Brian Gilday at aHa! consulting did a post almost three months ago which led us to a conversation by phone and email. I would suggest you all revisit this discussion but would in particular draw your attention to the West Linn site.
At the West Linn site you will not only see a clean, well organized, site (imo) but you will also see an example of personalization - My West Linn - something we were keen on at the Wayland ECC.
Anyway, Brian has offered to talk about his work and show us how he did it in a "web cast" if there are any in the group that are interested. Brian is also shifting his business model to offer hosting that will compete with existing canned services, and has suggested he might contribute that code to a starter site.
I remain willing to host the starter site if the community wants to support the initiative.
Any interest?
Comments
Welcome back Gordon. The West
Welcome back Gordon.
The West Linn site is indeed pretty, but the issue I see here is that the whole point of a municipality moving towards an open source WCMS is to enjoy the benefits of open source. Unless I am mistaken, Aha's business model is to take open source software and create proprietary, closed-source "solutions" for it.
Part of my interest here is in building a community around sharing what we know to help each other make our sites, code and modules better. This can be especially helpful in the local government sector, where budgets are eternally tight. Many of my colleagues struggle with custom-built solutions long since abandoned by the company they hired to write the code, or alternatively with non-responsive proprietary CMS vendors who keep ratcheting up their annual licensing costs and provide next to no documentation.
I'm less interested in helping vendors sell their proprietary solutions, although I warmly welcome anything Aha might like to contribute to an open source set of modules or features for local governments.
chicagomom on Twitter and d.o.
Thanks chicagomom
We are glad you like the West Linn site.
West Linn and other municipalities are gaining great benefits by using Drupal as their solution. West Linn hosts their own website and has the full benefits of open source code per the GPL. Their solution is not a closed one at all. They also pay zero annual licensing costs, and they do have user documentation. Unlike a proprietary solution, they can leverage other Drupal firms for ongoing maintenance and support if we ever 'go away'. So, in our estimation, they are getting great benefits compared to a proprietary, closed solution. There are local agencies that can't afford the higher upfront costs of a web design like West Linn's that they host and fully own, and that is where a hosted option like Gordon mentioned above might be beneficial. There are more benefits to a Drupal-based site than just owning the source code.
A big problem for many local governments, particularly smaller ones, is that they lack the Drupal expertise to build websites on their own that have high functionality and also look great. That is where professional firms like ours come into play. We help cities, towns, counties, and other local government agencies build great Drupal-based sites. They get many advantages of open source without having to be Drupal experts to do so.
We actively participate in the Drupal community, particularly at the local level where we provide free training and assistance to other Drupallers.
And yes, as Gordon stated in his original post, we are more than happy to be a participant towards the development of a scaled-down local government installation profile. Creating an installation profile can be extremely resource intensive to create and maintain. We do not have the time or resources to lead the effort but are more than happy to pitch in.
Brian Gilday
Municode
www.municode.com