Using Drupal Commons distribution as a foundation

We encourage users to post events happening in the community to the community events group on https://www.drupal.org.
mariomaric's picture

Hello everybody.

This is in some way call to arms! ;)

I would like to suggest CSA, Transition towns and other real-world communities and individuals to join forces and resources and help Acquia to build one community Drupal distribution to rule them all. :)

Current situation

OK, more seriously, here is how things are going: Acquia is starting to plan and develop Drupal 7 distribution for communities. They are open for feedback and help in development. You can read about all this and some broad goals / roadmap for Commons on D7 at meta issue @ d.o: http://drupal.org/node/1205556

Proposition

Idea is that we help to shape and build foundation for our specific real-word community web sites / applications. That foundation would be Commons.
It's a really win-win situation: we don't have to reinvent the wheel and can start building web sites for our specific use cases right away on solid basis, and Acquia (and Drupal community in general) benefit from testing and contribution.

In ideal scenario it would be great that Commons adopt Open App Standard - then we could build and colaborate on Apps or Features (like OpenAtrium community) for Community supported agriculture groups, Transition towns, etc., you name it.
Less double work, more open source code in shared Features / Apps, more happier people. :)

To compare maybe with some real world example:

GNU/Linux > Debian > Debian + specific apps = Ubuntu
is equal to:
Drupal > Commons > Commons + Time Banking App / Feature = Community Weaver 3.0

What do you think?

Existing initiatives / products

Transition towns g.d.o already have Transition Website Specification which I found almost identical with Commons D7 MVP User stories.

Disclaimer

I'm in no way affiliated with Acquia - I'm just a common guy from your neighborhood that take a task to build a web site for his local CSA group, and ended up with deploying Commons distribution (6.x-2.5) for all like-minded and value similar groups in Croatia.

Comments

Time Bank Software Community Weaver

autumnrooney's picture

Hi Mariomaric,
I am a part of the Time Bank community in Los Angeles, CA and we use Drupal Software called Community Weaver 2.0 to trade services with each other and build local resilient communities. We also collaborate with Transition Towns. Community Weaver was developed by Time Banks USA www.timebanks.org in Washington DC. There are over 300 Timebanks nation-wide using Community Weaver 2.0.

You can see Community Weaver 2.0 here,
http://sandbox.timebanks.org/

Also the code is available on the TBUSA Action Hub.
http://actionhub.timebanks.org/topics/cw-20-installation-guide-open-sour...

Wondering if what you are talking about here could be integrated.
AR

echoparktimebank.com
cafederationoftimebanks.org

Definitely!

mariomaric's picture

Hi AR!

Thank you very much for your reply and shared information.

What I'm talking about here could (and should) be absolutely integrated with Community Weaver! :)

As I can see Community Weaver 2.0 is based on Drupal 6 core and contrib modules.

It would be great that when TBUSA will approach building Community Weaver based on Drupal 7 core and contrib modules they use Drupal Commons (7.x-3.x) as foundation, and just made Time Banking App / Feature (and any other Apps / Features that type of time banking community site needs, and Commons core doesn't contain).

It would be also better for them to get actively involved into building Drupal Commons new version based on Drupal 7 core and contrib, because this way they can help speed up things and in the same time contribute back to the Drupal community / project.

You can find more information in a meta issue about Commons on D7: http://drupal.org/node/1205556

It would be great if you personally could do some lobbying in TBUSA community / developers about this proposition.

I'm planning myself to create account @ http://actionhub.timebanks.org/ and suggest them some improvements about installation profile stuff (your second link).

Cheers! ;)

Action hub

autumnrooney's picture

Thanks Mariomaric! Please do join the action hub. I'll pass this to TBUSA.
AR

echoparktimebank.com
cafederationoftimebanks.org

Community Forge

matslats's picture

Please add my work the list above
http://communityforge.net
This distro is used by many LETS groups in French-speaking Europe.
This also needs an upgrade to D7 but is completely unfunded.
I would like to identify partners, I'm not wedded to any particular brand!

Included!

mariomaric's picture

Hi Matthew!

Thanks for dropping by. :)

I included Community Forge in the post above.

Yes, funding could be issue, but, at least with above mentioned (Apps) approach costs will be much much smaller...

As a side note, D7 version of groups.drupal.org will probably run on Drupal Commons D7! ;)

Keep in touch...

hello matslats - thx for sharing

unleash's picture

i love your site - the concept and the outline.

keep up the great work!

greetings unleash

Open Outreach

pmackay's picture

I think if comparing distributions its also useful to include Open Outreach:

http://drupal.org/project/openoutreach

http://openoutreach.org/

I think the approach of defining a Debut Feature spec that builds on the Kit spec is helpful in thinking about how to structure a distro and build extensions.

A concern I have with trying to define one single distribution is that it will be difficult to create a one size fits all approach. The Commons D7 stories look really useful but I wonder for some groups if that would be too much complexity. Keen to keep the dialog going though :)

Different types of communities

mariomaric's picture

Hi Paul!

I know for Open Outreach - I didn't include it because my intention was to focus on distributions that provide tools (Organic groups module is probably main factor here) to organize not only one, but many communities into one online hub - as far as I understand, that approach is closer to Transition Towns needs?

But, I oversaw that Community Weaver (and also Community Forge) doesn't have that approach, so, I will modify my post, and separate those distros..

Maybe it would be good idea to create wiki with table in which we can compare main features..

I'm sharing your concern, but I think that this could be solvable with better separation and decoupling of (Debut) Features / Apps, which is something that Commons maintainers will try to do in D7 version..

But, of course, your post reveal that we are dealing here with two kind of audience:

  • Single communities: e.g. one single LETS group
  • Multiple communities: e.g. Transition network kind of web site / community

Eventually building Apps / Features in compatible way could able communities to include them in their, according to scope of audience / needs, Drupal Commons or Open Outreach distro / web site.

Don't know, maybe we should really broaden the scope of this discussion to include all kind of communities, and set the goal to decide which Drupal 7 community distributions we will support and leverage for our community sites. What do you think?

I'm in favor of using Drupal Commons for multiple communities, and maybe Open Outreach for single communities.

But, as I don't have any experience with Open Outreach, maybe somebody else can write more about it..

news about the development of disti-profiles

unleash's picture

hello dear all - i want to share this with you

a few minutes i got the news into my inbox ...:citation

A Wiki page has been created in group Distribution profiles: Notifications D7 distribution (tentative sprint?) planning

In an attempt to hammer out all of the blockers for the getting a great notifications implementation into a D7 distribution (such as Commons, Atrium, COD, etc..): here are a list of some aggregated resources in working through decisions to implementation:

Distribution/Install Profiles on Drupal.org

(note: listed immediately below each project is a link to the makefile with the likely notification method for the distro)

Drupal 7

OpenPublic

comment_notify
end of citation...

OpenAid

pmackay's picture

And the just-released OpenAid (http://drupal.org/project/openaid) might also be worth adding to the comparison!

future talks

jimcet's picture

In relation to the talks of apps in drupal, I'd hope to see that commons proves that a distro can be open for use features from other distros too.

This issue (incompatibility of different features), is in my opinion, one of the building blocks that d.o. will need to address soon, if there's a mutual interest of solving the distro and apps issues for the future.

Furthermore, the creation of a distro, is still a big pain, better then before, but still a pain, not to meantion to setup an app server. Hopefully the documentation of commons will provide some help for those who want to build a distro and app server themselves.

I'd also be very happy to see some discussions around the different perspectives (user,business person, designer,developer) of drupal out there. (why is WP still the most preferred cms?) Drupal should be on top of that list, but maybe the solution WP has found address' more perspectives and not only those who are Web gurus?!

andygraybeal's picture

I read through the comments and I wonder if anyone is still working on this? I don't have any development experience, so I am of no help. I just got a job at a farm that handles CSA though and this would be very helpful and I would like to try to test and implement a product at which ever stage it may be in.

I see OpenLocal from Paul Mackay https://drupal.org/project/openlocal

As the latest thing, is this correct?

was never active!

matslats's picture

For CSA, try buckybox.com

OpenLocal is something I'm

pmackay's picture

OpenLocal is something I'm working on to create a loosely coupled distro for local communities, built with reuse and Apps architecture in mind. The initial focus is on foodhub support which I've started at https://drupal.org/project/local_foodhub. OpenLocal would be built on Panopoly and Local Foodhub (and other modules) would be built in a similar style to Panopoly apps. Bear in mind all this is still in very early stages.

I think Panopoly at this point is probably a better base to use than Drupal Commons.

Related to this I've also been actively contributing to a port of Open Outreach to Panopoly on 2.x branches. See https://drupal.org/node/1886972 for more info.

Thank you Matthew and

andygraybeal's picture

Thank you Matthew and Paul.

Matthew, I was hoping for an open source application that I could host and integrate it into the farm website. But thank you for mentioning buckybox.com. I'm sure it is great and if I can't wrangle an open source alternative well enough, we'll look more seriosly at buckybox.com. Also please note I'm still questioning using services like this in general, maybe this is to my detriment. It's something I fight with internally again and again...

Paul,
Very cool, I will try out local_foodhub soon. I've never used Panopoly, look forward to exploring that too. Without looking at your software would it have the ability to support multiple pickup spots as well as direct delivery?

Input welcome

pmackay's picture

Currently it has support for multiple pickup points. Direct delivery less so, but adding back address in the profile and some options for that wouldnt take too much.

Generally feedback on features would be welcome. I'm just about to start another project to improve this code, so improvements to come.

Any progress?

gandhiano's picture

I found this thread today, which is related to also many efforts I've been doing with several networks (CSA, degrowth, commons, transition towns).

I have been mostly using Open Atrium (2) and find it one of the most promising and active distributions. It has still many rough corners and certainly could benefit from more UX improvements, as well as social networking elements (some of which seem to be planned/underway for the following months), but it seems to have an active and growing community behind, as well as a good lead by the guys at Phase2.

I am also working in Commons, but afraid that its complexity, together with the development/participation trend is signaling the end of the distribution. Maybe I'm wrong and Acquia will push some more resources to it, but the issue tracker situation is getting dramatic.

So, I would like to get feedback on how are you currently with the "one distribution to conquer all", and whether we could put some efforts on building convergence.

Hi Gualter I have Hamlets

matslats's picture

Hi Gualter
I have Hamlets almost deployed in drupal 8
http://drupal.org/project/cforge
Its not a distro to conquer all but it is focused on real communities and real people as well as on the local currency and local exchange function
Also working on a multi-exchange version of the above, for http://ces.org.za

Hey Mat, that looks pretty

gandhiano's picture

Hey Mat, that looks pretty promising, any way I could check out a demo or sneak preview?

In particular, I would be interested in understanding how community forge supports groups, subgroups and permissions. Another aspect I would like to understand is how well it can serve as a replacement for a (non-commercial) marketplace-like platform (e.g. sharetribe), with the added feature of allowing for community accounting schemes.

And finally, any interest/availability to visit/stay/work in Witzenhausen this year?

Distributions

Group organizers

Group notifications

This group offers an RSS feed. Or subscribe to these personalized, sitewide feeds: