Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Paul Everitt on Zope and Frontier

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:6/18/1999; 9:51:58 AM
Topic:Paul Everitt on Zope and Frontier
Msg #:7554
Prev/Next:7553 / 7555

Dave Winer: So here are some questions for you. What does it mean to have UserLand and our Mac/Windows developers, adding value to the Zope environment?

Paul Everitt: Frontier is a tremendously respected content management tool, and the Frontier community has a deep accumulation of wisdom and experience. Zope is currently a reflection of the needs of its community, as is Frontier. Now that the two tools share information, the two communities can as well.

DW: What do you see as the upside for you and your users?

PE: While Zope is emerging, Frontier has arrived. UserLand has coattails. If UserLand picked Zope as its first deployment target for Unix, it signifies a compatability of ideas and architecture that strengthens the case for both.

DW: What would you like to say to our users about Zope? To your users about Frontier?

PE: I'd like to inform the Frontier users about the key ideas in Zope. First, Zope started from the server and worked backword, just the opposite of Frontier. Next, Zope staked out a position three years ago for putting objects on the web, with URLs like:

www.your.server/Object/Subobject/subobject/method?arg1=value&...

I'll tell the Zope community that Frontier+Zope expands the universe of both Frontier and Zope. This allows both to go in new spaces, rather than competing in each other's space.

DW: To the extent that our products compete, how does it feel to collaborate with a competitor? And how does open source play a role in this?

PE: I view this more as a support of protocols. We absolutely love open protocols. Zope doesn't have a GUI per se, it supports numerous protocols (HTTP, FastCGI, FTP, etc.) for clients that have GUIs. With that in mind, the chances that these two fantastic products would work together without open source software being involved is very, very small.

DW: I put a snippet of philosophy on our home page today:

"We're publishing source code and tutorials to show people how to use their Mac and Windows skills to deploy scalable applications on Linux. Our focus is on building systems that leverage the advantages of all platforms. We don't have an allegiance to any individual platform. We don't want to see Microsoft or Apple lose. We just want to make great servers and web writing environments and help others do the same. No fear!"

Do you agree with this statement? Do you care to amplify?

PE: In my speech at WWW8 and LinuxExpo:

http://www.digicool.com/Library/FTPB/index.html

...I chastise the open source community for focusing on defeating the titans. I think open protocols and open source should help its friends (e.g. small- to mid-sized businesses) rather than overthrow its enemies. It's obvious that the Internet is the platform. Thanks to xml-rpc, we have a reasonable glue, one based on simple light-weight standards, for collaboration.

DW: If you have the time, it would be great to get your comments. Write a four-five paragraph essay, or go as long as you want, let's create an interesting record of working together for a bigger-picture, and help show, by example, that different worlds gain a lot by working with each other.

PE: I'll keep an eye out for your post then jump into the discussion this evening when I return. I've also cc'd Hadar Pedhazur, our board chairman and the principal at the VC fund that convinced us to go open source. He and I do the work on getting the message out.

Thanks Dave!

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:50:54 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.