Drupal

Dries Buytaert and I examined commit data to help understand who develops Drupal, how much of that work is sponsored, and where that sponsorship comes from. We illustrate that the Drupal community is far ahead in understanding how to sustain and scale the project, and show that the Drupal project is a healthy project with a diverse community of contributors. Nevertheless, in Drupal's spirit of always striving to do better, we also highlight areas where the Drupal community can and should do better.

Recently the Drupal Association announced accepted sessions for DrupalCon New Orleans. While it looks like we can expect another great DrupalCon (this will be my 7th straight North American DrupalCon), one particular session on the program about the sale of Drupal modules caught my attention. Although I have tried to stay focused on preparing my own sessions, I have had conversations with other people in the Drupal community about “paid modules” that have led me to the conclusion that confusion about this topic persists. So here I would like to offer a perspective on why these kinds of plans consistently fail. Specifically, I hope to expand the scope of this frequently discussed issue and suggest why so many paid module initiatives fail: the Drupal community protects its free software with the same vigor that other communities protect artistic freedom.

Today we are proud to announce a new Drupal 8 module that provides support for the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project. The AMP Project is a new open source initiative which drastically improves the performance of the mobile web. In January 2016 Lullabot and Google started working together to create the Drupal AMP module. A beta version of AMP module for Drupal 8 is available immediately, and we are starting work on a Drupal 7 version of the module that will be available in mid-March.

While the new configuration system in Drupal 8 strives to make the process of exporting and importing site configuration feel almost effortless, immensely complex logic facilitates this process. Over the past five years, the entire configuration system code was written and rewritten multiple times, and we think we got much of it right in its present form. As a result of this work, it is now possible to store configuration data in a consistent manner and to manage changes to configuration.

I believe that the Drupal community will be most successful not merely by convincing more people to work with us through technological manipulations, but instead by focusing on improving interactions within the community and a goal of cultivating social solidarity. Instead of using technology to grow the Drupal project, we should focus on adjusting our culture in order to improve our technology.

Drupal is always changing. The community constantly reinvents Drupal with new code and reimagines Drupal with new words. This article seeks to examine the current narratives about Drupal. By examining the stories we tell about Drupal — the so called cultural constructions — we can better understand what is going well and what should be making us uncomfortable.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the first joint meeting of Minnesota Go and Rust users, and arrived home inspired -- not just by Go and Rust, but also about Drupal and its community.

I worked at a public radio station for eight years and I sometimes thought it would be fun to have my own show. So perhaps there is a bit of irony since I no longer work in public radio and I am finally going to get my own show! The newest member of Lullabot's podcast family is Hacking Culture, featuring in-depth interviews with free software advocates.

Over the past couple of years, the Drupal community has been hard at work trying to confront a variety of challenges concerning Drupal core development, especially issues like burnout and funding.

I hope that you see a lot of reminders to vote this week. Of course, I am referring to the vote for the Drupal Association (DA) Board of Directors. I have already seen a number of blog posts and tweets that link to the candidate profiles, the first and second "meet the candidate" sessions, and the URL where you cast your vote.