Dries Buytaert News & Articles

The Drupal (news, site) open source web content management system is developed by thousands and used by millions of people around the world, powering a diverse range of websites. In this interview, I visit with Drupal's creator, Dries Buytaert, who explains how Drupal evolved over the past ten years, out of a simple message board written in a college dormitory in Belgium. He discusses how his company, Acquia (news, site), has impacted his ability to focus on Drupal, weighs in on some of the new features in Drupal 7 and looks toward the next decade of progress.

Those who need to build and deploy community sites now have another option. Acquia (news, site) has released version 1.0 of Drupal Commons.

Attention all you Drupal (news, site) heads! The DrupalCon conference in Copenhagen is coming up,  so if you're going to be in Europe at the end of August, swing by for some face time with project founder Dries Buytaert. 

While covering the content management industry, we get to meet many interesting people. Today, we’ll focus on those that are young, wicked smart beyond their age and extraordinarily accomplished -- those that you want to keep an eye on.

With that, we present you the top 5 most talented C-level executives in the CMS world (who are 35 or younger).

One way or another, everyone needs to eat -- and that includes all of you open source people too. Fortunately, there are as many ways to make money in the world of open source as there are people who try it. Here's a run down of the top models.

If you're in the process of deciding which open source CMS-related conference to attend this year, here's the down-low on what's coming for CMS Expo (news, site) 2010, from May 3 - 5 in Chicago.

Forget all that talk about the cloud and SaaS. Many just don't want to have to worry about their own hardware, OS, and software. If you're one of this benighted group, there's some new options coming your way. Read on to learn about one of them, Drupal (news, site) style.

Going into the R.I.P Content Management System session -- led by Drupal project founder Dries Buytaert -- at SXSW (news, site), I was not too sure what to expect. I know of Drupal Web CMS and their very large developer community that contributes to the overall success of this open source content management system.

I also understand that Drupal is behind hundreds of thousands of websites, so I was interested in hearing what Buytaert was going to present.

The Drupal (news, site) open source Web CMS project is in the midst of ironing the kinks out of Drupal 7 with the recent release of the second Drupal 7 alpha. Project founder Dries Buytaert recently shared a status update and release plan to take the project through the home stretch. Here's what's cooking in Drupal land.

With all of the chatter about Drupal 7, it would have been easy to miss one or two Drupal-related announcements last April. One of those announcements dealt with Buzzr (news, site), a Lullabot (news, site)-spawned startup focused on bringing hosted Drupal solutions to the masses.

Aside from a small announcement last August, the folks at Buzzr have been pretty quiet, so we thought we'd check in.

It's not easy being popular. You live under the specter of something new breathing down your neck, waiting to take your spot in the limelight. Yes, we know all about it.

But seriously, in the content management world uncool means stale, broken, or worse, irrelevant. Fortunately for Drupal (news, site), the much discussed version 7 release is looking strong. It'll keep its cool we reckon and in the process it's shaping up to further enter the mainstream. Here are the key changes to note.

Call analyst firm Gartner, ask for technology adoption advice, and you may walk away with a new appreciation for Drupal (news, site).

Reportedly thanks to Acquia and the Drupal team's endless efforts to maintain healthy relationships with analysts, Dries Buytaert's CMS baby was added to the 'Visionaries' section of Gartner's Magic Quadrant last month. As their name sits quaintly next to huge players like Google, it looks like the system is going places:

The Drupal (news, site) team's massive push toward Drupal 7 continues. There are a few changes to deadlines and expected features, but so far somehow it's all coming together, despite the daunting scope of the changes.

Editor's Note: Drupal makes Gartner's Magic Quadrant as Visionary for Social Software in Workplace. Read why.

Installing and setting up a CMS might not be the most complex thing you'll ever do, but it's enough to cost many non-technical users a few chunks of hair. At DrupalCon Paris, Acquia (news, site) announced a new service that helps people create, configure, and launch a Drupal 7 site with relative ease.

Originally planned for September 1, the Drupal 7 code freeze didn't quite happen. But that's to be expected says Drupal (news, site) founder Dries Buytaert.

He discussed the code freeze for the open source Web CMS at DrupalCon Paris, saying that it has been extended one week to September 7th, so all patches that come prior to this are still acceptable.

Once DrualCon Paris is over, Buytaert said that he and Angela Byron will do a review of everything that has been marked as ready to be committed. They will then commit what is truly ready.

After September 7, Drupal will enter a five week "code slush". During this period, patches will be allowed. But where these patches include new features and functionality, only the following will be considered:

• Up to 10 carefully selected exceptions for new features
• Important API changes for existing features
• Usability, accessibility, testing, documentation and performance

Drupal 7 --  Code Freeze Schedule (September 2, 2009)

On October 15th there will be an API freeze including markup and schema freezes. The focus becomes about "final polish".

Buytaert's suggestion to all Drupal developers: start upgrading your contributed modules now. The opportunity to address any issues with the new API is limited and the clock is ticking.