Last week I participated in a panel discussion hosted by the Web Content Mavens. I really had the easy seat of the group. I had the opportunity to speak first and therefore inadvertently steal other people's points and cause them to respond to me. While it wasn't the goal, it was an unexpected and interesting situation...

After taking a few days to digest the discussion, I wanted to share some closing thoughts and open questions:

First of all, there are still *huge* misunderstandings about licensing. It was even brought up in the opening statements. GPL vs BSD... who cares? Each determines the rules, requirements, and expectations if you choose to distribute your customizations. Read that statement carefully. Neither of these licenses require you to distribute anything. It is entirely up to you.

Those who may have not noticed, about two months ago, CaseySoftware had a major overhaul in terms of layout, functionality offered, and the underlying applications. This came about as a result of evaluation of quite a few different applications for handling our data, layout, and the required functionality. During this evaluation, there was one major thing which struck me about Open Source Software and module management: Some developers get it and some don't.

When you look at the different module installation/upgrade methods, this is abundantly clear. The processes range from "incredibly simple" to "rip-out-my-eyes painful. Let's detail some...