Drupal 7: let's get it done
Despite a great effort from many people, getting Drupal 7 released has proven to be a slow and arduous process. What remains is not trivial. The release of Drupal 7 is important to all of us, our businesses, and growing both adoption and our community, so something more must be done.
Effective today, Acquia is committing one full-time engineer to help to fix critical bugs in Drupal 7. This is in addition to the regular work that our staff does on Drupal 7 as part of the development of Drupal Gardens, and the core work that some of our engineers do as part of their community gardening days (similar to Google's "20-percent time").
The team itself will decide who that engineer will be but it is likely to be one of the following people: Alex Bronstein (effulgentsia), Gábor Hojtsy, Jacob Singh, Peter Wolanin (pwolanin), Katherine Senzee (ksenzee) or David Rothstein. They'll decide that later today as part of the sprint planning. I'll announce it in the comments this afternoon!
As a community, we need to get better at focusing on the critical bugs. There are only about 20 critical bugs left so with the right focus, we're in striking distance of getting Drupal 7 out. Hence, the Acquia engineer will be working on critical issues only. It's all about focus.
And we want you to join us! We could use more companies to step up and contribute a dedicated resource. The deployment and adoption of Drupal 7 will deliver big benefits to all of our businesses.
We're all very much committed to our clients and have daily tasks to perform as part of our livelihood. So we don't always have the time to work on the remaining bugs in Drupal 7. However, if we don't address them, if we don't plan time to work on them, it just won't happen. If you'd be interested in pitching in with this enormous effort by contributing a dedicated resource, but don't know where to go, or where help is needed most, I can help direct you to the right places. Just let me know you're interested in helping.
Clarity (examiner.com) is helping a little too: I have 20% of my time, one day a week on Drupal now.
September 23, 2010 - 15:06That is great to hear, chx! Thank you. :)
September 23, 2010 - 15:13Thanks Acquia. Must be difficult to choose from such a list of Drupal celebs. :-)
September 23, 2010 - 15:13I am also dedicating a 1 day on every week to Drupal 7 from now on, as we all need it to be out as u said, for our business and personal projects. Keep it up. :)
September 23, 2010 - 15:22I haven't done any core in ages :(
September 23, 2010 - 15:39Great to hear. Many thanks.
September 23, 2010 - 16:06May I vote, too? My vote clearly goes to eff.
September 23, 2010 - 16:14Don't hate me, Gábor, Jacob, Peter, Katherine or David, but my vote is with Alex too. I'm allowed to vote, right?
September 23, 2010 - 16:45Hello,
That's the first time I come to your blog. I'm using Drupal for one of our intern company's project and I can say you did a really good job.
I'm trying to use it correctly and maybe after I can take some times to help you in bug-fixing.
September 23, 2010 - 16:47Drupal 6 is working fine though ;-)
September 23, 2010 - 16:58Oh, go Alex. All that great work he does. No matter who you pick though, thanks for the contribution to Drupal.
September 23, 2010 - 17:25effulgentsia++
September 23, 2010 - 17:25Ha, there is no voting - the Acquia engineering team is deciding based on vaca days, commitments, and many other considerations.
September 23, 2010 - 17:47That's nice, thanks guys.
September 23, 2010 - 19:10The team has decided that Katherine Senzee (ksenzee) will work on critical bugs in Drupal 7 for the next 3 weeks. :)
September 23, 2010 - 20:45Thank you, Katherine and all. Something interesting is the current status of the remaining 22 critical issues:
Of the 3 last beta blockers, 2 of them are critical, and 1 is a major with status "Needs review", which is blocking a critical beta blocker.
September 23, 2010 - 22:42Katherine "Kick-that-bug's-ass" Senzee - yay!
September 23, 2010 - 23:24Thanks, everyone, who "voted" for me. I really appreciate the confidence you have in me. But I agree with the team choice. I think Katherine will add a lot of value, especially on the beta blockers. Where it makes sense to, Katherine may pull me and others in, in exchange for us pulling her in on the Acquia work we're responsible for getting done in the next few weeks, but it will be up to her to decide how to manage that internal "trading".
And I really want to express my appreciation that Acquia is making it possible for us to dedicate Katherine to core work for the next 3 weeks. As well as to examiner.com and every other company and individual who contributes to the effort.
September 23, 2010 - 21:35At Bluespark we're going to have one person dedicating one day per week to the effort (or two people for a half-day). Looking forward to helping in a more official capacity!
September 24, 2010 - 02:15May I suggest that the company's having a dedicated developer 1 day a week for core, decide together (if at all possible) on what day of the week it happens, so sprints and communication between developers is easier and accelerates the process?
Thanks for all your dedication, this community is really amazing!
September 24, 2010 - 09:08This is great news. Thanks, Dries!
September 24, 2010 - 16:19We can't wait for this all-important change to Drupal. Jolidog++
September 25, 2010 - 10:18This is just wonderful. Thank you so much for the hard work!
September 25, 2010 - 13:41Just wanted to say that all you people putting in hours on Drupal have done an amazing job. I can't wait to play around with Drupal 7.
September 25, 2010 - 20:25Ditto!
Your teamwork is inspiring, and Drupal is incredible.
/gael
September 27, 2010 - 04:21Some core developers need a holiday. Don't pressure them too much. Will do more damage than good.
September 30, 2010 - 19:10Guess I'm coming a bit late to this news, but I did see ksenzee on the beta blockers. This is awesome! Thanks, Dries, Katherine, and the rest of the Acquia team! Also to chx and whoever else is working so diligently on the criticals.
October 2, 2010 - 17:13Dries,
If you still need more resources, I sure can spend a day on a week as well. I have gone through every single line of Drupal's core :-) And have built many websites in Drupal. But I have not contributed to any community module / theme before.
October 11, 2010 - 10:00We still need more help and resources -- Drupal 7 isn't released yet. We'll always need more help so don't hesitate to get involved, Raj.
October 11, 2010 - 14:34We decided to continue to dedicate one full-time @Acquia engineer to Drupal 7 core criticals. This time it is effulgentsia (Alex Bronstein). Go Alex!
October 15, 2010 - 14:04Post new comment