10.18.13

The Amazing Rise of Drupal

Posted in Free/Libre Software at 12:16 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Taking note of trends in Free (as in freedom) CMS software

JOOMLA, which is a popular CMS and content engine right now in 2013 [1], was used by a government client of my employer. WordPress, which I run on about a dozen sites (not just Techrights), is also very popular these days, but it is hardly being used in government sites. It’s just more of a blogging platform — one that I became closely involved in one decade ago (also the inner circles like development). Drupal was back then a close rival of WordPress, but both survived and established themselves in slightly different markets. A new government client of my employer uses Drupal and so does the White House. It has become almost a de facto standard as a CMS, whereas WordPress became somewhat of a de facto standard as a blogging platform. Both are GPL-licensed.

Looking at some news from the past month and a half, WordPress causes problems to some [2] and Drupal is gradually stealing its thunder [3-8]. One has to wonder if one day Drupal’s blogging facilities will help it leapfrog WordPress, even among bloggers. Either way, it’s all Free software, so these two projects can probably coexist, reuse, and thrive together, just like GNOME and KDE. The more options we have, the better, even if some disagree [9]. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Joomla on Ubuntu Server 13.10

2. When a WordPress Update Goes Awry

   Perhaps it’s merely a reminder that Murphy’s law is always at work–you know, if something can go wrong, it will. Or maybe it’s to instill in my own mind that the next time I upgrade, be sure to look at a cached page to make sure the public is seeing what I see. Then again, it could be an opportunity for you to learn from my mistakes.

3. Top 5 things Angie Bryon loves about Drupal

   Angie Byron is an advocate for Drupal. Commonly known online as webchick, she is a Drupal core co-maintainer. She has her finger on the pulse of the community, helping to manage over 1,600 contributors from all over the world.

4. Dries Buytaert Is Building the Next ‘Red Hat-Like’ Open Source Success Story

   “We wanted Drupal to be what Red Hat is to Linux, that’s why we started Acquia,” says the Belgium-born founder of open source website CMS software Drupal and now co-founder and CTO of Acquia, Dries Buytaert.

5. Drupal Dries Buytaert’s top three tips for startups

   Drupal, the open source platform he developed 13 years ago, has grown immensely, now underpinning around 1 in 50 websites and a huge community of developers. Sites running on Drupal range from the White House and NBC, to the EU’s Digital Agenda site—and indeed my own site.

6. Achieving Continuous Integration with Drupal

   In the early 1990s, my first job out of college was as a software engineer at a startup company. We were building a commercial product using a well-known open-source network security project. In those days, Agile software development practices (not to mention the World Wide Web, or even widespread public awareness of the Internet) still were in the future. My fellow engineers on that project (who had just graduated with me and to this day are the best programmers I know) and I were taught what we now call the Waterfall method. We thought we were invincible.

7. People, passion and learning to fail – opening up with Dries Buytaert

   On Wednesday I had a special guest – Dries Buytaert, Belgian creator of open-source platform Drupal and general all-round entrepreneur; to get his views on open source, web publishing, web startups and entrepreneurship.

   Drupal, the open-source platform he developed 13 years ago, has grown immensely, now underpinning around 1 in 50 websites and a huge community of developers. Sites running on Drupal range from the White House and NBC, to the EU’s Digital Agenda site – and indeed my own site, the one you’re reading this blog on right now.

8. Drupal 8: A View into Performance

   Views is one of the most installed Drupal modules with over two thirds of Drupal sites reporting that they have it installed. Soon, though, that number will go up: as of Drupal 8, Views is a core module! This effort started as a community effort and was announced as an official Drupal 8 initiative in a post by Dries explaining why this change is so exciting.

9. Oh No, Too Many Distros?

   My poll also found that a majority of visitors to my website think there is just too much choice. I asked a simple question with only two answers. Given the topic of “Too Many Distros” and the choices of only “yes” or “no,” 63% of participants said yes. 37% said no. Visitors to my site are split almost equally into three camps: little experience, moderately experienced, and well experienced or better.

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