Blogs

Got to the OS CMS Summit today just in time for the Drupal Roadmap session by Dries Buytaert.  I think it was a great talk and Dries knows his stuff and really cares about the users of Drupal!  Dries figures that Drupal is in the maturity phase of the curve and drupal 4.7 is now focused on user satisfaction. And he commits to having 4.7 delivered in X months;-) He says “Form Follows Function”, Guy will like that. 

In one chart he mentions that Civicspace distribution has more functionality that the standard Drupal.  Interesting, gotta check that out.

As with any OS project many developers are scratching their own itch.  Dries unfortunately can’t gurantee a road map.  Drupal may be passed the critical functionality threshold and should now be focussing on usability to remain competitive, good point!  I  totally agree.

What has to be done to Drupal in the short term?

1. Improve user satisfaction
2. Add Features by:
    -critical functions added to the core
    -specialization goes into distributions

The main new features in 4.7 are:

1. Usability!
2. Contact form
3. Free tagging
4. Form handling
5. Loose caching

Finally, themes are very important, as it’s the first impression, the current blue marine theme isn’t doing anyone any favors:)  I think Dries really gets it on the market side and on keeping developers motivated!  I think if he can convince enough people to focus on user experience Drupal is really going to kick ass in the next couple years!

(I may have misinterpreted a whole bunch of stuff from the talk, please correct me if I have)