On Fri, Dec 02, 2005 at 05:28:46AM -0500, IvorW wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: openguides-dev-bounces@openguides.org [mailto:openguides-dev-bounces@openguides.org]On Behalf Of Rev Simon Rumble Sent: 02 December 2005 10:01 To: openguides-dev@openguides.org Subject: Re: [OGDev] Marketing to OG Admins
On 1/12/2005, "(Christopher Schmidt)" crschmidt@crschmidt.net wrote:
If there is a way to make it such that OG can be
installed by anyone
with FTP and MySQL access
Surely if you want to make it as easy as possible, SQLite would be a better option?
Sorry, SQLite won't scale. Concurrent access and locking is something that SQLite doesn't do, though it does have transactions and rollback.
In addition to that, MySQL is a relatively minimal requirement these days, since most packages are PHP/MySQL hosting packages.
What it comes down to for me is that I see OpenGuides suffering because its written in Perl. I see PHP packages - I'm thinking specifically here of Drupal - specifically targeting those users who don't have root accounts, or even the knowledge to run a shell. But they can edit a config file, and they can use FTP. Drupal has more than 60,000 installations - OpenGuides has fewer than 100, at least as far as popular/findable ones go.
If there was a way to package OG such that we could give a simple list of requirements to their host, have them get it installed, and then FTP upload a single set of files - even if its relatively large - then I think that we would see increased adoption.
Perl is scary. It has a bad reputation. People don't want to muck with installing it, most people don't even want to muck with running CPAN. Huge numbers of people don't have the ability to install Debian packages - either because they aren't running Debian, or because they don't have root - and excluding these people as guide admins simply because they don't want to learn Perl is probably not the best idea if you want widespread adoption - and I think OpenGuides taking over the world would be a very good thing indeed.
Maybe I'm overstating the importance that installation has on adoption, but I think that some things speak for themselves. Drupal has a very high adoption rate, and is very easy to install. PHP packages in general get higher adoption rates, and are easier to install. It is my opinion that the easier something is to install, the more likely someone will install it.
OpenGuides does not make things easy to install. I couldn't install it without help, and I'm a relatively competent user who is familiar with CPAN. I can't imagine how anyone could expect that "normal" users could get an OG setup without significant help - and when something doesn't work, people don't usually ask for help, they give up.
Hi all,
I have to back up what Chris says here about the installation process.
From my own recent experience, and maybe by way of illustration...
My situation: - the apt package works brilliantly on the debian box under my desk - this box isn't public facing and never will be - i have several other public facing machines where i can host stuff - none of them run debian - even if they did i don't have root access - even if i did then i wouldn't rush to use cpan to install the modules - it's always a nightmare and generally fails in my experience - i'm unlikely to pay for uml hosting just to run the og software
My conclusion: - give up - forever think "hey it would be cool to set up an open guide; i must do that sometime" - never actually do it
This is what happened until Chris offered to host the Milton Keynes guide.
Whatever the pros and cons of the software being written in whatever language, I think the installation hurdle is too high. A reasonably competent person with some knowledge and an account on an average shared server should be able to handle:
- unzipping some files - editing a config file - ftping it all to a particular directory on the remote server - calling a script to configure the database
But that's all we can reasonably expect imho. Sad but true :(
Tom.
On 12/2/05, Christopher Schmidt crschmidt@crschmidt.net wrote:
On Fri, Dec 02, 2005 at 05:28:46AM -0500, IvorW wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: openguides-dev-bounces@openguides.org [mailto:openguides-dev-bounces@openguides.org]On Behalf Of Rev Simon Rumble Sent: 02 December 2005 10:01 To: openguides-dev@openguides.org Subject: Re: [OGDev] Marketing to OG Admins
On 1/12/2005, "(Christopher Schmidt)" crschmidt@crschmidt.net wrote:
If there is a way to make it such that OG can be
installed by anyone
with FTP and MySQL access
Surely if you want to make it as easy as possible, SQLite would be a better option?
Sorry, SQLite won't scale. Concurrent access and locking is something that SQLite doesn't do, though it does have transactions and rollback.
In addition to that, MySQL is a relatively minimal requirement these days, since most packages are PHP/MySQL hosting packages.
What it comes down to for me is that I see OpenGuides suffering because its written in Perl. I see PHP packages - I'm thinking specifically here of Drupal - specifically targeting those users who don't have root accounts, or even the knowledge to run a shell. But they can edit a config file, and they can use FTP. Drupal has more than 60,000 installations - OpenGuides has fewer than 100, at least as far as popular/findable ones go.
If there was a way to package OG such that we could give a simple list of requirements to their host, have them get it installed, and then FTP upload a single set of files - even if its relatively large - then I think that we would see increased adoption.
Perl is scary. It has a bad reputation. People don't want to muck with installing it, most people don't even want to muck with running CPAN. Huge numbers of people don't have the ability to install Debian packages
- either because they aren't running Debian, or because they don't have
root - and excluding these people as guide admins simply because they don't want to learn Perl is probably not the best idea if you want widespread adoption - and I think OpenGuides taking over the world would be a very good thing indeed.
Maybe I'm overstating the importance that installation has on adoption, but I think that some things speak for themselves. Drupal has a very high adoption rate, and is very easy to install. PHP packages in general get higher adoption rates, and are easier to install. It is my opinion that the easier something is to install, the more likely someone will install it.
OpenGuides does not make things easy to install. I couldn't install it without help, and I'm a relatively competent user who is familiar with CPAN. I can't imagine how anyone could expect that "normal" users could get an OG setup without significant help - and when something doesn't work, people don't usually ask for help, they give up.
-- Christopher Schmidt Open Guide to Boston http://boston.openguides.org/
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Tom Heath