Not fading away: A tale about a 20-year old Python project

The Plone CMS is one of the oldest, and most successful open-source stories of the Python community. Created by Alex Limi and Alan Runyan in 1999 to be a better UI for Zope, the project grew to be a very stable and secure solution, used by governments, corporations and NGO's to power their public sites and intranets. The community surrounding Plone has been the key to keeping the project alive. This talk will focus on the community itself, and how meeting technical and organizational challenges it has adapted and evolved to avoid fading away.

(Presented at the PyCon SE 2021 on 2021-10-21)
Video available at https://youtu.be/5EWHYxnOTyQ

Transcript

1. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Not fading away A tale about a 20-year old Python project Érico Andrei Vice President, Plone Foundation ericof@plone.org | @ericof
2. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Introductions
3. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Érico Andrei Brazilian, living in Berlin Open Source Python Software Foundation Fellow Vice-President Plone Foundation Past Microsoft, Simples Consultoria, Rocket Internet, Pendect
4. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org What is Plone?
5. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org A bit of History
6. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org The Code Started by Alan Runyan, Alexander Limi, Vidar Andersen in 1999 Named after Plone, the band First release in October 4th, 2001 How it started: A nice UI for CMF Zope) How is it going: The Python CMS
7. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org The People An online community, chatting on IRC Interest in usability, user experience Adopted the Sprint-culture, worldwide Conferences: Where online → offline
8. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org The Structure Plone Foundation: A 501(c)(3 nonprofit organization Protect and Promote Plone Manage Plone intellectual property Codebase contributions: Contributor agreement Coordinate marketing, raise funds to the community
9. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org What is Plone?
10. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone is a Community
11. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone is a CMS
12. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone is a Foundation
13. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Our trek, so far
14. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Technology evolves CVS -> SVN -> GIT Servers → VMs → Cloud / Multi-Cloud / Serverless Monolith → Packages → Multi-language Packages Browser in a Desktop → Content everywhere CMS is King → CMS is commodity
15. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone is a CMS, not a framework
16. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone is a CMS, not a framework
17. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone is a CMS, not a framework
18. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone is a CMS, not a framework
19. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org From monolith to packages Packaging: One big file → ~130 packages CMFPlone → Products.CMFPlone Products.CMFPlone → plone.*, plone.app.* Slow gradual changes Consistent upgrade story Support for older versions (>5 years)
20. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Lowered the entry barrier Standard tools Git, pip, Docker "Hide" 20 years of legacy code Facade pattern via plone.api Support any client / device A core REST API Plone 6 will ship with a React frontend
21. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Community evolves Small group → Global group Developers → Developers, Designers, Editors, Users IRC, Mailing Lists → Discourse, Slack, Discord "Lottery factor"
22. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Embrace change Community members are human-beings Career and life choices → 8 years contribution time Renewal cycle Welcome → Empower→ Handle the keys Not everyone is a developer Teams focused on different parts of the project
23. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org People > Technology Build real connections Sprints, Conferences, Karaoke Recognize achievements Small contributions lead to long time contributors Act Local Not everyone speaks English / can travel Enforce community standards
24. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org The next 10 years
25. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone Foundation
26. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone CMS
27. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone Community
28. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone Community
29. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Plone Community
30. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org One last thing...
31. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Elizabeth Leddy PyCon CA 2012 Cris Ewing PyCon US 2016 Alexander Loechel PyConWeb 2017
32. Érico Andrei | @ericof | ericof@plone.org | plone.org Thank you
33. Plone Foundation | @plone | https://plone.org /plone PloneCMS plone.org @plone