The first pledge drive was a great success!

Ploneboard v1.0

Ploneboard is an easy to use web board. It utilizes the proven Plone user interface, and is made for easy integration into Plone sites. The target audience is businesses and developers wanting a discussion board in their Plone site.

Ploneboard aims to do one thing, and do it well. It will never be an over-the-top all-bells-and-whistles message board, but will stay minimal in the sense that it's living inside an existing content management system—and will leverage that to the fullest extent possible.

After too long untended in the Plone Collective's SVN repository, the code was brought up to date in September, 2005 and made compatible with Plone 2.1. This product is only compatible with Plone 2.1, and also requires that the 'Five' product be installed. 'Five' is bundled with Zope 2.8+, and can also be installed separately for Zope 2.7 instances.

Since September, when the first beta version was published, Plone Solutions has been developing Ploneboard further, in conjunction with paying clients. But the authors have also been working with the Plone community on a new PLIP to bring Ploneboard to version 1.0—and much wider adoption. With enough community support in March, Ploneboard v1.0 can be released this spring.

How you can help

Ploneboard is in active development by Plone Solutions, with many improvements paid for by their current development customers. But there are several improvements that have been spearheaded by the needs of the Plone user community. To code the priority items listed in the current PLIP, the community will need to pledge several thousand more dollars early this spring ($3,000 USD has been pledged to date). Here's how you can help:

• Pledge now to help bring Ploneboard to v1.0. A pledge means contributing $$$. If you are a Plone admin, our suggested pledge is $75, less than half the cost of a commercial solution for your own site (without the pain of integration), but worth much more to the entire Plone project. Perhaps this comes out of your web development budget, or your software purchase budget, or your "do the right thing this month" budget. An hour's equivalent (give or take) of your consulting time is a small price to pay for a great conversation tool for Plone. If you want to put Ploneboard on a fast track, pledge more than the minimum suggested amount. If that pledge amount is a bit rich for you, surely you know 2 or 3 friends that will go in on it with you. Note that your pledge will not be "cashed" unless the whole pledge goal is reached by the end of the campaign.
  
• Start your own campaign at fundable.org (a fabulous Plone site) to mobilize your own community to pledge support for your use of Ploneboard. Use these pledges in March to multiply how much you can pledge toward the campaign's goals. In other words, use "word of mouse" to make a large pledge to Ploneboard. See the LiveModern Story below about how I raised $3,000 (USD) for Ploneboard from my community in February. My community is fairly large by Plone standards, but almost any Plone community can be successfully appealed to about creating better tools to facilitate conversations that are important to its members. Contact me if you want assistance on implementing your own pledge campaign.
  
• Pick a PLIP that matches your itch and coordinate efforts to scratch it once and for all. Or suggest a PLIP that you can rally others around. Either way, code is always welcome, whether it is integrated into the core of Plone v1.0 (the current PLIPs) or as a product to enhance Ploneboard. One developer has expressed interested in developing a couple of the lower-priority/deferred PLIPs on behalf of their paying clients. Another CMFBoard user, stuck on Plone 2.0.5 because there is no upgrade path for CMFBoard, has already developed a migration tool so that you can retain all of your CMFBoard content in Ploneboard. This script will not likely be included in Ploneboard, but is another example of how Ploneboard is already generating code developer interest.
  

Any option you chose above should also include a pledge to tell your circle of Plonistas to do at least one of the above. Be the change that you seek. It doesn't take much more than evangelists to organize Plonistas to a good cause. Every Plone admin (let alone member) will need a good conversation product at some point in the future, if only to replace the default "discussion" tool in Plone. The more momentum we can build now, the sooner Plone will have a simple and robust conversation product.

Ploneboard Pledge Match

Ploneboard is attracting attention in some interesting places. We've identified an anonymous donor that will match any pledge made by the Plone community in March on a 1-to-1 basis. In other words, if you pledge $75, the suggested minimum pledge, during the current Ploneboard Pledge drive, this donor will match your pledge with another $75. Leverage your pledge to the max now! In fact, why not consider making a larger pledge yourself, so that we can get to Ploneboard v1.0 all that much faster?