A group for talking about Drupal distribution profile development groups

Hey, everybody!

Maybe someone will recognize me; I post here and there, but I would like to begin by pointing out that I did not create this group because I want to moderate it or set it's agenda; I created it so that one was available and I see my role as keeping track of what kind of Drupal distribution profiles are being developed or discussed and then reporting that information back to this group.

What I am hoping to do is to encourage folks to participate in a group whose purpose is to talk about Drupal distribution profiles as a general subject and, if all goes well, for the product of that dialog to find it's way into individual development projects. It's worth saying that there are already some efforts underway and doubtless more I simply haven't found, yet. If you know of one, please, let me know; if this group is approved, I'll start a directory.

Otherwise, in the interest of moving the group forward, I'd like to toss out a few talking points, but please, feel free to begin a thread of your own about whatever subject strikes you as useful. To begin, I'd like to ask what sort of distribution(s) interest you and what your goals are in developing it. Also, if anyone has a decent grasp of the framework as it exists in 5.0, it would be appreciated if you could spare a moment to knock out the bullet points, as the documentation is a bit sketchy (the e-commerce module section in the handbook following the section on writing installation profiles is really interesting) and while I read the dev mailing list and occasionally stumble on what people are doing in CVS, my grasp of and ability to articulate concepts from these threads in their raw form limits me to monosyllable bon-mots like "Wow!" "Neat!" and "Huh?"

While I also have my own ideas for a Drupal distribution profile or two, I won't bore anyone with the gory details. Anyone who read Dries' post probably had occasion to think about the points he raised -- Drupal probably won't fork, but there are all kinds of ways for this to get out from under us and go sideways without needing to posit worst-case scenarios to figure out what they are. Certainly, natural selection will atone for a multitude of sins, but anyone serious about producing and maintaining an application-specific distribution will also take a much longer-term view as well.

Thing of it is, no two profiles will share the same purpose (in a perfect world, anyway) and it is likely they will come in different sizes, as well -- for example, a series of profiles used by a web designer or hosting provider intended to simplify their job versus a profile created for World of Warcraft clan sites or an e-commerce site. Certainly this is not a venue that would tolerate a great deal of micromanagement or rigid structure, since users are going to want (and create) that utility even if it's not available. On one hand, it seems like we may see a series of "general purpose" installation profiles come to share the profile directory alongside "default" profile, and be to Drupal as "987" and "Carerra GT" are to Porsche, at least to the broader community.

Hopefully by identifying distributions in development and cataloging them, usage patterns and some inkling of what "best practices" will turn out to be. And with any luck, this, in turn, will reduce the amount of work involved in documenting, supporting and maintaining new installation profiles by illustrating tasks common to all of them.

All right. I've rambled enough. Let's see if anyone else has anything to say on these or related subjects*.

*PS: Moshe: should this group be DOA or expire later from complications, I promise to remove it in a timely fashion. ;)