www.digidave.org

The idea that you save money, or get away from evil proprietary companies by using opensource is one of the big shills of the opensource extremists. You don't. Opensource is always given away for free -- but then you have to buy the consulting to run the stuff on top of that because the OS is so buggy and hard to use. And it ends up being more expensive than buying the proprietary software license that comes with courteous and efficient customer service personnel taught to put the customer first rather than insolent geeks who might or might not bestir themselves from the IRC channel or Twitter to help.

Drupal is clunky and annoying, and one of the really annoying things it does to the user is constantly make him add up equations to make a comment. Make too many mistakes, and get locked out. The equations are simple and you would think it wouldn't matter, but due to glitches, sometimes the system goes into overdrive and starts telling you that you've solved the equation incorrectly merely for clicking on a page with a comment form. Drupal enables webmasters to prevent people from even reading the Drupal pages -- not just IP block them from commenting.

Nancy, you don't seem to be *reporting* this story so much as looking for like-minded cheer-leaders to hype it to you so you can cheer better. Do me a favour -- go and *report* this story. Find out *how much* the government is spending *on the consulting that goes with this soi-disant free software package*. How many gigs have how many new digital Beltay bandits gotten out of this caper? Then push it further: how well does this site *work*? How are the users accessing it?

In other words, the only reason you seem to be celebrating it are reasons of anti-corporate anti-capitalist hate -- let's all hate on evil proprietary technology from evil big corporations. But...the opensourceniks are merely the free labour and free R&D for those big companies like IBM and Microsoft who simply move in and scoop up all the free results and often eventually buy these start-ups anyway.

And here, we get to the truly stellar example of "magical thinking," and an inadvertent confirmation of the point I've made for years, that opensource software engineers are welding their worldview into the tools, skewing them toward political outcomes, so that the fairy-tale that they are "all about civic engagement" is a ruse, as they really aren't open, but closed:

"Drupal is, arguably, progressive. It has relatively deep roots in Democratic politics, first getting attention in the political space as the foundation under Dean Space. Whatever state Drupal is in today is a result of the community of developers who cared enough to nurture it -- the underlying message, of which, of course, echoes Obama's political narrative."

Thanks. I couldn't have ever dreamed of getting such a frank admission. So software isn't just code, isn't just a tool, it's tool-as-politics-welded-in, it is "community" -- which means the group of geeks around it who develop it *their way*.

And now, I have to wonder what transparency in government is *for* if you are going to write a sentence like this, "using Drupal for Recovery.gov is a sign that the White House is engaged in an open relationship with Blue State Digital, the firm that's been the home of both the campaign Internet director and the White House Internet director" -- without reporting the consulting fees that these firms may have garnered.

"So, at least in theory, the White House could build some awesome widgets and nodes and give them back to the Drupal world." Um, please follow up on that in 6 months. The extremists in the opensource movement often gripe that high-profile users of their wares don't give back. I don't know what the licenses are there, but I wonder if there is any dual licensing scheme here whereby proprietary use can be made of the OS software which means that all those "commmuuuunity" people are going to be ripped off.

DrupalCon. Perhaps aptly named.

Drupal offers extraordinary capacity to filter, ban, block people in a community as they attempt to post on blogs, yes. Drupal is good for managing groups of writers who want to broadcast oneway, and get love-pats from all their fans in the comments.

"the community" just means people of one ideological perspective and worldview. It's not "all citizens" or any wider sense of community of *users* who would have to struggle with these wonky and non-user-friendly applications.

This is one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever seen. Your logical fallacies are truly awe-inspiring.

>You don't. Opensource is always given away for free -- but then you have to buy the consulting to run the stuff on top of that because the OS is so buggy and hard to use

a) Drupal is extremely easy to use and is not 'buggy' -- Get a grip.

b) Wow, instead of investing 500k into proprietary software, another 100k into customizing said software, you can actually invest 600k into making Drupal what you want!

Invest in people, not software.

>Drupal is clunky and annoying

So is a car if you don't know how to drive.

I won't even bother touching the rest of your malformed and obviously presumptuous post.

p.s. You posted a comment on a Drupal-driven web site. Was it clunky and annoying? Or is that just you?

Sites of the white house use Drupal, I have learnt today it when have got on one of sites.
English Psychic Hotline.

The blog which will actually bear function of an informal calendar of the White house, mentioning the basic events, references and the accepted decisions has been created.
On presentation of a blog project head Makon Filips named its communication facility, with the help which president and its administration can "communicate with the American people and with all world".
losing weight