Forum OpenACS Q&A: Bite-size pieces

A handful of thoughts:

- Technology and Marketing are two different things. Marketers
are usually bad technologists, and technologists are usually bad
marketers.

- Most open-source projects focus on technology, while the
companies that sell services around these projects focus on
marketing.

- OpenACS is too fat.

The first two points I've mentioned before. Yes, OpenACS needs
more marketing, but I suspect most of the marketing should
come from the companies that sell OpenACS services, not from
a centralized OpenACS developer effort. Talli might organize a
booth at LinuxWorld, for example, and get other companies to
help out. But the driver there is Talli of Musea Tech. Malte might
organize a LearningTech booth for OpenACS, but the driver there
is Malte from Sussdorff & Roy.

Marketing materials? Let's pick a market first. Developers? Okay,
let's do developer marketing by writing position papers,
documentation, etc... I did a couple of those a while ago, and
maybe it's time to write a few more position papers. A demo
server is probably good for developers too (but we need some
volunteers to help run it!).

Marketing for business folks? I continue to believe that this
remains the job of the various OpenACS companies, not of
OpenACS.org or the developer community.

Technology: I'm more optimistic than Don and Lars about the
state of OpenACS 4. I *do* agree that many of the modules are
trash and need to be rewritten. In fact, OpenForce has done that
via the dotLRN effort (FAQ, bboard, calendar to some degree, file
storage improvements). I want more <b>decentralization</b>.
OpenACS should be distributed as a core with very little
functionality, and each package should be distributed
independently. Bundlings of functionality can be maintained
(dotLRN, dotX, dotY, etc...) by those who have a specific interest
in it. But until photobook is actively maintained by someone, let's
trash it.

So what can *you* do?

- we need to clean up some packages. Do you have
development time?

- we need to run a demo server for OpenACS. Do you have time
to help run it?

- we need a couple more forums (the nature of which are being
decided in that other forum thread). Do you have time to help
answer questions and maintain it?

- we need more documentation and more coordination with the
outside world (Freshmeat, dmoz, etc...). Do you have time to be
the pointperson for this?

- we need some more real-life examples of OpenACS in use. Do
you implement OpenACS commercially? Can you write case
studies?

There's more to do, but those are a few immediate things that
can be worked on. I like the grand ideas, and some of these
ideas are great, but I also like *bit-size* pieces that we can
attack immediately.