Community contributed code

The associated link points to a nice extension I wrote and contributed for eZ publish 3.8+. It has been downloaded 600+ times.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to maintain the code or test it with newer versions of eZ publish.

Which means, if people are relying on that functionality, and they upgrade eZ publish (by choice or because the hosting provider upgrades PHP), it may not work.

Since it is open source, and it is a very basic extension, anyone familiar with eZ publish should be able to upgrade it and share it. If they have time.

Now, imagine you built an entire system on community contributed modules. How will you keep the system current? What if the core functionality changes and you have to upgrade the core, risking the modules?

I really enjoy working with open source code and community contributions. They allow me to be much more efficient than I could be without them. Their code allows me to make beautiful sites in a fraction of the time.

I like to select established components and to work within their boundaries to use them. For javascript, I like dojo, for templates, I like Smarty, and for a PHP framework, Zend framework. I don’t modify the code, ever, because I trust the authors. If there is a bug, I may work around it, or upgrade later.

There is no absolute, perfect answer. For some people, the value of the contributed code outweighs the risks. For others, the assembly of a system is not worth it, and they prefer a single, integrated solution. A good example of this is Drupal (community contributed modules) and eZ publish (integrated solution).

One thing that is abundantly clear is that the collaboration of people, across all boundaries, is awesome, and benefits everyone.

… I really wish I had time to write a dojo extension for eZ … :)