Modules that work in 6.2

If you want a single core installation to last more then 2 - 4 years then yes, you may be using the wrong platform to build on. Especially if you have no intentions of learning the innerworkings which would put you in a position to help the project & the community that is helping you.

I disagree with the idea that Drupal code should be labeled Alpha because of a release cycle that is more aggressive then you would like.

side note: 3rd party modules are just that 3rd party. Thus you are relying on someone else, or many someone elses to get a module ported. There are tools however that are on the rise that will make updating modules to the next version much easier for the non deveoper. The coder.module for example.

That however, causes a different kind of headache for some because there are a few, if not quite a few 3rd party modules that don't follow drupal coding standards. As such coder.module may not help much with those modules.

Drupal is more than a CMS, sure you can use it as one but I've come to know drupal more like a CMF (Content Managment Framework) which which you can build your CMS. This requires some to get their hands dirty and learn a little bit. If you don't like learning or continued learning then I can see where patience would wear thin and frustration would grow for some. Though I gurantee if you stick with it & learn it. Each version becomes that much easier to work with and port for.

I don't think Drupals power and flexibility should be sacrificed because there is a section of individuals who just want to throw a site up and not do much with it for years on end. That's what static HTML did for that era's webmasters.

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My posts & comments are usually dripping with sarcasm.
If you ask nicely I'll give you a towel : )

Wow, not professional IT, maybe, but I suppose "IT" is a label that can be thrown around pretty easily

Nonsense? "wow" yourself, and how rude and dismissive. AFAIK both AT&T (pre-breakup) and IBM qualify as "professional" IT. As for some of those aggressive development schedules-- when I was working for AT&T (both in R&D and IT for R&D), nearly every product had those aggressive development schedules. Particularly in the case of the cordless phones, and later cellular phones. We frequently had multiple design teams for sequential releases of products (and yes, including the SW for those products) working simultaneously. Many of us were often team members on several teams at once for different product releases. More recently, at IBM we had an inhouse developed web application for remote access to a help desk ticketing system-- which also released on a similarly aggressive schedule.

There are plenty of others, but far more relevant than my personal experience, one need only look to the wildly successful unbuntu project for a stellar example: Since the project's first release in oct 2004, to date Ubuntu has released 7 8 versions -- 4.10 Warty Warthog, 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog, 5.10 Breezy Badger, 6.06 Dapper Drake, and 6.10 Edgy Eft, 7.04 Feisty Fawn, and most recently 8.04 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon (not sure of the name on the last one) and 8.04 Hardy Heron.

You remind me of the gents from the data center that still use green screen VMS and greenbar printers, complain about "that second mouse button", still complain about y2k (eight years later), and talk about how great COBOL is. and yes, I can be rude back.

And COBOL is still used today...

So are '57 chevies. A truly amazing product-- probably rivals 90% of what is built today. However, it doesn't mean when I go into a chevy dealer I can expect to see them being sold there. It also doesn't mean when I go to a chevrolet dealer I can pull my '57 chevy into the service garage and demand service. No one forces you to keep your '57 chevy-- and when you do so you know full well what you are facing and that it's likely going to be EXPENSIVE and difficult to maintain.

Moreover, I said nothing about there NOT being cases where IT moves more slowly. The cases you mention are indeed ones that took a slower approach, but on the whole, the pace of IT is quite often blistering and for companies that wish to compete they will either keep up or be outdone. If it weren't, then why, when looking for a new job in IT (whether individually, through a head hunter, or through a search service), are you inevitably be judged on how well you've kept pace with the changes.

Did Drupal 4 achieve what security professionals consider impossible, i.e., perfect security?

Of course not indeed, who said that? talk about straw men. Drupal, like most other software projects, only supports limited versions. Again, this is not a Drupal thing so much as it is an open source thing. There are no armies of highly paid engineers and entire customer support centers sitting around with nothing to do but backport fixes for old versions. It's an OS project, support is free, given by volunteers freely, and resources are limited. I'd much rather the team be working on perfecting the current product than babysitting older versions of the software. That's my preference, it doesn't have to be yours.

Thus, you're forced to accept potentially-disruptive upgrades or potentially-disruptive security flaws.

No, you're not actually "forced" to do anything. Drupal is an open source project-- you know that going in. Dries has also been very clear from the get-go about "the drop is always moving" philosophy. If the aggressive development schedule does not fit your adaptability to change or project requirements, simply choose another product that does. This is not like being locked into windows in a microsoft world where you are essentially locked in to a particular product for a variety of reasons. CMS matrix is loaded with choices. Indeed, it would seem joomla tends to move at a slower pace, but I'm not 100% sure.

And if you rely on a third-party module that was never ported for the newer version, and you don't have the resources (time, knowledge, or whatever) to do that work yourself? Guess you're stuck with the insecure version and your own ability to detect and fix security flaws, which may be as out of reach for you as porting a module.

This is true of all open source-- not just Drupal. If you want this kind of security and support for an extended number of releases than you need to consider the commercial paid software route. That's part of what you pay for.

If the goal behind rapid upgrade cycles and little or no concern for backward compatibility is just to get the technology right, then Drupal should be considered an alpha-stage project and version numbers should reflect this.

Huh? Considered by whom? Who is this nebulous authoritative body? You talk as if there is some conspiracy to deceive people about the project's philosophy. Moreover, though Drupal is nowhere near alpha quality, you're free to consider it whatever you want and make your product choice accordingly.

It's misleading to say...

Misleading? That entire page CLARIFIES drupal's philosophy exactly so people will know what to expect going in.

...because it completely ignores the role and porting (or lack of porting) of third-party modules that could be used in site-critical ways.

This again is true of any open source project-- and actually, any commercial product as well. "3rd party" anything is always a risk-- that's sort of why there is a concept of "3rd party" in the first place. Its a somewhat unknown quantity and there are no guarantees from the main product. To me (and probably others) that was obvious, to you (and probably others) it wasn't.

Did you make a comment on that page suggesting that phrase be clarified?

No need to answer. A quick look at your tracker shows that in 45 weeks you've participated in 6 threads: 3 you started for your own needs, 2 just to complain, 1 to actually assist someone else.

There is no "us" and "them"-- the Drupal project IS all of us. If you see or experience problems the productive way to address it is by attempting to contribute improvements back to the community-- not complaining as if something is being done by "them" to you.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people CHOOSE to use Drupal voluntarily then make non-constructive posts in the forums about what's wrong with it. I started with joomla, I didn't like it, it didn't meet my needs so I moved on. I didn't clog up their forums complaining about stuff that was part of the design philosophy and will never change.

Ah well, I'm sure the Drupal community isn't going to change directions based on my input here, so there's no point in addressing this further.

Not likely-- especially, since as I mentioned above, in the official survey, 65% of those responding favored the 1 year per release cycle.

especially the future of my Drupal-based sites

From your discomfort with the basic philosophy, it may just be that Drupal is not the right product for you. That's not a judgment-- that's why there as so many products on the CMS matrix.

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