[WEB4LIB] Re: how to get it all done

[Alnisa Allgood]

At 5:59 AM -0700 4/22/05, Joshua Ferraro wrote:
>I must agree with Mike's comments. Open-source CMSes are every bit as
>full-featured and powerful as their proprietary counterparts. A great
>way to evaluate Open-source CMSes is to visit http://www.opensourcecms.com/
>which has quite a few fully-working demos. Also, if you want to see a
>library-specific demo, LibLime has one that uses Mambo:

I've never been a proponent of using open-source software, just to 
say your using open-source.  I believe the benefits of open source 
software, especially for nonprofit and public institutions are great. 
Nonprofit Tech, the nonprofit I work with, is a strong advocate for 
open-source software in the sector; but each tool still needs to be 
measured on its own.

There's a lot of really bad open-source software; just as there is 
volumes upon volumes of really bad commercial software.  My 
recommendation of Expression Engine, doesn't really say anything 
about either the good or bad of open-source vs commercial. It says, 
that I believe EE rocks. It's simple, clean, easy-to-use, 
easy-to-develop for, flexible, powerful, and well worth the small 
cost associated with it. Especially since it will save you tons of 
money, tons of time, and tons of hair pulling.

Besides Expression Engine is commercial not strictly proprietarial. 
It's based on open source tools (PHP and MySQL, a LAMP solution). 
There is a difference, I use open source tools to make a living, and 
so does pMachine the makers of EE. I just acknowledge that theu've 
coded a better system than I could have, while adhering to many of 
the priniciples of development I consider important; and I'm willing 
to pay them for that.

Alnisa