Nate is a very busy person these days. He just got back from a Plone4Artists sprint in Paris, and is setting up one here in Boston!

 Hey Boston Plonistas!

I’m pleased to announce the first ever Plone sprint in Boston will be held on July 18-23, 2007!
Thanks to our sponsor, the Christian Science Monitor, for providing the space in which to hold the sprint. Russ and Terry, who have been hosting our monthly Plone meetups, have been gracious enough to open up their meeting facilities for the entire week! We are very fortunate to have the use of these facilities in such a beautiful space in the heart of Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood.

Get more info and register on the sprint page.

At the next Boston Plone May Meetup on Thursday, I’d like to discuss logistics for the sprint, and ask those of you who are attending to help out with the planning to make everything run smoothly. If you’ve never been to a sprint, now’s your chance to participate in an incredible learning experience. For some background about sprinting and what it’s all about, read this explanation of a sprint and this blog post from a first-time sprinter.

I’d like to try to get as many people from the local Boston Plone community (and other OSS communities) involved as possible. The room holds 75-100 persons, so I don’t think we’re going to run out of space!

I have gotten out of touch with the Plone community, which is a shame. I really wanted to go to the BBQ Sprint, but had prior obligations and insufficient funds. A neighbor and friend is a fantastic artist and her brother-in-law set her up with a plone site, but she has yet to do anything with it. My wife is an artist, and I still need to set up her site and store. Plone4Artists looks like it will change both those facts. I have been waffling between plone and django. I love plone for the clean interfaces and widgets, but hate it for the complexity which invariably crops up when you try to do something a bit more custom than usual. I also hate Zen Cart, the only really functional storefront software for it (Zope really which is 1/2 the problem). The Plone4Artists seems to deal with most of the issues I was having problems with. Looks like I will not be getting any sleep until some time next year.

The theme for the sprint is to further improve the Plone4Artists suite of products, which includes proposed topics such as:

Proposed topics

  • application of Zope 3 component architecture to building products for Plone
  • handling of multimedia files within Plone (audio, video, images)
  • embedding externally hosted multimedia content in a Plone site
  • podcasting and vodcasting
  • large file handling
  • bulk uploading using WebDAV, Flash, Java, Zip
  • calendaring incl. iCalendar import/export, recurring events
  • tagging, commenting, rating of multimedia (or any) content
  • and more…!

Not just for coders!
You don’t have to be a coder in order to contribute/benefit at the sprint. There’s also a need for persons to write documentation, make screencasts, test the software and share ideas! You are very welcome to come and learn more about the Plone development process and share your experiences as a user and integrator.

Optional training
Sprinters have an opportunity to receive two days of training immediately preceding the sprint (July 16-17): “Zope 3 Training for Plone Developers” conducted by Rocky Burt, a leading Zope 3 expert, Plone framework team member, contributor to the popular book “Web Component Development with Zope 3″, and main developer of the Plone4Artists suite of products. Get more info and register today to reserve your spot!

Seeking additional sponsors

Please consider showing your support by contributing financially. Sponsoring the sprint will help to cover costs for the sprinting or for participants’ costs getting there. Sponsoring Plone sprints is one of the best ways to contribute to Plone’s development if you dont have the skills/time do the work yourself.