Dries Buytaert

Drupal.org redesign code sprints: update 3

Ever wanted to see the Media Lab at MIT? An almost mythical place where "...the future is lived, not imagined ... a world where radical technology advances are taken for granted, ..." and technology is designed "... for people to create a better future".

I've visited the Media Lab before and it is highly recommended. This is your chance.

On Friday, June 12th, we're conducting a one-day Drupal.org redesign sprint at the MIT Media Lab. Designed to bring home our kicking re-design for Drupal.org designed by Mark Boulton and Leisa Reichelt, all Drupal designers and developers who would like to contribute to theming our new home at drupal.org are welcome, invited, and encouraged to attend. Attendance is limited, so you must sign-up in advance.

Even if you're "just" a newbie, we'll make sure to have you ready for attendance by activating your infrastructure.drupal.org account, by creating your own hosted copy of drupal.org for your localized testing, and by training you in working within the redesign theme issue queue.

If you are interested in helping -- and I hope you are -- please sign-up to schedule your training by visiting http://groups.drupal.org/node/22036. Thanks!

Google to invest 90,000 USD in Drupal

The summer is off to a great start again. Google just announced that they will sponsor 18 Drupal developer stipends in this year's Summer of Code program (SoC). Google provides 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 18 accepted applications this adds up to a 90,000 USD investment over a three-month period. In addition to Drupal, they are supporting a ton of other Open Source projects, including PHP, which Drupal heavily depends on.

The accepted students, their projects, and the mentors are listed on the official Drupal.org announcement. Congratulations to all successful applicants, and thanks to the Drupal Summer of Code organizers, the Drupal mentors, and last but not least, Google. Awesome!

Drupal Association 2009 election results

Yesterday, the Drupal Association elected both new Permanent Members to the Drupal Association as well as a new Board of Directors.

Six new members received a 2/3 majority vote by the attending members of the General Assembly and were elected as Permanent Members: Tiffany Farriss, Cary Gordon, Bill Fitzgerald, Jeff Robbins, David Strauss and Kristof Van Tomme.

Following the Permanent Member vote, the new General Assembly elected a new Board of Directors. Of 9 eligible members, 7 were selected, bringing the total board for 2009 to 8 members: Dries Buytaert, Angela Byron, Tiffany Farriss, Larry Garfield, Cary Gordon, Gerhard Killesreiter, Kieran Lal and Jacob Redding.

Congratulations to those who were elected, and thanks to all who applied. Voting, or being voted upon, is never easy. If you were not elected, we hope to work closely with you and to assist you in pursuing the goals outlined in your applications.

Last but not least, I would also like to express my sincere thanks to the previous Board of Directors. With your help, the Drupal Association accelerated notably in 2008. We'll build on your work this year, and we'll work hard to carry it further.

Drupal.org redesign code sprints: update 2

This week, twelve of us have gathered in Paris to continue our work on upgrading drupal.org. Sprinters include: Joeri Poesen, Damien Tournoud, Neil Drumm, Mike O'Conner, Gerhard Killesreiter, Klaas Van Waesberghe, Todd Ross Nienkerk, Aaron Stanush, David Stosik, Morten Heide, Gábor Hojtsy and myself. Upgrading and redesigning drupal.org is a big project, and, when implemented, will be an important milestone for our community. We're hopeful that we can push the drupal.org redesign closer to completion this week.

The Boston sprint two weeks ago was dedicated to upgrading drupal.org from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 in preparation for this week's redesign. We worked hard, putting in 12-14 hour days, fleshing out solutions over breakfast, lunch and dinner and left only a short time for sleep. As a result, we're close to being able to upgrade drupal.org from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6.

This week in Paris, our group is split into two teams. One group will implement the new theme designed by Mark Boulton and Leisa Reichelt with the involvement of many people in our community. The second group will continue where we left off in Boston and will also start implementing some of the new functionality planned for the new drupal.org (e.g. better search, improved project pages, better landing pages, a jobs page, an events page, and more).

These week-long sprints are non-trivial. Although all of the participants invest their own time free of charge, we'd like to cover their airfare, hotel and some of the food required to keep them running. We've only been able to hold these sprints due to your generous contributions in the past; we still need to raise more funds so it is not too late to donate. Please consider using the Chipin widget to contribute if you can.

A number of organizations, including One Laptop Per Child, AF83, Four Kitchens, DrupalTherapy, OpenBand and Looforyoo, Capgemini France, NowPublic, Tag1consulting, and Acquia have already come forward with donations of money and resources to help make these sprints be successful.

At the end of the sprint, we'll update you on our progress, so please stay tuned for details.

Dries for President

I founded Drupal in 1999, and have been the project lead since Drupal was first released in 2001. I've been a long-time Open Source user and contributor, and have co-founded two companies in the Drupal ecosystem: Acquia, in 2007, and Mollom, in 2008. I also co-founded the Drupal Association in 2006.

It's been an honor to be a part of the Drupal project, and it remains so today. Through my work with Drupal, I've become better at programming, communicating, and managing. I've made many friends, and because of them, I continue to spend the majority of my time -- both business and leisure -- working on Drupal. Our common goal to create the best web platform in the world and our shared commitment to empowering people to connect online continues to motivate and inspire me.

For the first time, my position as President of the Drupal Association is up for election. With this post, I'd like to submit my candidacy to serve as President for another two-year term. While I'm in no way perfect, I believe I have always served the Drupal project well and I understand the duties of this demanding role. My experience with the operational, financial, legal and social issues facing the Drupal Association is extensive, and I want to continue to use that experience in service to the Association.

I believe Drupal is about two things: people and software. In 2006, I helped establish the Drupal Association's almost exclusive focus on people, rather than software. I believed then, and now, that the people themselves create the software. While this separation of powers does not exist in most other FOSS foundations, I think that the model has worked well, and I'd like to support that separation going forward.

Despite our extensive activities in 2008, the Drupal Association has been held back by the lack of more active contributors, and particularly, contributors in some key areas of our organization. One role of the President is to lend focus to particular areas where the project should focus, to draw attention to the areas of the project that might be somewhat dysfunctional, and to bring in leadership to address these problems. Given that, I want to outline a few of the areas where I want to push the Drupal Association and where I believe we should extend the current team.

I believe the Drupal Association has trouble managing big projects. The Drupal.org redesign and the growing DrupalCons are good examples of big projects. We always get them done, but it is often painful and stressful. Being volunteers, it is hard to do big projects, and we're only beginning to learn how to manage them. Delegation is a great mechanism for that, and we have yet to realize its potential.

If re-elected, I'd like to promote the organization of more face-to-face meetings. There is no better way to work together and make big things happen than by putting people together in a room. In the next couple of years, I would like the Board of Directors to get together more often, and I'd like the Drupal Association to help fund or organize more DrupalCons, more DrupalCamps, and more Drupal meet-ups as well as increase our presence at conference and trade shows. I think the Drupal Association needs two Directors for this: an Events Director responsible for the organization of DrupalCons, and a User Group Director responsible for supporting user groups and smaller events.

To date, the Drupal Association is responsible for making at least two global Drupal events happen each year; one Drupal conference in Europe and one Drupal conference in North America. I think we should outsource these to an event planning organization (except for the technical program and the sponsorship management) so they can continue to grow bigger and better. I believe we should direct our own efforts to bootstrapping a third DrupalCon -- one in Asia or South America. It will be a multi-year effort, but I think it is where we can add most value.

I also think that the Drupal Association should have a Director of Project Management, with a mandate to help delegate and manage some of the Drupal Association's technical projects (e.g., improving our CRM system, setting up a single-sign on system, implementing an advertising program).

Drupal has become a large project, which means that it is no longer possible for everyone to know everything. As a result, the need for good communication is increasingly important. To ensure that this vital communication exists, I think the Drupal Association needs a Communication Director responsible for informing the Drupal community about important events. The Communication Director should have responsibility over the Drupal.org front page and provide help with press releases and media.

In addition to these new roles, we should continue to have a Treasurer, a Secretary, a Fundraising Director, an Infrastructure Director and a Legal Affairs Director.

If we can't fill all these positions in 2009, that's OK. Or, if the final positions differ from the positions the ones I outlined, that is not necessarily a problem either. At the end of the day, we always have to match the capabilities of people to our goals -- not the other way around. As the current President, and with the little time that I might have left, I will proceed trying to recruit these people. I hope we can build such a team, and that I have the honor to be part of it for at least another 2 years. Thanks!

Drupal.org redesign code sprints: update 1

Last week, we met at DrupalCamp Köln in Germany to start planning the Drupal.org redesign work. The intent of the meeting was to get a better handle on the work ahead of us, and to make preliminary design decisions. Further, we're starting to establish how we'll work together, and ultimately, how we scale out the work in the future.

We all went home from Germany with additional work to do:

• Olav Schettler is researching OpenID servers and will share his findings in the drupal.org redesign group.
• Gábor Hojtsy took on the responsibility of dissecting Mark's design, mapping features onto modules, and helping to create a continuous integration environment to test the upgrade.
• Robert Douglass agreed to do research on our search requirements, and will develop a comparison and discussion plan.
• We formed a group of theme designers under the guidance of Mike O'Connor and Morten (King of Denmark) that will investigate our theme options and how to best translate Mark Boulton's designs to a working theme. If you want to help, contact them using their personal contact pages to join their temporary new group on groups.drupal.org. The drupal.org style guide is published at http://infrastructure.drupal.org/drupal.org-style-guide.
• Fago agreed to research friend and buddy lists. Drupal.org is as much (if not more) a social site than a content site and Mark's design promotes the social aspect even further.
• Gerhard Killesreiter and Damien Tournoud are working on getting a test and development server set up so we can do continuous testing.
• I agreed to continue my focus on coordination, communication, fundraising, financials, and more -- hence this blog post.

As the next step, about 10 of us are heading to Boston next week to begin work on the Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 upgrade of drupal.org. The list of people include: Gábor Hojtsy, Derek Wright (project module), Chad Phillips (project module), Dave Reid, Damien Tournoud, Neil Drumm, Susan MacPhee, Jeremy Andrews, Narayan Newton, David Strauss and myself.

So far, the fundraising is going well. In addition to the many individual contributors who have donated raw dollars in the Chip-in widget, various companies have stepped up to donate human resources. Kudos go to One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), AF83, Four Kitchens, DrupalTherapy, OpenBand, Looforyoo, NowPublic, Tag1 Consulting and Acquia.

However, if we want to make it to Paris to continue the work, we need more money and more attendees! If you're available to attend the sprint in Paris, and if you can help us upgrade modules or write new modules, please let me know. If you can support the sprints through a financial contribution via the ChipIn widget, we appreciate your support.

If you can't make it to either Boston or Paris, the best way to help is to review the overview at http://drupal.org/node/362117, the list of issues at http://drupal.org/project/issues-term/346, and help us tackle them one by one. These URLs reflect a live and accurate view of our progress so everyone can help -- bookmark these pages and start participating today! We hope that many people will help us remotely as we work on this list of issues. Thanks!

Drupal Association 2009 election

The Drupal Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the Drupal community with fun­ding, infra­structure, events, promotion and distribution. The current Board of Directors was elected a year ago, so it's election time again!

On February 17 we will elect new Permanent Members (the General Assembly is comprised of all the Permanent Members) and our third Board of Directors (the Board of Directors is appointed by the General Assembly and is responsible for day-to-day operations). All the details can be found in the Drupal Association's Statutes and on the 2009 election website.

In its second year of operation, the pace of the Drupal Association's work has accelerated notably. We (i) extended the drupal.org infrastructure, (ii) raised funds, (iii) helped organize two international Drupal conferences, (iv) resolved many licensing questions, (v) funded several events, and (vi) made the Drupal.org redesign a top priority. Despite the progress made in 2008, we would like to ramp up our professionalism and increase our activity in 2009.

We are looking for people that want to become a Director on the Drupal Association's Board of Directors and who can provide leadership and experience to expand the reach of the Drupal Association and its activities. All current Board positions, except the Secretary, are up for election, including President, Treasurer, Legal Officer, Marketing and Communications, Infrastructure Manager, Fundraiser, and Events Coordinator. The Association is also looking for new members with skills in marketing, local user group coordination, drupal.org webmaster coordination, project management and more.

People interested in becoming a Permanent Members are also invited to apply. While Permanent Members don't have the full responsibilities of board members, we expect them to take on regular work for the Association. Work done by Permanent Members include a wide range of activities, from processing member applications to assisting with Association projects like the drupal.org upgrade project to managing drupal.org infrastructure.

The Drupal Association is solely run by unpaid volunteers and we expect that our board members will spend a considerable amount of time working on Association responsibilities and obligations. If you think you're a good candidate, and you have the time it takes, find an existing Permanent Member to support your candidacy and submit your application. Applications are due by February 10 and on February 17, we elect the new Permanent Members and the new Board of Directors.

If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask them in the comments, or to contact the Drupal Association.

As the current president of the Drupal Association, I'll post my personal reflections, vision and wishlist for the Drupal Association in a follow-up blog post within the next couple of days. I expect that other Permanent Members will do the same, so keep an eye on the Drupal Association Planet as well as the Drupal Planet.