Status on the "Perl needs a CMS" KickStarter to create demand and jobs I launched at Lightning Talks

[Scott Walters]

Hi all,

I announced a project and associated KickStarter at YAPC::NA to create
visibility for Perl and create Perl jobs by directly attacking
WordPress with a popular CMS used by major .edu, .gov, and .coms.

http://donor.com built their platform on top of this CMS.  They've
helped non-profits raise over six billion dollars.
http://globalnoc.iu.edu/ and http://www.law.umn.edu/ are built on it
(view the source!).  http://usembassy.gov is built on it.  So is
http://america.gov.

Yup.  America runs WebGUI.  Choke on that one =)

If we want Perl to matter, we have to co-brand with applications
written in Perl.  We have to take credit for making this possible, and
we have to vacuum people from these application communities into the
larger Perl community.  And right now, CMSes as a platform for
developing sites is huge.  It's way larger than any framework.
wordpress.com is more trafficed than php.net!

But there's a major problem.  Version 8 of this platform, which moves
it to Moose and Plack, is completely stalled.  The open source paid
support model is rough, and paying customers are only interested in
the legacy/stable version.  No forward development makes this look
dead, which keeps people from adopting it.  Out dated themes and a
difficult install process also prevent widespread adoption.  Here's
PlainBlack's statement on stopping development on version 8:
http://www.webgui.org/etcetera/is-webgui-dead-

The hugely popular CMS written in Perl will die without your help.

This needs to be bootstrapped into a community development effort.
There are some volunteers, but a lot of this, no one is willing to
touch.  The only way this is going to happen is if someone already
involved in the project who knows it well can take six months to hone
it, organize developers, work with the vendor, make it look good, and
fix bugs holding 8 in alpha status.  I'm volunteering for this job.
Your contribution to the KickStarter makes this possible.

Users of the platform are rabidly loyal and swear it's the best:
https://twitter.com/scrottie/status/486659745751642112/photo/1

Response to the KickStarter has been good, and people like our beloved
keynote speaker SawyerX have spoken up for it:
https://mobile.twitter.com/PerlSawyer/status/483393622331506690 ...
but to make this happen, I need all of you behind it, even if for just
$5.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2083389021/create-perl-competition-to-the-php-content-managem

http://twitter.com/scrottie and
http://blogs.perl.org/users/scott_walters2/ for updates and more info.

Thank you for your generous support!  (I'll keep posts here to an
absolutely minimum so pledge now if you're going to!)

Cheers,
-scott