pcplantdb

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

> Chad Knepp wrote:
>
>
> > The learning curve of Zope is two part.  To write highly customized
> > products for it (what we need), Zope is pretty complex.  If we were
> > just setting up a wiki in Zope it wouldn't be much harder than
> > installing any other kind of wiki.  The use and maintenance of these
> > products is really quite simple and there is lot of customization that
> > can be done without getting much more technical than writing HTML and
> > some Javascript.  This part of Zope also has excellent documentation
> > <http://zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/>

I am still skeptical about what can be done with Zope to produce the software 
we will use for the long term.
With Rich's comments in mind, I wonder what limitations will be imposed on 
users by accessing all our resources (data, graphics, etc)
through an all-Zope platform instead of the usual Apache, Linux, MySQL, PHP, 
HTML, XML, Javascript, CGI scripts, Perl, PHP, etc.
From the perspective of low-level administrators of the HG platform, only being able to work with tools available in the all Zope 
environment may (may (?), not will) limit their ability to create the type of resources they want to see exist in HG. With the 
Apache/Linux/MySQL, etc. option all you need are the usual web authoring skills to help maintain the HG website, containing the database 
which would be maintained by those with the required skill levels.

Look at it this way: you, Rich and others are going to be paid for any/all the work on HG you do. It is very likely that a considerable 
amount of funding will become available for this project and fairly soon at that. So, as long as 1) you and Rich agree on the development 
platform to be used 2) the best platform is selected based solely on technical criteria (long term stability, robustness and maximum 
functionality, portability and expandibility, does the most for users of the database) what difference does it make which platform you choose?

I still must stick to my preference that we do this project on ibiblio and 
not at some location where we have to pay for what ibiblio
offers for free. If we have to provide systems administrator resources, say on a co-located server, we will have long term maintenance 
issues to deal with as well as paying for bandwidth and equipment and its maintenance. ISP's charge serious money for hosting and HG could
get stuck with big costs as it grows. This could be a problem for HG offering its resources for free to the public. Stephanie's statement 
that our grant (future ones too?) allows only a small percentage to be used for wages. This needs to be changed early on or HG will go 
nowhere. From the beginning I have felt that most (maybe 90%) of funding shoud be used to create the software product. That could change 
after the software is created and more money is needed to pay people to maintain and upgrade that software and to buy information resources
such as datasets and graphics or multimedia. With ibiblio offering us the 
most expensive component (over the long term) of our project
for free we can get by with less grant funding (good in case grants become hard to get) to make HG happen since nearly all that money can 
pay for software development and maintenance. After all, we go nowhere without that software.

Whether Zope or Eden/MySQL, etc. is chosen I think we should use ibiblio as our host. To me, it just doesn't make sense to go elsewhere, for 
all the reasons I have already mentioned. I have serious concerns about the future of HG if it doesn't exist on ibiblio for as long as they 
offer us space and resources. JS mentioned that there are lots of free servers out there. Name a few and tell us exactly what they offer for 
free and for how long and the limitations are that they impose. I don't really see this as an alternative worth considering.

So, at this point, my decision is to continue to participate in the development of permaculture.info as long as it will be hosted on 
ibiblio, regardless of the software used. If the group decides to use other hosting I will make my contributions elsewhere, probably on my 
own websites, lists and wikis. If Rich prefers to remain on ibiblio and develop PFAF further there I will contribute data and photographs to 
PFAF (even if it is only through their existing tools used for submitting resources).

Feedback welcome.

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech