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