The guys at Bryght (they are really bright) are organizing an Open CMS Summit in February. It is a great idea. (They have on their list of things to talk about 'identity and authentication - in fact it is on the top of their list. RIGHT ON)
I would like to ad and expand on the list. These communities coming together are diverse and have a range of needs. It is not just 'developers' coming together to code together.
- Small business owners who are building businesses based on these platforms. This community has needs to address real client needs that can sometimes be overlooked by the 'core' developers - I hope we can create a space for these real issues to be surfaced and action to be taken.
- Individual developers who work on contract for a range of projects.
- designers who have a skill set to build sites.
- User experience people who have an enourmous amount to contribute (the FLOSS Usability sprints have gone a long way to addressing the wide gap between open source and usability.)
- Project managers that pull teams together with a whole variety of skill sets.
- Folks developing platform in specific niches that have real gifts to bring the community - remember that the margins are where the really interesting things.
Face time amongst this diverse groups needs to be used to
- Develop vision about the platform - this will help the community develop consensus and confidence in the platforms survival
- Listening to emerging needs that end users and communities using those platforms and weaving those into development roadmaps
- Learning about usability and how to meet weave this into development roadmaps
- Business models for businesses? how do we make money to eat, feed those who work for us and better yet THRIVE?
- How do we share information about development we are working on? (a new module or feature that others might also need to develop)
- What are the collaborative flows that really support the core development and meet their business goals.
Technorati Tags: Bryght, Drupal, identity, nptech, Opensource, usability
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