http://twitter.com/Dries/status/1729306430

“Software bugs are disappearing and most bugs come from India — http://is.gd/xxmu ”

If you want to see Acquia’s code contributions back to the Drupal project, read my post http://acquia.com/blog/talk-silver-code-gold-acquias-code-contributions-drupal-project

Dries has also released a draft of the Drupal trademark policy for review. http://groups.drupal.org/node/15023

Kieran

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9733383-16.html

“Open Source software development is not just about getting the technology right, but also about being able to foster a healthy community of volunteers, hosting companies, development shops and consultants. You have to succeed at both. And if you managed to get both in place, make sure not to try and control everything.” – Dries

And look at recent posts around where he is looking to control things.

Community must mandate and vote for Dries to release Drupal Trademark fully to Drupal Association.

With $7million, he can get few followers easily who will say ‘yes’ to anything he says. He got the money after all so why not but these few followers are not the entire Drupal community.

Community and Good Citizen is not what Dries and his team thinks it is – as a matter of fact it is what it is – way bigger – anyone using Drupal at any level. And when Dries unilaterally tries to control this after many many developers putting hundreds and thousands of hours in Drupal, this same community which respected him and his vision earlier will go after him.

There is an uneasy wait and watch. Let Acquia test some waters first. Few wrong steps and it’s over for everyone. Many developers, Drupal shops here in North America and elsewhere would also probably be of the same opinion and waiting to see how Acquia code is rolled back in Drupal or whether Carbon will be a fork that splits Drupal community.

So far not much code has been released by Acquia and there are no success stories with real customers using Carbon.

It will be interesting to see community reaction if Acquia delves in Professional Services. Someone who did no want to control now wants to control everything.

Peter

It’s not FUD. It’s a well considered and succinct opinion about the opportunities and threats facing Drupal…and in response to some of the comments on here: of course Dries should be able to make money from Drupal, nobody is questioning that.

It’s the wisdom of his approach that is under question.

I’m actually very dismayed with the way Acquia are presenting Drupal in the media/press as a completely new product, with a totally new brand and describing it as a “hardened, commercial-grade version of Drupal”, which suggests that Drupal is, in some way, sub-standard.

It is an astonishing approach, considering that Dries is involved in Acquia.

I’ve read interviews with Dries and other members of the Acquia team insisting that this isn’t a departure from open source and all the Acquia carbon code will find itself flowing back into Drupal.

And that really worries me.

If that’s the case, why didn’t they just release an Acquia Installation Profile? Why did they launch a totally new product and new brand?

An objective observer might point out that it’s *EXTREMELY* good for Acquia’s investors and venture capitalists to pursue that approach, but, it’s *NOT* so good for the Drupal community and Drupal project.

As an example, it’s fairly natural to assume that commercial Drupal developers will be drawn to a “hardened commercial grade version of Drupal” which is essentially how Acquia are presenting Carbon in the press.

Many Drupal users will download carbon and use it, without signing up and paying for the commercial support Acquia is planning to provide. In particular full time Drupal developers, which means many of the key developers will be developing modules for Carbon…not Drupal.

It’s plausible that they will spend extra time modifying, testing and contributing those modules for Drupal, but, no matter what way you look at it, the way Acquia have approached the launch of their Drupal distribution will split the Drupal community into the ‘hardened’ Carbon community and the Drupal community.

That wouldn’t happen if they did things the ‘Drupal way’ i.e. launching a new Installation Profile for Drupal, rather than launching a new product and brand in the way they did.

If Acquia really do plan to make their money from commercial support, launching an installation profile for Drupal wouldn’t have mad a jot of difference to their business plan. They could still provide commercial support for their installation profile, anyway.

As a huge fan of open source, I’m also very dissapointed with Dries’ approach with Acquia and Carbon.

It suggests that open source doesn’t work..i.e. it isn’t possible for an open source project to achieve a ‘hardened, commercial-grade’ level of quality without venture capitalists, investors and old-world business models based on IP.

That’s not true of course and some might argue that it’s an indication that thre has been simply a failure to harness the Drupal community properly/efficiently enough to produce a ‘hardened, commercial-grade’ level of quality.

Humans are known to do strange things where there is ton of $$$ at stake. Clearly Dries has shown leadership all along but who knows about future. If Dries and changes his mind, who would have time and energy to put a lawsuit in Belgium?

On the positive side, Dries is a very smart leader. He has been contributing code regularly has managed to provide leadership to take Drupal to new levels. He regularly takes feedback from the community on how Drupal should evolve. His State of Drupal presentations are just superb. He certainly has very high respect as of yet.

On http://association.drupal.org/about/faq, Dries still holds trademark, is Permanent Member of Association and a Co-Founder of Acquia. “The Drupal Association as yet is unestablished, and would represent a great risk to place something so important to the community in its hands, at least at this stage.” – Oops. I fail to understand how can Dries hold everything and still do justice to community ?

Why does Dries, and not the Drupal Association, hold the domain name?

Dries has always retained access to the domain name, and has a proven track history of being responsible with its care. The Drupal Association as yet is unestablished, and would represent a great risk to place something so important to the community in its hands, at least at this stage.
Does the Drupal Association own the Drupal trademark?

No, the Drupal trademark belongs to Dries. However, further trademarks could be looked into by the Association, and the Association will work to protect the trademark.

Lets look at Acquia FAQ:
http://acquia.com/faq

“But Drupal/PHP modules / code cannot be closed source. If we have non-open-source code, it will always be code that runs “outside” of Drupal (e.g. outside the PHP interpreter that is running Drupal), providing some value outside of what Drupal itself does.”

I am hoping that they come clean with putting all contributions back to the community and telling what portions they are keeping closed source.

Here is what is there in Acquia post but we have yet to see the results.

How will the formation of Acquia affect future Drupal development?

We will contribute to Drupal development just as other companies or individuals do today. Our contributions have to stand up to the scrutiny of the community. If our contribution volume is high, Acquia’s contributions may suggest new directions and possibilities for Drupal development. But we know open source is all about merit, not rank. We intend to earn the respect of the community by giving tons of contributions back to the project. We want Drupal to be a huge star among the ranks of Open Source Rock Stars, and we are committed to helping the future of Drupal development in any way we can.

One question community should certainly ask Acquia – “If a customer who has signed up for Carbon product or any other product with Acquia decides to leave, what all can he carry away – all modules, theme and data? – Are there pieces that Acquia won’t release? and Will Acquia have first released these tested modules and scripts to Drupal.org before putting them in their products?”

There certainly is some merit in the post that Dries and Company is taking Community Inputs, Sweat for personal gains violating GPL and hey – who cares about Belgian laws.

Again from Drupal Association Faq:

Is Drupal a registered US 501(c)(3)?

No, as stated above, the Drupal Association has been incorporated in Belgium. We will explore ways of having sister / daughter organizations in different countries and what that means for different tax implications, but is not likely something we can tackle in the short term.

I am keeping my eyes and ears open while I continue to burn hours in learning Drupal.