With the WebFM module, APC-member in Toronto has made a major contribution at the end of 2006 to the open source content management system Drupal.
WebFM allows a website user navigating a site that was made with Drupal to manage all files used on the website, such as documents, images and multimedia files via the familiar folder tree. This is especially useful for all those who are already used to Windows explorer or the Mac Finder file hierarchies in their respective computers. With simple-to-use drag and drop and folder creation and deletion functions, WebFM is increasingly becoming popular as Oliver Zielke himself states in the following interview excerpts.
Who uses WebFM?
We’ve implemented WebFM for a large nurses labour union. They are using it to manage thousands of collective agreements and legal documents. We’ve also implemented it on our other current website development projects with Canadian (non governmental organisations) NGOs
For what non-profit or community use is it?
Everyone uses files. WebFM lets you manage those files within public and private websites. The files in the WebFM folder tree are always available when any page is being created or edited. WebFM allows you to link to any file in any number of areas on your website, without having to upload it each time. It also supports some standardised adding and editing of metadata for each file.
I’m sure WebFM will be useful to the APC as it builds out its new public site on the Drupal platform.
But how does this system of contribution to the Drupal open source community work in practice?
We released WebFM to the Drupal community under a GNU GPL (specific general public licence) licence.
Our staff have been active in the Drupal community. Our APC sponsored usability report which was released to the Drupal community helped Web Network’s profile as well.
Is this a benefit of free and open source software?
Certainly. Web Networks contributed about four months of full time senior developer hours building WebFM. We are convinced that even though our "competition" will use WebFM, there is a positive business upside for us in become a major player in the Drupal community.
What is a drawback of the WebFM at this stage?
I don’t know any drawbacks :-)
Oliver Zielke is executive director of the non-profit organisation Web Networks, an APC member.
