Evaluate Code Bases

Drutopia
Lean codebase with ~20 distribution specific feature modules we probably do not
need. Contains Bulma, a flexbox based theme.

Thunder
Contains ~70 contrib modules and assets some of them professional publisher specific.
Contains a custom made theme called infinite_theme.

Varbase
A very large distribution containing ~160 modules and assets of which ~20 are
distribution specific. Contains Bootstrap theme.

OpenEdu
Is itself based on Lightning. Contains lot of Acquia specific things. And ~20
distribution specific modules. Contains Bootstrap theme.

deGov
Is itself based on Lightning. A large distribution containing ~140 modules and
assets of which ~63 are distribution specific. Contains a custom theme.

drupal.nl
no access to code base.

drupalcamp.ruhr
Based on "Composer template for Drupal projects". Contains ~50 modules and
assets. Contains bootstrap, adminimal theme.

drupal.fr
A large distribution containing ~100 modules and assets of which ~15 are
distribution specific. Contains bootstrap, zurb_foundation and two custom themes.

Composer template for Drupal projects
Absolute minimum base project.

In summary the distribution aiming at being a base distribution like Thunder, Varbase and Composer template might be a good base for our project. The others look already very opinionated: OpenEdu, deGov, Drutopia - they all already implement distribution specific functionality, that we probably do not need. Also I don't feel like having two base distributions (a distribution based on another) is a good base – from experience each distribution needs some time to upgrade, having two as base makes the updating process very cumbersome. The setups drupal.nl, drupalcamp.ruhr, drupal.fr are all good bases containing most of the modules we would need, but need all some refactoring to being a base system for all countries.

My recommendation is to use drupal.nl, drupal.ruhr and drupal.fr as inspiration and implenet a fresh and clean setup based on the minimal composer template, exactly matching our needs. That might be a bit of a overhead at the beginning, but will save us time and effort when it comes to maintenance and upgrading.

Other opinions?

Talking on Drupaldevdays at Lisbon about it, we think the best approach would be to _not_ base it on another distribution or project template.
Instead we aim to develop a generic install profile that can be pulled in into any template or codebase.
So everyone creating an instance can decide for themselfes what project template to user, e.g. Acquia, Platform.sh, Composer template for Drupal projects

So the things to work on are:
* A composer template for LCD like e.g. Varbase does it: https://github.com/Vardot/varbase-project
* An install profile for LCD like here https://cgit.drupalcode.org/varbase/tree/
* Makefiles for automatic packaging on drupal.org like here https://cgit.drupalcode.org/varbase/tree/

Hello! One of the Drutopians here. We would love for LCD to consider being a Drutopia-compatible distribution. Right now that means including/using the Drutopia core module.

Ideally i would have preferred we make compatibility even more pick-and-choose: a module that provides just a content editor role, for all features that want to use that role to use, and the same with every other dependency. That's a lot of overhead, though, and only worth it if we're collaborating with a couple other distributions doing the same.

However i want to emphasize that a central technical goal of Drutopia is making it possible to share configuration across sites, and all decisions are made with that in mind, and Nedjo is putting a ton of work into making that possible, including contributing to the Features module itself and the Config Distro module to allow existing sites' configuration to be updated with improvements from the features that make up an evolving distribution.

So the number one point i'm making here is that Drutopia compatibility does not require being a sub-distribution of Drutopia, but only Drutopia core and then your choice of features, and in turn features LCD makes can then used by sites using Drutopia, and new Drutopia-compatible features can be used by LCD— the goal is a family of compatible distributions.

Also the use of a particular CSS framework or theme base is certainly not required (though Bulma is quite nice.)

If there's any questions or technical blockers to being Drutopia-compatible, please talk to us— probably best to open an issue at GitLab.com/drutopia/drutopia but there's a lot of ways to contact Drutopia.

I truly appreciate this initiative of building a base distro for local communities. We are evaluating the base for the relaunch of drupal.ch.
However from the project page or issues i can not really understand the current status of the project.

Also i like the vision of Drutopia, but setting vision like goals can lead to loss of short term delivery and value.
Maybe i should create a separate issue?
What's the status of the evaluation of dependencies and the status of lcd at all and where can i find a roadmap?
Is lcd something that is currently a useful start or how could potential contributors help to reach a first milestone?
I really want to avoid reinventing the local community site wheel over and over again.

Hi Miro! I wouldn't say high-vision goals are likely to lead to loss of delivering value short-term— but they're no guarantee of it either!

Drutopia will be releasing our beta on October 31, and then we're concentrating our efforts in November on introducing a siteholder cooperative (with pre-paying memberships), which will kick development up a notch, focused on the needs of the first wave of groups— or second wave, after our five alpha testers. (In Europe, Hubs4Change has built on Drutopia).

For Drutopia's part we'd certainly appreciate you writing up your needs as issues. LCD and Drutopia base are pretty similar in present features (paragraph-based pages, news, events, basic groups functionality; LCD also has client/case study which Agaric is doing for our own Drutopia-based site but hasn't shared back yet; Drutopia for its part further has campaign/action functionality and a nifty timeline paragraph type). Therefore, from your perspective it probably makes equal sense to post your needs and goals to Drutopia or LCD, but both teams can take a look at them wherever you post.

@Miro Am actually not involved in development here but supported this by gathering people and potential code bases especially during DDD in Lisbon. Best people to talk to about current status and roadmap in development would be of course committers like sanduhrs, dragos-dumi, tavib47 and cristiroma. For more direct communication feel welcome over here: https://drupalchat.me/channel/lcd

From an abstract project management perspective i would say (with all respect to every contribution so far!!!) we are lately lacking man power here and that's exactly what the vision of a shared code base should over come. Therefore IMHO a local push for drupal.ch should be also able to take a lead on the current status while good branching and merging practice should deal with the rest.

This is otherwise a typical chicken vs egg problem as we need downstreams to push this as an upstream project but downstreams are typically waiting for upstream to move ;) Currently aimed downstreams are upcoming sites for Germany and Romania. Would be awesome to have Switzerland with it's rock stars on board here :)

That's simply said a disappointing situation.

At Drupal Europe there was a local community leader workshop (twice) where the basic claim was that we are very well collaborating on technical solutions and collaborating on marketing topics would solve the problems for better promotion Drupal and local communities.

This made me come here with the hope/expectation to evaluate one of those "existing" solutions so we can start with an MVP with skipping the coding part, focussing on message through content and maybe adapt the CI a bit. As we didn't plan any dev resources at all, there's very little to redirect for collaboration / contribution on lcd.

Almost every distribution i see is either in early stages or not intended to be a real out-of-the-box product. Or whatever starts to look nice (like umami) is tagged as a demo-only thing.
This IMHO seems to be a major issue to enable successful global and local marketing. We're still in the age where you first need development resources to launch any type project.

I will pass this topic to the Drupal Association and marketing collaboration initiatives. It seems to me that they (we all) need to promote and support such a momentum extensively to reach a milestone that will be a game changer. We simply can't afford to continue with the current fragmented reinventing-the-wheel situation.

About Drutopia: I'm still a big fan of very opinionated distributions (focussing on a specific use case like a local community) that allow quick iterations and contributions without potentially consider pushing features upstream - at least in the short term. A potential upstream feature also needs to work for completely different markets with so much more to consider, making maintenance much more complex. Any upstream collaboration is IMHO slowing down, but it's great that a Drutopia Beta is here and ready for consideration.

drupal.nl repo and db where shared d.d. 6 to 8 month ago with:
@derhasi
@fisherman90
@tarekdj

too bad it wasn't picked up yet, please provide different emails in Drupalchat DM so it can be.