Classification by target users in project forms for distribution maintainers

Problem/Motivation

This is one of the tasks from #1314124: [META] Improve installation profile listing on Drupal.org. The current proposal (comment #34 of the meta-issue, by webchick) includes this point related to the project forms for distribution maintainers:

c) Then, instead of two separate project types, which creates two tabs in the interface, a very weird choice for distro authors on the project create page, more docs that have to be written, etc. add a Flag (or similar) to the project creation/edit form so when Installation Profile Distribution is selected, the maintainer has the option of flagging it as a _____ (name to be determined in [*]).

[*] #1357806: Decide a name for user-focused distributions/products

The motivation is to help users of Drupal find distributions intended for users on drupal.org. That is, fully developed distributions, ready for users.

In the current situation of distributions, according to their primary use and target users, there are two main groups:

1. All-inclusive distributions or products, intended primarily for site builders and end users. Called -with several synonyms- full-featured distributions, full distros, or products, these distributions are complete solutions for specialized use cases, ready or almost ready to use as they are by end users, maybe with some help from site builders. They probably have features that can be enabled or disabled, however all features are built already. No Lego work needed.

Examples of this first group are: Aegir, Commons, Conference Organizing, Donor Rally, eRecruiter, Managing News, NodeStream, Open Atrium, Open Enterprise, Open Outreach, OpenPublic, OpenPublish, OpenScholar, VoiceBox, Watershed Now...

2. Development and building distributions or tools, intended primarily for developers and site buiders. That is, these distributions are sometimes intended for developers, or for testing, or more frequently to be used as a quick-start for the site building process. There are many types of distributions not intended as a product for end users but -with exceptions such as Drupal.org Testing, etc.- in most cases they are not very different from plain core, and just a small part of the Lego and configuration work is done.

Examples of this second group are: Acquia Drupal, Build Kit, Cocomore Drupal, Drupal.org Testing, Feeds Test Site, Localized Drupal, Media Development Profile, Multilingual Drupal, Pressflow...

The reason of the differentiation by target users is that, for example, users can easily find the most essential -for most users- contributed modules (Views, etc.) in lists sorted, by default, by most installed. And, on the other hand, it's very difficult for them to find the first group of examples, the full-featured distributions -that is, the products for users-, on drupal.org.

Later, when all distributions are downloadable from drupal.org, and therefore reliable usage stats are available, the situation will be indeed very different, and probably the differentiation by target users, even when still useful, won't be as needed as it is now. For the related work to allow complex distributions to be downloaded from drupal.org, see Community Initiatives: Distribution Packaging, and Drupal.org distribution blockers.

Proposed resolution

There are several proposals for the implementation of this classification by target users in the project forms for distribution maintainers.

1. The first suggestion reaching consensus was the following with radio buttons to select just one of two options. It's a direct, simple translation of the practical situation of Drupal distributions:

Primary use and target users:
How would you describe this distribution?
(*) A quick-start tool for developers and site builders
( ) A full-featured product for site builders and end users

The first is the most frequent in current distributions, and would be the default option.

Here, the target users refer to their most common meanings:

• Developers: those who code the Drupal system, custom modules, etc.
• Site builders: those who put together the parts of the system, core, contributed modules, themes...
• End users: those who operate the system every day, administering content and site users.

That is, in this and related distribution issues we all are naturally referring to end-users of Drupal, not of the sites, since no one will think that managing Drupal and its distributions is a task for site users or visitors.

2-A. After that initial consensus, a related but different implementation was proposed, using a more traditional list:

Target users:

• Developers
• Site builders
• End users

Theoretically, this seemed simpler at first sight. However, most project maintainers should select two primary target users, because a single target-user option is not accurate for the reality of most of the current distributions. This possible solution needs multiple selection, preferably checkboxes for clarity, and an indication that two tags are often needed.

Additionally, since there are frequent questions about the difference between distributions for users and other distributions, short descriptions on primary uses should probably be added like in the first proposal.

2-B. Therefore, an implementation of this second proposal would be the following (checkboxes, three options):

Primary uses and target users:
Please select one or two options
[x] A testing sandbox for developers
[x] A quick-start tool for site builders
[ ] A full-featured product for end users

The default could be empty, or preferably the multiple selection for most current distributions, both first and second options.

In summary, the two proposals (with two single or three multiple options) seem similarly capable and sufficient to perform the requested task, at least as a starting point. They could be improved later, if needed by the users or by the evolution of distributions.

Remaining tasks

Decide one of the possible solutions, and implement it in the project forms for distribution maintainers. Other tasks for Solr search, UI for end users, etc. can be solved on other related issues (see the above linked meta-issue).

User interface changes

With any of the two proposals for the project forms, in addition to facilitate landing pages with user-focused distributions or products, one of the results in the drupal.org's UI could be for example the following tags for most distributions:

Primary use: quick-start tool

Primary use: full-featured product

Or their equivalents in practice:

Primary target users: developers, site builders

Primary target users: site builders, end users

API changes

No API changes needed. Also, there is already support for project-type-specific taxonomy vocabularies.