Reporting Live from the OSCMS Summit

by clorenz1 | February 7, 2006 at 08:47 am

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I am reporting live from the OSCMS Summit here in Vancouver, B.C.

You will be able to follow the Summit as we cover all the excitment with video and live updates!

"The OSCMS Summit (aka the Open Source

Content Management Systems and Blogging Tools Summit) was conceived as

a place to gather together Free and Open Source Software developers who
are all working in the problem space of managing web content. The great

advantage that open tools have is that they can cooperate in solving

these problems collectively,sharing ideas and even code directly. The

summit is developer focused, free of charge, and anyone is

welcome. Some of the more general sessions (like intros to the

various projects) will likely be of interest to many people -- you are

welcome to attend any of the sessions you are interested in. "

Boris Mann a member of the Bryght Team

opened the OSCMS Summit (aka the Open Source Content Management Systems

and Blogging Tools Summit) at around 8am this morning. The first topic

revolved around coffee, and once the essentials were taken care of the

introductions began.

Boris then moved to the schedule which is set for the next few days...

First Session

So Let's dive right into this Open Source Fest... First Workshop

I am in Room One with Adrian Rossouw. Adrian is tackling the issue of Themes within Drupal..

With the ability to instantly update on NowPublic covering any conference is

a breeze. Selfless promotion * But this really is quite fascinating,

and easy...

Adrian

is working with the group to set goals and open the floor for a

disscusion regarding Drupal Themes as well as Theming System

Enhancements.

4.8 Theme is an example of one of the talking points Andrew is speaking too.

It is very much a full house here in UBC's Robson Square campus...

Customizing Themes is a major aspect of this talk..

Adrian talked to how many contacts they receive regarding Admin Themes, which Adrian has been working on...

Matt from Word Press – Well actually Matt is Word Press, and he is speaking
about how much trouble designers have had designing before Theme
systems… And through their research they found there is three type of people…
Three Types of People

I. Nothing – No HTML
II. Know HTML
III. Know PHP

What worked best and what was most popular was the copy and paste method…

Matt suggested more examples as a way to help other’s use the systems… Matt - “Let them do their thing and then fix it later.”

It was pointed out that Drupal is used for some of the craziest stuff you have ever seen...

Adrian agrees that you should be able to Edit HTML - "It does need to get edited."

Another Goal Brought to the Board - Have a specific audience in mind for issues such as functionality...

Theme Editor Nodule - changing colors, ect...

Talking Point: Is there a tool that Edits Drupal Themes - A visual way to load

15 different CSS files is very time consuming and it appears there is no Editor...

Dream Weaver was suggested as an example that may help with this...

Drupal Dot CSS File was disscussed in regard to use with Dream Weaver

It was brought up that the disscussion is Tool related and not Drupal related...

It was suggested that Drupal needs more Transparency

Three Points brought up by a member of the audience that might help the disscussion...

1. Disscussion Group - Support Group for Drupal users and sites

2. More examples regarding Drupal

The Drupal project receives an ton of mail, and makes it very hard to keep
up with questions and suggestions... One of the many reasons this
Summit is taking place.

Who has a great Drupal Theme? Site?

Bryght was brought up as one of those sites.

Theming is easy with a great HTML structure before hand.

The group is closing for the next session as well as a coffee break...

Second Session - Actions And WorkFlows in Room One

WorkFlow example: Published and Non-Published

Matt Westgate & John VanDyk are leading the talk...

Turn Drupal into a service oriented system

Security issues are another topic for this talk... User rights are also issues...

Another Drupal Chat- You can define whatever makes sense for your organizations...

In terms of WorkFlow.

Hook

vs. Actions - The difference between the two is that you can assemble

Actions through the web in the order that you want...

Hooks can be called a function but you do not have much control.

Many people who use Drupal are not designers and this must be kept in mind when working on WorkFlow issues...

*Ambigious Definition - Actions are just restored parameters...

The workshop is looking towards the future of Drupal as well as Drupal 5.0

Some sexy Workshop groups that will be meeting in a few minutes:

Migration Strategy

Possible Actions

Forms API Integration

Actions API

Back Soon. We will have Video Up with Interviews from the Summit...

III. Third Session I attended: Software Licensing Best Practices

Zak Greant is running this session...

The Title of his Presentation Reads: Protects your Expression

The way you say something is more important than the topic of your creation...

Fair Use: Examples- Quoting, (Educational Institution is a bit different),

Images, and their license properties are a major issue today:

A good book to learn about Image rights -

"Copyright and the Global Information Economy"

or Go to Wiki Law

Another book, which address U.S. vs. Canadian Law in regard to these issues:

"Technology Transfers and Licensing."

When you create a work you are covered by copyright in the Western World...

Presentaion Title: Derivative Works

It has been highlighted many times during this session how important it is to have the right lawyer...

API's are not considered copyrighted in most cases.

Patent and Trademark are two more big issues being addressed during this session.

Patent - a right granted to someone in-order to restrict others from using your idea - Idea Rules Expression

Problems w/ Patents- Developed in a time to protect small inventors.

- Now Large Companies buy many patents, which dis-allow protection for small players against large companies. i.e. IBM

This is a bad process for Software developers because groups of
lawyers can easily extract payments by simply buying alot of patents
without inventing anything original. And then searching for those
who now fall under their patents.

These are Important Issues for Open Source

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