Re: [OSCOM] Open-source digital asset management packages

While I don't agree with the tone of the Paul's comments, I do agree that
CMS Watch is very biased against open source products. The fact that it
lists open source products in its own category shows that it doesn't
consider them to be on the same level as commercial systems. I believe this
does a disservice to its readers, but that's Tony's choice. On the other
hand, I am finding more and more large enterprises and universities turning
to open source content management each day so I'm assuming they are getting
their information from something other than CMS Watch. ;)

Anyway, I will help out the cause a bit:

http://typo3.org/development/projects/digital-asset-management/

It's a relatively new addition to TYPO3, but it's very well supported and
has a lot of "out-of-the-box" functionality. It is comparable to or
surpasses commercial systems with similar features that I've used.

The problem I have with similar commercial systems is that their DAMs are
not tightly integrated with their CMS. Mainly because they just acquire
companies with DAM software and add it to their own products. I prefer it to
be built from the ground up as in the case of TYPO3.

Also, Tony, on your website, you have a brief article about how it is
difficult to create a page in TYPO3.

"But an important bellweather for usability is how simply can a novice user
create a new page. And here, Typo3 -- like most open-source CMS packages --
comes up a bit short out of the tarball."

I completely disagree with you on this. First, the great thing about TYPO3
that you neglected to mention is that all you have to do is click a menu
item to add a "new page". Not too difficult at all. Second, you show a
graphic of the different page "types" and write some misleading text about
that. You make it seem like an editor has to choose a page type, but they
don't . By default, when you add a page, you are creating a standard page.
You can choose other types for further functionality. A site admin can, in
fact, remove the page types for content editors so that when they add a
page, they only add a "standard page" and cannot choose from the extra page
types. Moreover, with TYPO3, you can customize the backend and remove most
items on a per user/group basis. TYPO3 needs to be set up correctly for a
project just like any other CMS, open source or commercial.

Just the other day, we showed a person how to create and edit pages in TYPO3
and it only took 5 minutes. This person has such little computer experience
that they hadn't used Windows much before and had to be taught how to use a
browser. I have never had a problem teaching anyone to use TYPO3 and it
rarely takes more than 30 minutes to learn.

TYPO3's backend is arranged in a pagetree structure that follows the
architecture of the website. I have used commercial CMSes where they just
list pages and pieces of content with no real connection to the
architecture. Very bad as far as usability!

You also make it sound like TYPO3 and open source CMSes are only learning
tools and not serious content management systems. Next time, you may want to
test out the software a little further than just adding a page and editing a
piece of content before making such determinations.
 
Michelle


> From: "Tony Byrne - CMS Watch" <tbyrne-xROWbLetBU9Wk0Htik3J/[email protected]>
> Organization: CMSWatch
> Reply-To: tbyrne-xROWbLetBU9Wk0Htik3J/[email protected]
> Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 13:29:41 -0500
> To: <[email protected]>
> Subject: [OSCOM] Open-source digital asset management packages
> 
> Someone stumped me recently by asking whether I knew of any open-source
> DAM projects.  
> 
> I've heard of fedora (http://www.fedora.info/) and know that some people
> use traditional CM packages (like Zope) for basic media asset
> management.  
> 
> Am I missing any other ones with reasonably wide support?
> 
> Many thanks,
> 
> --------------------------------------------
> Tony Byrne
> Founder, CMS Watch
> Silver Spring, MD  USA
> V: +1 301 585 7004
> The CMS Report: http://www.cmswatch.com/TheCMSReport/
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