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Plone Conference 2007
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Last week I attended the 2007 Plone Conference in Napoli, Italy. Plone is the software that powers the Social Edge web site, and it was great to get a look at the latest revisions to it and talk with the folks who are doing the actual development of the product. Or platform. Maybe it's a platform product? Well, however you describe Plone, it is working well for us here on the Edge. Now we get to start planning when we're going to upgrade to the latest release and what features we'll put to use first. With any luck, users will never notice a big change, just new features as we roll them out. It is going to take us a little while to gear up for that, so don't expect anything new to show up right away.
One of the keynotes at the conference was from Tom Moroz of the Open Society Institute, and it was about the similarities between the open source software movement and work by non-profits towards an open society. Interesting parallels, to be sure. I was most interested in his comments about the need for online collaboration tools for non-profits.
It was also interesting to find out about some of the organizations that are using Plone to run their sites. Discover Magazine has a nice Plone based site, as does Novell, but I was more surprised to find out that the CIA is also using Plone. I guess I can stop fretting over whether or not Plone is secure enough for us here on Social Edge. They should still probably consider updating their favicon, though the folks working on Plone appreciate the free advertising.
I was surprised by the number of Windows based laptops at the conference. Not that they were numerous, but in fact the exact opposite. I saw more presentations delivered from Ubuntu based machines, along with other Linux variants than I did from any of the various flavors of Windows. Macs, on the other hand, have gone from being a geek's focus of condescension years ago to the most prevalent platform for hardcore developers. Even more surprising to me was that Keynote is taking hold amongst this crowd over PowerPoint.
The most interesting part of the conference, however, was just the camaraderie of the developers. Coming from a corporate background, it still surprises me that folks from around the world can come together to develop something as complex as a content management system, for free, and have that product end up being robust and secure enough to meet the needs of major corporations like Novell, and security intensive organizations like the CIA. As Tom Moroz discussed in his keynote, we all have something to learn from the open source software crowd.
One of the keynotes at the conference was from Tom Moroz of the Open Society Institute, and it was about the similarities between the open source software movement and work by non-profits towards an open society. Interesting parallels, to be sure. I was most interested in his comments about the need for online collaboration tools for non-profits.
It was also interesting to find out about some of the organizations that are using Plone to run their sites. Discover Magazine has a nice Plone based site, as does Novell, but I was more surprised to find out that the CIA is also using Plone. I guess I can stop fretting over whether or not Plone is secure enough for us here on Social Edge. They should still probably consider updating their favicon, though the folks working on Plone appreciate the free advertising.
I was surprised by the number of Windows based laptops at the conference. Not that they were numerous, but in fact the exact opposite. I saw more presentations delivered from Ubuntu based machines, along with other Linux variants than I did from any of the various flavors of Windows. Macs, on the other hand, have gone from being a geek's focus of condescension years ago to the most prevalent platform for hardcore developers. Even more surprising to me was that Keynote is taking hold amongst this crowd over PowerPoint.
The most interesting part of the conference, however, was just the camaraderie of the developers. Coming from a corporate background, it still surprises me that folks from around the world can come together to develop something as complex as a content management system, for free, and have that product end up being robust and secure enough to meet the needs of major corporations like Novell, and security intensive organizations like the CIA. As Tom Moroz discussed in his keynote, we all have something to learn from the open source software crowd.
