Mitch is dead on by saying its not as simple as J vs D. Seems like this was the culmination of years of work by Drupal people in DC, targeting and learning how to get government contracts. O'Reilly has a blog post on how big these guys are thinking and how professionally they're doing business: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/10/whitehouse-switch-drupal-opensource.html
" ... don't underestimate the difficulty of doing business in Washington. Procurement is done through a complex ballet understood by few open source companies ... a big IT deployment like this requires coordination between many companies, each providing a piece of the puzzle. According to techpresident.com, no fewer than five firms were involved in the switch: prime contractor General Dynamics Information Systems, Drupal specialists Phase 2 and Acquia, hosting provider Terremark, and CDN-supplier Akamai." FWIW, he agrees with Mitch's point about the social features: "Drupal has a huge library of user-contributed modules that will provide functionality the White House can use to expand its social media capabilities, with everything from super-scalable live chats to multi-lingual support." Drupal folk did http://recovery.gov and http://www.nysenate.gov plus http://commerce.gov apparently is coming next: http://www.lullabot.com/articles/bringing-drupal-us-government The flip side is that Drupal has no commercial market to speak of - all the money is in custom work. Steve On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Mitch Pirtle <[email protected]>wrote: > On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Gary Mort <[email protected]> wrote: > > While this is a bit of sour grapes, and I am overall thrilled to see a > high > > profile website[the White House] switiching to an Open Source > CMS[Drupal], > > it does make me think a bit about just what is it with about Drupal that > > makes it penetrate a bit further at the government level. > > > > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/26/whitehouse_website_goes_open_source/ > > > > By the same token, the local county spent the past 6 months building out > > their tourism associated website. In the end, the functionality leaves > me > > underwhelmed: > > http://www.ulstercountyalive.com/ > > > > For example, the lodging directory is fairly basic functionality - and no > > rss feeds. > > > > I have found Drupal to have a stronger community of tech geeks using it, > but > > a weaker community of functional users. A lot of components for Drupal > tend > > to be "proof of concept' type's, where I can see how they could be > extended > > to something functional, but their not quite there. > > > > Joomla, by contrast, has a lot of apps which from a technical perspective > > are exactly the same but by changing labels and gearing, they are fully > > functional drop in apps to do something. > > > > So why is Drupal making inroads while Joomla seems to be lagging? Any > > thoughts? > > A note of research: Is there an advisory board for open source > technologies to the government, and if so who is participating there? > This is pretty much the case behind the White House website, AFAICT. > > That said, this is a good time to compare the state of Joomla versus > the state of Drupal. > > First off, I think Dries' blog post about the White House website > using Drupal is an absolute case study in how to perfectly word a > major success. His tone, writing style, and message are all dead on > the money. Perfectly written. > > Drupal is very aggressively growing their community as an area of > focus, and as such is generating tremendous buzz which in turn feeds > their efforts. As well, their approach with the 3PD market is totally > opposite what Joomla inherited from Mambo (albeit some major changes > these past years). Combine the two and comparatively there's not a > whole lot of outreach from the Joomla project, nor aggressive > encouragement or enabling of the community for advocacy. > > Lastly, having a well-funded, well-connected business like Acquia is > high risk, high reward for Drupal, as they can focus all of their > efforts through one organization, making it easier to target events > and get the most out of their available resources. Joomla's commercial > developer community is distributed over many small, non-funded > businesses that simply don't have the media or executive clout; and > lack incentive to band together to be one larger resource to the > project (and community). > > In Joomla's defense, the project is a clear market leader and probably > does not see all that outreach work as priority; and it's clear from > the outside perspective that they are actively looking for more > volunteers to help with the project itself, and need those resources > for other things than outreach and PR. Different problems, I'd say. > > * Drupal - focus is gaining market share, has tons of developers > * Joomla - owns the market, focus is looking for more developers > (needs reorganization) > > That also means Joomla will not be a "hot topic" while it is in a > somewhat low-key phase, working on all these relatively internal > issues. > > One totally random point that is key: Drupal comes out of the box with > loads of social features, and Joomla has NONE by default. With > everyone scrambling to be the next big social media hype magnet, first > impressions will always lead them to the platform that has all the hip > and trendy features out of the box, and that ain't Joomla. > > That said, my personal take is that Joomla needs to provide some of > these features at a bare minimum, and I do believe some of them are > targeted for 1.6 at least. Chances are, as the base Joomla > distribution closes that social feature gap with Drupal, this > perception will change. > > -- Mitch > _______________________________________________ > New York PHP SIG: Joomla! Mailing List > http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/joomla > > NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online > http://www.nyphpcon.com > > Show Your Participation in New York PHP > http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php
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