Bring on the Joomla! Distributions!

Comment by Cristina Solana on October 11, 2010 at 8:18pm

Nice, this is good news in more ways than one. I've always like did them idea of distributions and thanks to Akeeba I've been putting together my own based one client needs will been very cool to offer that to others. It will been especially helpful to newcomers.

It might be a nice idea to have a barebones distro (as Nicholas D. suggested in a separate post) for devs to start with and maybe have listings so that if two or more devs have a similar vision for a distro they might find it and work together.

Comment by kostas stathakos on October 11, 2010 at 10:47pm

Distributions is a great idea for joomla. For one thing the community has a great quantity of diverse high quality extensions to make this task relatively easy (for v. 1.5 at least, I know little about 1.6 developments). And as Cristina mentions, this is something that many of us already do - to a certain extent - for our own work (a big thanks to Akeeba; Install, pack and kickstart, anything easier should be against the law!).

Interestingly, distributions may also be relevant within a specific extensions. I know this to be true for Sobi2 for instance, which is quite horizontal by nature, and so it's wide range of applications may be narrowed down. In this case, a distribution intended for, say, real-estate directories would make the extension a lot easier to use, increasing it's popularity and relevance.

I think this is exactly the effect a blogging distribution will have for Joomla!. Although Joomla may be relatively easy to use, I don't think blogging is it's strong point, by any means, at least not as an out of the box ready to use solution. From my experience at least, people who have looked at Joomla wanting to make a blog, have often times looked elsewhere in the process.
This is obviously not because it cannot do the job, but because there is too much of a job to do before it's ready to use (in relation to alternative solutions, (hehem cough!)).

So all in all, this is great news!

Comment by Steven Trullinger on October 12, 2010 at 5:04pm

Isnt this ( sort of) what template clubs are doing? if I but a rockettheme templete I get the templete files, plus a rocketlauncher which has joomla and several Rok extensions built in. I have also seen Jomsocial packaged the same way on their website.

Comment by HarryB on October 12, 2010 at 5:24pm

Not really. Distributions usually target specific use cases and/or vertical markets like real estate, e-commerce, social networking, blogging, magazines, directories, knowledge management, news, etc.,etc.

Comment by Amy Stephen on October 12, 2010 at 5:41pm

All good comments - Akeeba is an excellent tool for that purpose. Both Christina and Kostas are getting right at why distributions start to emerge and the value to the community -- site developers all tend to have their own special "starting package." Imagine the effort that goes into each person individually creating their own distro. Imagine the value, as Christina said, in collaborating with others of similar interest, thus sharing the load.

I think Sobi2 is a very good example of a very powerful set of Extensions that could be combined nicely for vertical market need. For many people, having that configuration in place would save hundreds of hours over the year, reducing their cost to build sites and increasing the value of Sobi.

Steven - I definitely think the Template clubs are an excellent example of distributions. Many of them bulk up the normal J! install with comments and tags and the other missing minimums that make it easier for site builders and users to get rolling with J!. The clubs start with the standard 1.5, and then using packaging tools, roll the new release. Those shops also have routines that iterate back through previous monthly offerings and keep all packages up-to-date. Yes, that's most certainly a distribution.

HarryB is also right - premade distro's configured specifically to vertical markets is a very good benefit. That's where Drupal shines. The community has a ton of distros with support spread out through the community to keep those offerings updated and available.

We are already doing it in our community on a smaller scale with site developers or sort of under the radar with the template shops. It's going to be fun to see extensions emerge that meet the general needs of a church, or a magazine, or a community blog site, using K2, or J! plain, or Sobi2. In the next year, I hope we see several take off.

Comment by Parth Lawate on October 13, 2010 at 10:04pm

We are working on a Distribution for Non Profits.. More to come soon:)

Comment by Amy Stephen on October 13, 2010 at 10:52pm

Excellent! Can't wait to hear more about it!

Comment by Marius van Rijnsoever on October 14, 2010 at 6:38am

Great idea. Here are my 2 cents:

1. Joomla 1.5 would probably be more suitable to create distributions for at the moment, as not many extentions work on Joomla 1.6.

2. Keeping distributions up 2 date is a real pain. First you have all the Joomla core updates and then all the updates from each of the extentions that is included. Also people that want to "super-charge" their existing joomla website can't use it. A solution for this would be to:

- People to install joomla like normal (or use the package on their existing site)
- Have a joomla installer package that automatically installs extentions, configures menu items or templates all in one go.

That way you don't have to worry about joomla core updates and if an extention needs updating all that it required is to replace that particular extention package in the "distribution" zip file.

What do you think of that as an approach? Marius

Comment by Amy Stephen on October 14, 2010 at 8:50am

Distributions on 1.5 would be great, very helpful. But 1.6 is our future and that's where my interest lies.

It is going to be a commitment to keep a distribution going forward. There are definite strategies we are using to make our life easier. Sam Moffatt has already done a lot of work that developers can reuse -- take a look at the http://tinyurl.com/J16InstallerPackages .

In the end, a Joomla base install with a link to a directory of packages will be a very helpful way to go. We're just not there but getting closer.

Comment by Hung Dinh on October 15, 2010 at 4:49am

Hi Amy and everyone,

This is really a great idea!!! to get Joomla out of the CMS into a more powerful. Up to now, Joomla has thousand of extensions and many of them can be packed together into several vertical markets solutions.

All of the sites Amy has brought up are typical ways of distribution, however with recent launch of http://www.drupalgardens.com/, they have leveraged the distribution to a service level where non-technical user can create a Drupal site within a few hours, and that can be seen as better way of getting Drupal to large audience who even don't know what is PHP or CMS.

I believe that we can do the same thing for Joomla, we have powerful extension, nice template (more than any other CMS I suppose). Clearly, it is not the question of if we can do it or not. It is how developers can do it together and how Joomla! can suggests/support this trend.

@Steven & HarryB
I think the quickstart/launcher we, templates club are offering, are also kinds of distribution. What Joomla template clubs offer now are more than just templates; they are turnkey solutions. With the sample content replacement, some of the template packages are almost ready for the live production.

I have created a playground for my users at http://www.joomweb.com/usc/ where they can change contents (and in the future logo, images, banner, custom codes...) with any demo before joining..

How does this work?

The packages are built (on demand) from individual SVN repositories: core joomla, ja template, 3rd extension which are updated separately. When a product is updated, admin can decide at which revision an element is exported and pulled into the package. With this tool, when Joomla is updated with new version, we can update all J! products with some clicks.

This is an internal tool we developed at JoomlArt, however I am happy to share if you are interested in deploying a similar distribution package for Joomla. I really love and want to support the idea of Joomla distribution.

Thanks Amy for bringing up!

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