contentmanagement

All CMS's Are Puppies

So, there's been some great back and forth on a recent blog posting over at Interwoven.  In that posting, Interwoven's Annie Weinberger makes the argument that Open Source is Free like a Free Puppy is free. 

Once again, the Open Source fans yell that this isn't fair and someone trots out the original quote in the Free Software Movement mantra that Open Source was meant to be free as in "Freedom" not "Free Beer". 

Seth Gottlieb (as he almost always does) gets it right in his reply here.

The truth is that the metaphor is just clumsy.   ALL CMS's are like Puppies - some you buy and some you get for free.  They ALL require care and feeding.  And let me tell you from personal experience that TeamSite is like a stubborn male Pug when it comes to the care and feeding (it eats alot and goes where it wants to go).

But I owned a Pug and absolutely loved that dog.  And, so too, can you "own" a CMS and have it be successful for you; whether that CMS is an Open Source or Commercially Licensed product.

The question isn't whether the CMS choice is like a box of puppies - some you buy and some you get for free.  But, rather, it's whether you should have a dog in the first place - and what breed is most appropriate for you.  If you live in a small one bedroom apartment and are single, a Bull Mastiff probably isn't the best choice (oy this metaphor is getting tired already).

The key here is (and maybe this is the point that Annie is really trying to make) something that we've been saying for a long time.    The reason to acquire an Open Source CMS should not be because you think it's "free".  There are many reasons to choose Open Source CMS products (flexibility to customize, access to the source code, community etc...)  But a low ("free") licensing cost is not one of them.

To use another clumsy metaphor.  The licensing cost of ANY CMS product is like buying a sailboat.  It's the smallest part of the cost equation.  It's the ongoing management and maintenance of that solution that will become the biggest cost-factor.  And your thirst for that piece is what should be a guiding principle in your decision on a solution.

Open Source No Longer A Business Model

The 451 Group, an analyst group that I really respect came out with a controversial new report entitled Open Source is not a business model.

This report really flies in the face of what has almost become a cliche - that if you just build software and give it away for free you can build a business by charging customers for support and customization.

The 451 Group says it ain't so.

In fact, they posit (after analyzing the businesses of 114 open source-related companies) that:

A) the majority of open source vendors now use some kind of commercial licensing as at least a part of their business.

and

B) that at least half of them develop some code for the product as "out of sight" material...

And, they then point out that 70% of the companies surveyed offered support services to their customers.  But, only 8% of them said that this is a primary revenue stream.

Matthew Aslett (the report's author) even says "there is very little money being made out of open source software that doesn't involve proprietary software and services".

This actually supports what we've been saying at CrownPeak for a long time.

Open Source software is a great solution.  And, in fact it can many times be the perfect solution for your needs.  However, choose Open Source for the right reason.  Choose it because you are "free to develop"  Choose it because you have unique requirements and a team, or can afford to spend money on support, maintenance, upgrades and infrastructure management.  Don't choose it because it's "free of cost".  You're going to spend money - whether it's with a commercial software vendor or an Open Source provider/support vendor or your own internal team.

Movable Type 4.2 - A Sea Change?

Movable Type has just announced their new upgrade 4.2 - and a new product called Movable Type Pro.  According to the release, the new "Pro" version has custom fields that owners can now use to add new attributes to their content - thus boosting the more generalized content management aspects of the software.

In addition, and probably much more importantly, they've added Social Networking into the product, so that people can "participate in forums, recommend stories and vote for stories".

Sounds like an incredibly cool new set of features for an already well thought out blogging tool. (Full Disclosure: this blog is on Typepad, the SaaS version of Movable Type).

 Additionally, Chris Alden, Six Apart's CEO says ""The readers … can establish their own profiles and can ask questions, participate in forums, recommend stories and vote for stories".

But then Ed Anuff, general manager of Six Apart's Movable Type division says:

"The type of Web site that you build with Movable Type doesn't have to look like a classic two- or three-column blog," he added. "It can be structured to look like any Web site you see surfing the Web. Web publishing is moving from a heavily process-driven activity to being something more decentralized, something more inclusive of community, and being able to build Web sites in a more rapid and agile fashion. We really view Movable Type as part of sea change in Web content management toward a social publishing direction."

While I don't entirely disagree - I think I'd parse the words a bit differently.  While I think it's an interesting new set of product features, moving web content management toward a social publishing direction is an incredibly cool feature for a very specific type of web site.

I do agree that web sites are generally moving in a direction where they are more decentralized, and need to be built in a more rapid and agile fashion - and we'll see if I can really do that with this new version (just downloaded the trial).

Rather, this release seems to me to be just part of the real sea change and more general trend that we're seeing where specific vertical or horizontally focused frameworks of web sites, rather than those created/designed from "scratch" are helping organizations launch new web sites quickly and efficiently.  So, yes, this framework (a social media directed framework) is part of that overall trend.  But that's just it.  A small part of a larger trend. Social media web sites are just one piece of that trend.

Why We Love Open Source

As a history buff, and kind of a TV nut, I've been intrigued that we've been getting a bunch of great new movies that are really great history pieces. I just loved the John Adams miniseries that HBO did. And I just watched Recount - which was a great re-telling of the Bush V. Gore Florida mess... I promise that's where the politics stop... One of the main themes of both of these pieces is that we should remember our history, lest we be destined to repeat it.

So, it's amazing to me how forgotten the original ideas of Open Source have become. In a classic came of telephone, over the years, people have really come to equate Open Source with "free" - as in "no money".

Long forgotten is that Open Source, or even the “Free Software movement” that preceded it was never about cost. In fact, the Free Software Movement is famous for saying "Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free speech', not 'free beer'."

Even today’s Open GNU license says right in its preamble that free software is freedom not price.

Open source has always been about giving people flexibility and control. From its founding it was about giving developers the freedom to configure software however, whenever and wherever they like. Certainly in the beginning this was because there often wasn’t a commercial alternative available. But over time – this has become something that has resembled more of a movement in the sense of being able to modify, configure and customize software freely. And then share that with a larger community and have it be improved upon.

The challenge is that all too frequently, the choice of Open Source CMS software is an attempt to solve the wrong problem. The price. The choice of open source is often NOT made with an eye toward the comparison of a solution that I install, support and upgrade, vs. a system that I don't have to support, install and upgrade. It's still all too often made over which one seems "cheaper". And then, actually, the choice of Open Source CMS Software often compounds the problem it’s intended to solve which is providing a more inexpensive way of managing the web site.

With Open Source it’s freedom TO, not freedom FROM price…

And when we look at Open Source CMS systems we find that this is still the main benefit. A large, open community employs the “wisdom of crowds” theory to software development. In short, with a large productive community, you theoretically have more options, more customization capabilities and wider support options.

Now, in an Open Source CMS like Drupal or Joomla – the treasure trove of benefits are not typically in the code itself. There certainly is a community that does support the core product development. But MOST of the development is happening on the front end… With Drupal and Joomla it’s new themes, modules, front end templates that are exciting the community… Because let’s face it that’s where most of the work gets done in the real world… Especially with agencies that need to get a client up and running… Having a LARGE choice of themes and modules is what’s made Drupal one of the leading Open Source CMS’s out there…. It’s certainly NOT its ease of implementation or customization, which is legendarily cumbersome. And, it’s not in its security, or its scalability which again has been well documented.

And that's one of the reasons CrownPeak launched this community. We believe in the philosophoy of the community driven solution. We want to share frameworks, templates, best practices with our customers - and celebrate the open philosophy of software elements that can be developed and shared freely.

If you haven't reviewed our code library for best practices or templates, that's a great place to start - and as we grow the community we hope the trade and our own submissions of templates, themes, frameworks and best practices to the community will be valuable to you.