A talk given by Matt Hamilton, Technical Director of Netsight.
This talk was part of the British Computer Society (BCS) event "Public Funds in the UK: Open Source for Document and Content Management" held in London on 7th January 2010.
http://ossg.bcs.org/category/ossg/ossg-events/
The talk is a case study of two specific public sector clients of the Open Source WCM, Plone: Warwickshire Police, and a large educational portal.
The Flexibility of Open Source - Plone in the Public Sector
1. The Flexibility of Open Source
Matt Hamilton
Plone in the Public Sector
Matt Hamilton
Technical Director, Netsight
Friday, 15 January 2010
2. Who are Netsight?
- Independent Web Development Firm
- Founded 1999
- Specialise in Open Source Web
Content Management
- Specifically, Plone
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3. Introduction
- Open Source allows you the flexibility
to start small and invest money as you
go along, developing iteratively.
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4. Examples
- Warwickshire Police Force
- Large Teaching Portal
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5. What is Plone?
Plone is among the top 2% of all
open source projects worldwide, with
200 core developers and more than
300 solution providers in 57
countries.
The project has been actively
developed since 2001, is available in
more than 40 languages, and has the
best security track record of any
major CMS.
It is owned by the Plone Foundation,
a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organisation,
and is available for all major
operating systems
Plone Conference 2009, Budapest
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8. Warwickshire Police
Costs March 03 - Dec 09
>A1%?%%%
Police Authority Site Re-Design
>A%%?%%%
Domestic Abuse Site
theZone Kids Site
>@1%?%%%
Crime Stats Site
>@%%?%%%
Plone 3 Upgrade
Safer Neighbourhoods Site
>1%?%%%
News Media Portal
Public Site Launch
>%
'()$%& -.#$%/ '"0$%1 -(3$%1 4+.$%1 '"0$%7 !"#$%7 '()$%7 4+.$%7 89:$%7 -.#$%; 4+.$%; *+,$%; !"#$%< 89:$%< !"2$%= '()$%= 5,6$%=
!"#$%& *+,$%& '"0$%1 !"2$%1 4+.$%1 5,6$%1 '"0$%7 '()$%7 -(3$%7 5,6$%7 89:$%7 '(0$%; 5,6$%; '"0$%< !"2$%< -.#$%= !"2$%= '()$%=
*+:+)9.B+06 C96")
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9. Warwickshire Police
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10. Warwickshire Police
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11. Warwickshire Police
Costs March 03 - Dec 09
>A1%?%%%
Police Authority Site Re-Design
>A%%?%%%
Domestic Abuse Site
theZone Kids Site
>@1%?%%%
Crime Stats Site
>@%%?%%%
Plone 3 Upgrade
Safer Neighbourhoods Site
>1%?%%%
News Media Portal
Public Site Launch
>%
'()$%& -.#$%/ '"0$%1 -(3$%1 4+.$%1 '"0$%7 !"#$%7 '()$%7 4+.$%7 89:$%7 -.#$%; 4+.$%; *+,$%; !"#$%< 89:$%< !"2$%= '()$%= 5,6$%=
!"#$%& *+,$%& '"0$%1 !"2$%1 4+.$%1 5,6$%1 '"0$%7 '()$%7 -(3$%7 5,6$%7 89:$%7 '(0$%; 5,6$%; '"0$%< !"2$%< -.#$%= !"2$%= '()$%=
*+:+)9.B+06 C96")
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12. Warwickshire Police
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13. Warwickshire Police
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14. Warwickshire Police
Costs March 03 - Dec 09
>A1%?%%%
Police Authority Site Re-Design
>A%%?%%%
Domestic Abuse Site
theZone Kids Site
>@1%?%%%
Crime Stats Site
>@%%?%%%
Plone 3 Upgrade
Safer Neighbourhoods Site
>1%?%%%
News Media Portal
Public Site Launch
>%
'()$%& -.#$%/ '"0$%1 -(3$%1 4+.$%1 '"0$%7 !"#$%7 '()$%7 4+.$%7 89:$%7 -.#$%; 4+.$%; *+,$%; !"#$%< 89:$%< !"2$%= '()$%= 5,6$%=
!"#$%& *+,$%& '"0$%1 !"2$%1 4+.$%1 5,6$%1 '"0$%7 '()$%7 -(3$%7 5,6$%7 89:$%7 '(0$%; 5,6$%; '"0$%< !"2$%< -.#$%= !"2$%= '()$%=
*+:+)9.B+06 C96")
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15. Large Teaching Portal
Matt Hamilton
can’t name them, sorry :(
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16. Teaching Portal
- Portal for teachers in the UK
- Funded by the Department for
Children, Schools and Families
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17. Teaching Portal
There are nine regional Centres in England
and one National Centre to serve the UK.
Each of the Centres has a main base and a
number of satellite Centres and online
resources which can be accessed by
teachers from across the country.
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18. Teaching Portal
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19. Teaching Portal
- Look-and-feel
➡ Not very compelling
- Usability
➡ Challenging in places
- A poor content management system
➡ Can't really edit general content, so use a separate FTP
server and Dreamweaver
- Vendor lock-in
➡ Even small changes, very expensive
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20. Teaching Portal
Portal 1.0 - Monolithic, tightly coupled, poor
separation of skin
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21. Teaching Portal
Portal 2.0 - Extensible, loosely coupled, good
separation of skin
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22. Teaching Portal
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23. Teaching Portal
- WSGI allows you to
write small modules
chained together in a
'pipeline'
- Many small filters
combined together as you need
- Lots of existing components out there
- Very easy to write new ones
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24. Teaching Portal
Old URL:
http://www.theclient.org.uk/WebPortal.aspx?
page=1&module=DB920A53-01EA-4886-8878-
F2CDF5FA8CFD&mode=101&IsNonNewsDB920A53_0
1EA_4886_8878_F2CDF5FA8CFD=True&newsIdDB92
0A53_01EA_4886_8878_F2CDF5FA8CFD=11208#10
205 characters!
New URL:
http://www.theclient.org.uk/news/11208#10
41 characters!
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25. Teaching Portal
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26. Teaching Portal
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27. Getting the best from Open Source
- Assess your requirements, look at selection process. Is
it friendly to Open Source software?
- Try not to “buy a system”. Look to “solve a problem”.
- Prototype!
(No licence fees, so you can trial prototypes with many users and gather feedback)
- Seek out the help of expert companies – talk to them
- Iterative Development
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28. Thank you.
Questions?
Matt Hamilton
matth@netsight.co.uk
@hammertoe
@netsight
http://slideshare.net/hammertoe
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