A lesson in selfish alturism
A few days ago, Franco Pellegrini posted a short message to the Plone mailing lists about a project he'd been working on in his spare time: an IDE for Plone.
It's impressive.
Check out the video, especially the bits towards the end.
I don't think I've met Franco or seen his contributions before, so this came out of the blue. It's like an early open source Christmas present, one of those moments where you suddenly feel excited just to have realised what others are working on.
The immediate reaction of many in the community was one of astonishment. Where did this guy come from? Many of us wanted to meet Franco, connect him with others who are working on similar things, and encourage his project to reach maturity. There's no better place for that than the Plone Conference, which starts November 3rd.
Unfortunately, Franco was unable to come, as he could not afford the plane ticket, accommodation and conference ticket. Within a couple of hours, he'd had an offer of a free ticket from someone who had bought one, but couldn't come, and a room-share for free. We then suggested he set up a ChipIn to raise funds for the travel.
He did. Within 24 hours, it had reached 50% of his stated goal of $1,500. You can check the progress here and perhaps chip in yourself.
It's stuff like this that makes me love the Plone community.
P.S.
Shameless plug: If you're going to the conference and you're interested in learning how the professionals work with Plone, check out my training course Plone Development Environment and Deployment Masterclass.