Plone vs Zope
After reading that post in Chris McDonough's blog, I've been thinking about that Plone vs Zope topic.
I've covered such topic before. For me, it is clear that Plone is a Product (like any other) inside a web application server like Zope (at least Zope2). Anyway, Plone has grown a lot those years, getting closer to end users, so it is very common to find users/customers/bosses that ask for Plone directly, even if they do not need the full bloated Product.
Do not misunderstand me, in my oppinion Plone is a very good piece of software, probably my choice to build big high-end robust web portals, but sometimes you can find better solutions to given problems.
For me, it is like driving a truck, when you only need a bike.
If you've read Chris post, there you will find that it seems like Zope3 isn't so used as expected because of that too, that is, Plone runs on top of Zope2, not on top of Zope3, so Zope2 is still the preferred environment (because people don't know even about Zope2, they ask directly for Plone).
That's even worse, because Zope3 is a totally different approach to web development as in Zope2, it is closer to a web development framework than to a web application server, so you can't compare Zope3 and Zope2 directly (nothing to say about comparing Zope3 and Plone).
Finally, there is grok, a new web development framework built on top of Zope3, which is getting a bigger name than Zope3 itself in the web development world. Anyway (imho), grok couldn't be considered to Zope3 as plone is to Zope2, because Plone is a product to build web portals (among other things), while grok is a framework you can use to build whatever you want.
Conclusion: It is clear that Zope2 needs plone to survive, but I do not think that Zope2 should be used exclusively with Plone, there are a lot of other interesting Products out there, and building your own is pretty easy.
Conclusion (another one): It seems like the time to begin playing with Zope3 and their components and new ideas, now it seems mature enough, and things like grok probe it.