[geeklog-devel] eWeek story on Open Source CMS

[Dwight Trumbower]

At 02:00 PM 1/23/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>While setting on my throne this morning catching up on my reading I ran
>across this story in eWeek
>
>http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,826084,00.asp
>
>It briefly talks about phpnuke, eZ Publish, and Bricolage (no Geeklog).  As
>plans are being made for G2 (ooh how about that for a name) some of the
>comments made there we should keep in mind.  Briefly what I picked up on as
>lacking in these:
>
>1)  Easy install
>2)  Difficulty changing look and feel
>3)  Poorly documented/structured code making modes difficult
>4)  Lack of version control??
>5)  Too rapid release schedule making keeping up to date hard
>6)  Permissions system
>7)  Workflow apps
>
>Check it out.
>
>--
>Tom Willett
>tomw at pigstye.net

As someone who has been looking the past months at these systems, I 
wondered if the hassle of having a canned portal was worth it.  My goal was 
to find a systems that was easy to use and I didn't have to spend days on 
modifying the look and feel ( other than being left brain challenged). 
Another selling point for me was having an integrated forum. I've tried 
phpwebsite, EZ and looked at nukes.
         Ez was too complex for my needs and most small size compainies. 
Which is my target audience.
         Phpwebsite looks promising but is designed for the college, thus 
lacks true some world needs.
         Nukes, why be like everyone else.

So I stumbled on geeklog, probably through hotscirpts, since it doesn't 
appear high enough in a google search. I liked what I see. Fairly straight 
forward and easy to get a basic site going.

My biggest complaint about portal systems I've looked at, is the lack of 
good documentation. Most projects assume everyone is a die hard php coder. 
If you want a project to succeed and be used by the masses, keep it simple. 
Simple doesn't mean feature lacking, it means a user doesn't need  lots of 
time to figure out how to install a system.

This article might also help in defining requirements for G2.
http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_evaluate/




Dwight
dwight at trumbower.com