and References (Conference Videos)
● Plone Conferences (Ferrara 2019, Tokyo and before)
○ The State of Plone - Eric Steele (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6bTE4GuFSQ)
○ Plone Beyond 2020: Jump into Volto today! - Víctor Fernández de Alba (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QrGOgXo1Js)
○ On the Road - Plone 6 and Beyond - Timo Stollenwerk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suXVdfYV2kA)
○ The Plone Foundation Needs You! - Érico Andrei (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1VLnhRu4e8)
○ Panel - Future of Plone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLd9Nb6TcE4)
○ Panel - Framework comparison (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kXBHu76LNA)
○ Panel - Ask me anything on Volto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwbpXJlDVOs)
○ Reinventing Plone - Roadmap to the Modern Web - Timo Stollenwerk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgqgd-JImHE)
● The Plone Connection Podcast - T. Kim Nguyen + Érico Andrei (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbKvpLjIDIY&)
● Some of my talks - Alexander Loechel
○ Plone, quo vadis? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiDeJxde4fk)
○ We are the Plone Collective. Resistance is futile. Assimilation is inevitable (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbeFFdOGC6k)
○ Web-Content-Management-Systems - The Past - The Present - The Future (https://www.fau.tv/clip/id/9486) CMS Garden approach
○ Plone the Python CMS & Web-Framework for advanced Topics and Non-Developers
(https://de.slideshare.net/AlexanderLoechel/plone-the-python-cms-web-framework-for-advanced-topics-and-nondevelopers)
○ Zope / Plone - A History of Python Web (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zgujXCPmrI)
6. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Touchstone Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, Hammer & Tongs, Everyman Pictures
Language is difficult
Language is important!
More than just Syntax and Semantics
Words have specific meanings
⬇
Technology is complex and maybe complicated
⬇
Common Sense / Understanding is even harder
7. I am an Information Scientist
& Manager
⬇
therefore I am very language sensitive
(maybe not always language aware)
The Absolute Correctness - Georgios Liakopoulos
CC-SA 3.0 Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Absolute_Correctness_(205421489).jpeg
8. 8
“Most of the biggest problems
in software are problems
of misconception.”
Rich Hickey
9. What is Plone for you?What is Plone for you? - Maurizio Delmonte - Abstract @ Plone Open Garden Sorrento 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfDFhLFwPK4
10. What is Plone for you?
Questions - by Nick Youngson
CC-BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images - http://alphastockimages.com/
11. What is your connection to Plone?
● None
● User
● Integrator
● Addon Developer
● Core-Developer
● Community Member
● Foundation Member
12. What is Plone for you?
● A Product CMS
● A Framework / Toolkit
● A Community
● A Foundation
● An Idea / Vision
13. What are the core ideas of Plone for you?
● User Experience → Empowering Users
● Accessibility → Diversity
● Flexibility (unopinionated base)
● Extensibility
● Security
● Multilingual
● Scalability
● Maintainability
14. What are core functionalities of Plone for you?
● Content Types (including Schema, Fields & Behaviors)
● Permissions
● Workflows
● Hierarchy
● Traversal
● Acquisition
● Collections (Query Data)
● Generic Setup (Policies + Addon System)
● Pluggable Auth System (PAS)
● Content Rules
● Internationalization + Localization
● Through the Web (TTW) Customization / Development
● ...
15. Who are the competitors to Plone, in your point of view?
● Drupal
● Typo3
● WordPress
● Django CMS
● Wagtail
● … (some other CMS)
● Liferay
● SharePoint
● None
16. What is Plone now? / What is Plone in 2020?
Presentations at Plone Conference 2019 and before
An feeling of realizing at Plone Conference 2019 Ferrara
17.
18.
19. Plone is a Software Plone is an Software API
Plone is a Community Plone is a Foundation
20. Plone Core is an API
→ but there are more than one API:
plone.api, plone.restapi and Plone-UI
→ none is complete
Every Plone Company has a
different point of view of competitors
→ different focus of their product
21. What is “Plone “ now?
● “The mature open-source Python CMS”
● “Plone is the community”
● Foundation Viewpoint API contract
○ Plone CMS ➤ Security
○ Zope ➤ Flexibility
○ Guillotina ➤ Extensibility
○ Volto ➤ User Experience
● Community Viewpoint
○ Sprints
○ Conferences
○ Add-ons
Plone as the API contract
23. Plone has evolved from being an
standalone product to be a contract,
the knowledge and wisdom that we the Plone community,
achieved during the last 20 years
building a world class enterprise CMS
Víctor Fernández de Alba - Volto: Past Present and Future - PloneConf 2020
24. The Limi Checklist → Simplifying
→ Simplifying Plone
● Developers
○ Simplifying the technical Stack
○ Use Standard Technology → REST API + React
● Users
○ Cognitive Overhead
○ Fewer Content Types
○ Composite Pages
38. “All Ideas grow out of other Ideas.”
Anish Kapoor
“If I have seen further it is by
standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
Isaac Newton - Bernard of Chartres
39.
40.
41. Plone was the User Interface
to the power of Zope / CMF
ZMI → Plone UI
Plone UI vs. CLI & Code
42. Layered System
● Layers hide complexity
● make complex things easier
● defined API between the layers
46. We are the Plone Community,
not the Zope Community!
Values, Ideas and Vision are more
important to us than the technology
47. API Problem
Pareto principle → 80/20 rule
● Define the API → Functionality
● Reinventing the wheel
● Never 100 % Feature compatible
(undocumented features, no API definition for feature)
● Depreciation of features
48. A complex system that works is invariably
found to have evolved from a simple system
that worked. The inverse proposition also
appears to be true: A complex system designed
from scratch never works and cannot be made
to work. You have to start over, beginning with
a working simple system.
Source: "John Gall's law" - from "Systemantics: How Systems Really Work and How They Fail" - 1975
54. Distributions with a product character
(make complex systems simpler)
System / Vendor development
To reach a greater market
55. “Any intelligent fool can make
things bigger and complex… it
takes a touch of genius - and a
lot of courage to move in the
opposite direction.”
Albert Einstein
Star Trek - The Next Generation (1987-1994) S06E02 - Realm of Fear
Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of ViacomCBS
58. Le roi est mort,
vive le roi!
The King is dead,
long live the king!
Traditional proclamation
→ change and continuity
→ change of generation
(“A new Hope”)
→ new energy / enthusiasm
65. Acknowledgement
The active Plone Community
Albert Casado, Alec Mitchell, Alessandro Pisa, Alexander Loechel, Andrea Cecchi, Andreas Jung, Asko Soukka, Christian Kreutzer, Christian
Theune, Christine Baumgartner, Cillian de Róiste, Davi Lima, Daniel Havlik, David Glick, Eric Bréhault, Eric Steele, Érico Andrei, Fred van Dijk,
Georg Bernhard, Gil Forcada, Godfroid Chapelle, Hanno Schlichting, Harald Frissnegger, Jan Mevissen, Jens Klein, Jens Vagepohl, Johannes
Raggam, Joni Orponen, Jörg Zell, Jürgen Gmach, Katja Süss, Maik Derstappen, Manuel Reinhardt, Markus Hilbert, Matthew Wilkes, Martin Häcker,
Maurits van Rees, Michael Howitz, Michael Töpfl, Nathan Van Gheem, Ramon Navarro Bosch, Rob Gietema, Robert Niederreiter, Roel Bruggink,
Patrick Gerken, Paul Roeland, Peter Holzer, Peter Mathis, Phillip Bauer, Stephan Klinger, Steffen Allner, Sune Brøndum Wøller, Thomas Lotze,
Thomas Massmann, Thomas Schorr, Tres Seaver, Timo Stollenwerk, Víctor Fernández de Alba, David Glick, Gil Forcada Cordinachs, Franco
Pellegrini, Paul Roeland, Steve McMahon, Martin Opstad Reistadbakk, Sven Strack, Steve McMahon, T. Kim Nguyen
And much more ...
Star Trek (Kelvin Timeline, 2009)
Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of ViacomCBS
66. “Things do not happen.
Things are made to happen”
John F. Kennedy
→ Change needs Leadership
Star Trek - The Next Generation (1987-1994)
Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of ViacomCBS
67. Plone Foundation
Mission: Protect and Promote Plone
What the Foundation Board of Directors does:
● Decision-making structure for essential community activities
● Manage Copyrights, Trademark, Domains, Intellectual Property
● Code Licensing
● Coordinate Marketing & Communication
● Fundraising to support the community
● Finance sprints, events community infrastructure
Outside the scope of the Foundation
● Lead or steer the development of software → Framework & Release-Team
○ Roadmap, priorities, feature come from the community
○ Foundation has liaisons to some teams - communication
● Compete with Plone/Zope/Guilliotina/Volto providers
○ Support contracts, licenses
○ Trainings
69. Wishes for the future:
● for Plone the Product:
○ Endorse Volto - the Plone vision of “simplifying CMS work”
○ Attract new developers - keep the community vital
○ Move Packages / Modules
→ generics and namespace
● for Plone the Foundation:
○ Secure the Product / Framework / Toolkit
○ Overlap with the Pyramid / Pylons Family → Absorb
● for Plone the Community:
○ Stay connected
○ Learn from each other
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of ViacomCBS
70. Stay Community
“You can take the man out of Plone
But you could not take the Plone out of the man.”
Laurence Rowe - Plone Open Garden 2015 - Sorrento
71. Live long and prosper
Star Trek (Kelvin Timeline, 2009)
Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of ViacomCBS