Kaustubh Srikanth
Sat, 12/29/2007 - 09:56 — kaustubhsrikanth
What is your motivation for being a member of the Drupal Association?:
I've been a Web Applications Architect for several years and have worked with various open-source frameworks to build websites in the past. But over the last few years, my focus has completely shifted towards Drupal owing to the flexibility and robust APIs it offers a developer or a webmaster to extend the core CMS to build custom, client-specific models of user-generated content and community driven online activities.
I have been an open-source developer and evangelist for several years and have helped other projects prosper by doing my bit in the past. I definitely consider myself as someone who can help Drupal grow and add value to the community with my technical skills, philosophy and ideas.
What are the primary goals you would like to work on?:
My goals range from community activities, events and promotion to specific technical implementations.
One of my primary goals is to work actively on localisation of Drupal into Indian languages. India has seen a huge number of adoptions of the Drupal CMS in the last couple of years and it definitely is a potential candidate in becoming the "community connect" in regions of the country where information technology is just walking in and we definitely need more tools which can be used for sharing knowledge and information and offer a communication platform in local languages.
My other goal is to organise more events around Drupal in India and increase its visibility in the web developer community here by taking it to conferences, barcamps and other such events.
What strategy will you employ in order to accomplish said goals?:
I have been talking to various organisations in India who are supportive towards helping more open-source tools flourish and be used in local contexts. The strategy would be to build a developer/evangelists community who can make solid commitments towards developing platforms using Drupal to help local growth and also get local organisations support development with infrastructure, resources and funding.
I also propose to represent Drupal at various technical open-source events which I am involved in such as FOSS.IN, Freed and several BarCamps and similar events that happen across the country.
What yearly budget would you need in order to accomplish said goals?:
I don't have a fixed budget in mind, but it would be great to get support from the association towards specific proposals. I also intend to raise funding from local organisations(NGOs and Corporates) to support development and evangelise Drupal.
What strengths/experience you have to help you accomplish the goals?:
I have been a long-time open-source developer and advocate with several years of involvement with various open-source projects. I am also lucky to be in a professional position where I am allowed to make decisions on technology my clients should choose to use and have convinced several professional organisations I have worked with in the past and am working with to look at Drupal as a serious candidate and support its development.
I am also well connected in the open-source community and have been on organising committees of various open-source related events in the last few years.
A strong believer in the "bazaar" model of building software(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar), I strongly focus on creating an open environment for external participation and collaboration on projects I initiate or contribute to.
How long have you been using Drupal, and how'd you get your start?:
I stumbled across Drupal about 3 years ago when I was looking at various content management systems written in PHP to build a website for and internet radio station I used to run. Although I decided not to use Drupal for that particular project, I fell in love with the framework and the flexibility it offered a developer. Since then, I've been actively using Drupal and advocating it.
Have you made existing community contributions, and if so, what?:
Over the years, I have developed high appreciation towards how the open-source culture works to make projects sustainable, which is one of the foremost reasons I choose to contribute to any open-source project. I believe in a collaborative approach to creating software and the hacker culture of "fixing" things. My interests in the past few years have also led me to be a part of several socially engaged media projects and involvement in important events which support the FOSS philosophy.
In 2003, I founded India's first online radio station called "Infinity Radio", which focused on promoting independent musicians from across the country. This was a project completely powered by open-source software and supported by a community of musicians, listeners and software developers. Infinity Radio went on to become RadioVeRVe later and supports over 200 independent artists today who had very few public broadcasting opportunities before this for their music. Although not involved with the project directly anymore, I still spend a lot of time helping the Indie music community in the country with my technical skills.
I have also played a key role in the development of the open-source movement in India over the years and have been one of the core organisers of FOSS.IN(http://foss.in), Asia's biggest open-source conference in the past. Apart from this, I have also been a key contributor at several BarCamps(http://barcamp.org) and other events across the country.
In 2007, I was one of the Google Summer of Code mentors for the Drupal project which involved working with a university student who developed an open-source Drupal module.
How much time can you invest in your Drupal Association work?:
21-30 hours/month
Apply for Board of Directors membership:
Apply for Permanent Membership only
Statutes:
I have read and understood the Statutes of the Drupal Association. I am prepared to participate by following those statutes.
Comments
Promoting Drupal outside of India?
One of my concerns with this and other applications is the focus around a specific locale, as the Drupal Association is a global organization. You've put down a /lot/ of hours per month to invest in the Drupal Association, which is awesome, and it seems like between that and your talent/connections, you could do a lot of good by promoting Drupal world-wide, not just in India. Is that something you have an interest in doing?
I do spend a fair amount of
I do spend a fair amount of my time advocating Drupal and working with people who are just starting to use the framework in India and abroad. Though my primary interest is to build a stronger Drupal dev community here, I definitely am not limiting myself to just India.
Association does not raise funds for software
Great application. You'll need to draw a line between promoting Drupal through the association, and fund raising for translations, and other software contributions.
From the statues:
Section 2: Authority
The community of Drupal developers decides independently on the func-
tionality on the one hand and on planning the development of the Drupal
software on the other. The Association shall not have casting vote in such
matters.
Please comment on how this aspect of the statues will impact your strategy.
I understand that the
I understand that the association does not help directly to fund software development. What I should make clear is that I definitely intend on raising funding for proposed localisation projects from interested external organisations. I also hope to make constructive suggestions towards promoting Drupal for which I might seek funding from the association where justified.
Bottomline is to use the position as a permanent member of the association to get more developers and funders interested in building a strong, more organised community of developers in India and other parts of Asia.