Dries Buytaert

Google to invest 105,000 USD in Drupal

The summer is off to a great start as Google continues to blow loving kisses at Drupal.

Google just announced that they will sponsor 21 Drupal developer stipends in this year's Summer of Code program (SoC). To inspire young developers to work on FOSS projects during the summer, Google will provide a stipend of 5,000 USD to each student developer, of which 4,500 USD goes to the student and 500 USD goes to Drupal Association (or to the mentors). With 21 accepted applications this adds up to a 105,000 USD investment over a three-month period.

The accepted students, their projects, and the mentors are listed on the official Drupal.org announcement. Many of the listed projects touch Drupal core, so it looks like I'm in for a really busy summer. Congratulations to all successful applicants, and thanks to the Drupal Summer of Code organizers, the Drupal mentors, and last but not least, Google. Great!

DrupalCon Szeged

Good news! The next Drupal conference (DrupalCon) will take place in Szeged, Hungary from August 27-30. If you want to learn more about Drupal, or if you want to capture and absorb the passion and enthusiasm behind the Drupal project, this is the place to be.

DrupalCon Szeged will bring together hundreds of Drupal users and developers from all around the world. Whether you are a Drupal professional or an enthusiastic user coming to find out more, you're invited to join us in Szeged. Mark your calendars!

This will be the first Drupal conference in Central Europe, and I'm excited by that. There are a lot of Drupal people in Central Europe, probably more so than in Western Europe, and this is a great way to reach out them. Plus, I've been to Hungary twice and liked it very much.

DrupalCon Boston registration open

The DrupalCon Boston 2008 registration is now open! You can register at http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/.

$195 USD for four days of tremendous fun, to (re-)connect with other Drupal users and developers, to share information and to learn from the best Drupal developers and Drupal companies in the world. Heck, lunches and coffee are included in the price. All run by Drupalistas, for Drupalistas so it doesn't get much better than that. And in case there is a surplus from the fees and sponsors, the Drupal Association will use that money to gear up its activities in 2008.

Sign up now, because you always win! ;-)

DrupalCon Boston

Good news! The next Drupal conference (DrupalCon) will take place in Boston from March 3-6. If you want to learn more about Drupal, or if you want to capture and absorb the passion and enthusiasm behind the Drupal project, this is the place to be.

The last Drupal conference, DrupalCon Barcelona, was capped at 450 people and sold out so this time around, we're trying to accommodate 700 Drupal people. Yes, these numbers blow my mind.

In other words, DrupalCon Boston will bring together hundreds of Drupal users and developers from all around the world. Whether you are a Drupal professional or an enthusiastic user coming to find out more, you're invited to join us in Boston.

Furthermore, DrupalCon is being held at the same time/place as AIIM International Exposition & Conference, the largest content management technology conference in North America. The goal: introduce Drupal to thousands of potential new Drupalers.

Organizing a conference of this size obviously takes a lot of resources; if you are interested in being a sponsor, please get in touch. Kudos to the DrupalCon Boston team and the Drupal Association for taking on this massive amount of work. This is not something we should take for granted. Thanks!

Drupal Association organization chart whishlist

As you might have read, we're in the process of electing next year's Board of Directors for the Drupal Association. I've already posted the the Drupal community's wishlist for the Drupal Association, but I wanted to follow up with my personal thoughts as well.

The chart below depicts an overview of the Drupal Association's Board of Directors in 2007; the green positions were filled in 2007. The graph also shows what I think would be important positions for 2008; the green and the white graphs are positions that I'd like to see filled in 2008 (except for the President, the Treasurer and the Secretary who have terms of two years and who get to run for another year).

See also: larger version of the organizational chart.

Drupal Association 2008 wishlist

Since we launched the Drupal Association in January 2007, roughly one year ago, we (i) improved the drupal.org infrastructure, (ii) we helped organize two international Drupal conferences, (iii) we established a relation with an accounting firm, (iv) we funded Drupal's presence at a number of events, (v) we started setting up fundraising campaigns, (vi) we entered into a relation with the Software Freedom Law Center, (vii) we are close to launching a Drupal Association membership model, etc.

In January 2008 we have to elect our second Board of Directors. We are looking for people that want to become either a Permanent Member or a member of the Board of Directors, and that can provide leadership and experience to expand the reach of the Drupal Association and its activities. If you are interested in helping to drive Drupal's explosive growth or if you want to help make a change in this world, you can submit your candidacy by following the instructions on drupal.org.

A few months ago, I asked more than 1,000 Drupal users what they think the Drupal Association should focus on. The results are provided below and might be a good source of inspiration when considering to submit your candidacy.

Sun and Drupal

Sun Microsystems has been active in the Drupal community and recently gave a presentation at DrupalCon Barcelona as well as helped sponsor Drupal events. Recently, Sun also made a second hardware donation to the Drupal Association: a SunFire X4200 to support the Drupal.org infrastructure. The first hardware donation was a Sun Fire V20z back in 2005.

On a related note, I successfully defended my PhD at the internal examination yesterday. This means that I am accepted to defend my PhD in public in January 2008. James Gosling, the inventor of Java and Vice President at Sun Microsystems, was part of my PhD examination committee. In the car to Ghent, we talked about Open Source, Java and Drupal. James knew about Drupal, the OpenOffice extensions site, etc.

I personally thanked James on behalf of the Drupal community for Sun's continued support. Thanks Sun!

James Gosling, the inventor of Java and Vice President at Sun Microsystems. © Sun Microsystems.