It was written by me under the terms of my contract with the ASF as a sysadmin. The rationale document discusses the motivations for doing the work as part of my work arrangement with Apache versus as a volunteer contributor. It is by design a cost-effective, highly-scalable,enterprise-grade CMS, but fairly bare-bones when compared to similaropen-sourceCMS's in terms of bundled features. It is very sysadminfriendly thowith very few administrative aspects that require activemanagement. Other than setting up and tearing down projects and tweaking svn authz files,it largely manages itself.
I am not all that proficient at HTML/CSS design, so there's certainly room for improvement in the webgui. You can check out the current setup by visiting https://cms.apache.org with user 'anonymous' and empty password. The mod_perl based code itself is fairly advanced and makes heavy use of subrequests, so if anything you will learn how to do that properly in a mod_perl application once you've studied the codebase. mod_perl is one of the rare apps that fully supports subrequest calls in a dynamic language, so this aspect differentiates it from non-mod_perl based solutions. IOW what I've done with the webgui simply couldn't be done in any other httpd-based programming environment other than C itself, and that would've taken at least 20X the number of LOC just to write, much less debug. HTH ----- Original Message ----- > From: Jim Schueler <jschue...@eloquency.com> > To: Joe Schaefer <joe_schae...@yahoo.com> > Cc: "modperl@perl.apache.org" <modperl@perl.apache.org> > Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 9:44 AM > Subject: Re: cms as an apache incubator project? > >T hanks for the quick response, Joe. > > Based on the links you forwarded earlier, I understand that this application > was > written in-house by ASF operations staff. Is that you? > > Reading the rationale discussion reminds me of tooth-pulling conversations > I've had with managers convinced that there's an out-of-the-box turnkey > solution that *exactly* meets their business requirements and has no > life-cycle > costs. When these managers eventually concede the need to hire software > professionals, the conversation starts all over again. Essentially: OK, > we'll invest in software development, then we'll release the code to the > OS community, where it will be supported and maintained indefinitely by > volunteers. These sunny optimists make it hard to earn a living. > > So while I'm thrilled to participate in an ASF project, I'm trying to > establish some justification. Some examples: > > 1. Learn best practices in application development > 2. Develop marketable expertise in CMS technology > 3. Support mod_perl's viability as an enterprise solution > > Where I live, most of the local economy is supported by foundation and > government grants. (Sign of the times.) I'm sure I know people who could > capitalize on the right FOSS project. > > Justification is always the first step in any undertaking. And I couldn't > find it anywhere using your links. Is there anything else you can send along? > > Thanks again! > > Sincerely, > > Jim Schueler >
