When The Definitive Guide to Plone e first arrived on bookshelves in 2004, Plone 2. 0 had just been released and had little notable open source competition. The first edition of The Defi- tive Guide e provided a truly comprehensive overview of the features of this early version of Plone and brought many new users to Plone. It was a major landmark for Plone and for open source content management systems (CMSs) in general. In the intervening years, the open source CMS universe has expanded rapidly. There are now dozens of competing open source CMSs, from humble blogging platforms to flexible enterprise-capable systems. Through all of this, Plone has managed to innovate, expand its vibrant community, and remain a vital, fl- ible, and popular CMS. Since the publication of the first edition, the Plone community has produced a number of major revisions to the Plone CMS. Many new books have been published covering Plone from different perspectives (developers, administrators, and end users), but few have provided the comprehensive treatment provided by this book’s first edition. Thankfully, Redomino, a successful Italian Plone consultancy, has updated The Definitive Guide e so that this landmark book remains—true to its title—definitive. This updated volume reflects the many changes to Plone’s user interface, nomenclature, and infrastructure. Redomino has asked me to provide a brief overview of Plone’s recent evolution from the perspective of someone involved directly in the development and release of Plone during this period of change.
