Why Isn't The Module You Need Ready?

Sustained Joy: Contributing to the Community as Part of your Work

SESSION TAKE-AWAYS:

  1. If you use the code without engaging in the community you are missing many of the benefits of Drupal.
  2. Community participation powers the success of the Drupal content management framework.
  3. You and your business can power community participation.
  4. Participating in the Drupal community directly benefits and can be sustainable for your business.
  5. Three immediate ways to contribute to the Drupal community locally (welcome someone!), regionally (camp time!), and globally (documentation and code!).
  6. Collaboration among freelancers and companies is possible and necessary for Drupal's future.

WHY THIS SESSION?

Drupal and its galaxy of modules, themes, and other projects are too big to understand by oneself. The most knowledgeable people are key contributors, and are too busy to help people who don't also contribute. And too much is riding, for all of us, on Drupal's continued improvement to leave this improvement to chance.

It's time to get involved— and to reap the benefits of participation.

The Drupal community provides everything there is in Drupal, and is the number one reason to choose Drupal. It is not the functionality, the extensibility, the power, the flexibility, or even anything related to the code. It is the community of developers, documenters, administrators and more who overcome obstacles and fix problems every day— frequently working together and helping each other across company and country lines.

The top ten Drupal shops could switch to stone tablet technology tomorrow and there would still be an amazing array of contributors to carry development forward. Not many open source free software projects can say that, and of course no proprietary products can make such a claim. This is what both protects and makes so promising your future in Drupal.

It is difficult but possible to work with Drupal sustainably as a professional and as a participant in the Drupal community. But in the long run, it's easier and more profitable than not engaging in the community.

This session will cover ways to contribute effectively, sustainably, and with joy.

We will also open up discussion on ways to build our coordination infrastructure.

Presenter qualifications: Aside from running businesses in the Drupal community, Claudina Sarahe and Benjamin Melançon can't help but write about and reflect upon and take notes on and wax political about how to keep the community trending awesome.

[Note: The attached slides (odp) are from an old version of a related session given at DrupalCamp Chicago 2009; new slides will be uploaded shortly before or after the session.]