December 4, 2007
Securing Drupal’s future
As you know, I’m a freelance web developer, which means I make websites do cool things (making them look cool is a designer’s job) and to do that, I use the “linux of the internet”, a little piece of software magic called Drupal. Drupal is open source, meaning anyone can poke under the hood and change things, and it has a robust user community around it, constantly improving it.
The big news of the last few days is that Dries Buytaert, Drupal’s founder, has co-founded Acquia, a startup company which will give the financial muscle necessary to keep Drupal at the forefront of the web (especially in implementing open API’s which would allow Drupal to integrate with Facebook, OpenSocial, 2nd Life and others, allowing for some cool mashups). Acquia won’t annex Drupal or fork the code or make it closed-source. It’s intention is to be as what Ubuntu or Red Hat are to Linux. I think this is a great move, especially since Dries (who will retain the Drupal trademark while the Drupal Association continues to operate drupal.org) writes:
Furthermore, I’m expressly permitted to make decisions within the Drupal project that may not always be in Acquia’s best commercial interest.
Overall, this is a Good Thing for Drupal.
Roger Saner is a web platform developer (using 
