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Z Object Publishing Environment

    Contact(s): Martijn Faassen, Stephan Richter

    Homepage: Zope - http://www.zope.org; Zope Documentation Project - http://zdp.zope.org

    Mailing List: http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zdp

    Documentation License: TBD, possibly the Open Publication License, but that isn't yet for certain.

    Code License: Zope Public License

    Zope is a free, Open Source application server and portal toolkit used for building high-performance, dynamic web sites.

    How does Zope fit into the marketplace?

    1. Commercial application servers where the competition includes products such as Cold Fusion, Silverstream, Netscape Application Server, and others. This is a crowded market focused on two areas: Java and relational databases.
    2. Free development systems and Open Source software. This includes free products such as PHP, mod_perl. In fact the dominant product in all market segments is the one built in-house, which is often constructed with free tools.
    3. Portals and content management systems. Examples of portals include Glyphica and Portera. Content management systems include Frontier (which we are often compared to) and Vignette (which we come across often in competitive consulting bids).

    Documentation requirements: Requirements for ZDP (FAQ and Reference). Additionally:

    • A FAQ. Currently they're working on building tools that will allow for the collaborative creation/maintenence of FAQs.
    • HOWTOs. Again, the tools the Zope gang is developing should help a lot with these sorts of documents.
    • Reference Manual.
    • Other documentation, such as introductory materials, tutorials, examples. The current Guide can be found on the ZDP homepage.
    • Additionally, the Python source is partially documented, but it could be improved. Some standard process for extracting this would also be very nice.

    People interested in working on the Zope documentation should, obviously, have solid writing skills, and an ability to write for beginner-level users. Knowledge of Zope and/or Python is also useful, but much of this can be learned on the job.


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