[TYPO3] Is DAM worth its use or is it dead?

[Francois Suter]

Hi,

> Ok, here is my thinking. Media management is a key component of a modern 
> CMS. DAM has accomplished the job, but as we see, development has ceased 
> due to the project leader leaving. The area must continue to evolve though.

As I said before, development is being done again. I agree that it's not 
at a huge pace, but that's because it's all volunteers work and nobody 
is actually sponsoring the development of the DAM (except by allowing 
their developers to spend man-hours on the DAM, which is not negligible).

> I am not an expert at Typo3 (in fact, I'm fairly new), but from what I 
> can see, the DAM was functioning by XCLASSing several core files. It 
> also looks different from Typo3 - it's not using the same skin, which is 
> especially evident when installed on 4.2

I haven't looked, but are there really that many XCLASSes? Specifically 
the DAM contains lots of copies of Core files, that were modified for 
changed or enhanced behavior. My feeling when I look at the DAM is that 
Rene Fritz made it a laboratory for his vision of a future of TYPO3, but 
his ideas were never ported back to the core (I may be wrong here, it's 
just an impression). I agree that there are many places where I would 
like the DAM to work just like the Core and I don't see the point of 
some changes, but that's what happens when you let a project be run by a 
single person...

> So I vote to make DAM part of the core, by building the functionality 
> that was done by XCLASSing into Typo3, rebuilding DAM to use the back 
> end skin, etc. It doesn't have to become part of the core, but with 
> these modifications, it might as well. I'm willing to help, but again, I 
> don't know the core that well, and it would be best to have at least a 
> few core developers participating in this project.

I agree with Dmitry. There's no reason to move the DAM into Core. Look 
at tt_news. It's the most used extension by a long shot and you could 
argue that a news system should be built into any modern CMS. Still why 
make it part of the Core when it works so well as an extension.

> Should we move this discussion into the DAM list?

You are absolutely free to try. Who knows what may happen ;-) ?

Cheers

-- 

Francois Suter
Cobweb Development Sarl - http://www.cobweb.ch