"Count what is countable. Measure what is measureable. What is not measureable, make measureable." -- Galileo

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Success and Failure

This morning I came across a pleasant article online by Tom O'Malley in the CSM Opinion section. Being that Plone Metrics is all about measuring Plone, a few quotes from O'Malley will be instructive.

...it's important to remember that ideas on success vary, even in these enlightened times.

The trouble is, America becomes the land of numbers and the higher the number, the greater the success.

The lessons of failure are an important part of the curriculum of success. We learn from them. They push us to do better; they teach us humility.

True success is giving something back. And you don't have to have a lot in the wallet to attain it. There are many people, young and old, who give back by serving in literacy campaigns and soup kitchens.


That immediately brings to mind another metric for Plone: the size of its non-profit community. Plone.net shows 241 non-profit sites out of 1366 total or about 18%. That's a remarkable way in which Plone gives back to the community, by helping the not-for-profit with their outreach.

Here's the graph of the growth of Plone.net sites showing its very linear trend line. It should reach 2000 by the end of January 2010.

2 comments:

twrichar said...

hi there, does anyone have any statistics on how the Plone DEVELOPER community may be growing, hopefully over a (recent), multiyear span?? thanks Tom

Schlepp said...

The best visualization of this is Chris Calloway's code swarm. Kindly see http://www.vimeo.com/2075738.

I have some numbers from the past year culled from the Core Developers list (http://plone.org/support/forums/core) and I'll try to update those for a comparison by Monday PM.