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

FWIW, I'm *glad* that open source is listed in its own category.  
Product marketing is about finding a market segment of like-minded 
adopters.  As open source increases as a broad trend, it helps us.  
People who identify into that group for buying criteria (particularly 
in Europe) can see it is a legitimate segment and are easily able to 
find products.  I realize that this market-focused interpretation might 
put me in the minority, but it's worth considering.

Note also that OSCOM itself exists to highlight this segment.  The 
various matrices out there do also.  Finally, both Gartner and 
Forrester cover open source CMS as a segment with separate research 
reports.  In general, I find Tony's tone more OSCOM-friendly than the 
other mainstream coverage, but some of the same points are covered.

In short, Tony is responding to demand in the market to highlight open 
source, just like the others.  We should be happy that there is demand 
for us as a distinct segment and we should find ways to broaden this.

As an example, instead of labeling Tony a "damned bastard", perhaps we 
could actually have a dialog with him.  He talks to people that we 
don't usually talk to, whom we *need* to talk to.  If he feels we're 
not yet ready for the big leagues, we have two choices:

a) Take him out back and stone him.  Probably not going to help us too 
much, but with a couple of kegs and a band, it could be a rockin' good 
time.

b) Ask him.  Perhaps he has some good points and perhaps we have a 
blindspot because we're drinking too much kool-aid.

Finally, the point you mentioned is worth noting: Tony's home page 
summary says some nice things about TYPO3 too, and gives people reasons 
to consider TYPO3.  Perhaps Tony has a perspective on the usability of 
page creation that, based on his experience, might be valuable 
feedback.  Or, perhaps he just plain screwed up and, based on your 
correction, will change the report.

I'll read Tony's site with a more critical eye.  I certainly don't have 
the impression that it is "very disparaging", but maybe it has changed 
recently.

--Paul

On Apr 3, 2005, at 7:32 AM, Michelle Heizer wrote:

> 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/
>> Enterprise Search Report: http://www.cmswatch.com/EntSearch/
>> Headline Feed: http://www.cmswatch.com/RSS/cmswatch.xml
>>
>>
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