Drupal Meetup

Jacob Redding — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:37:25 +0000

谢谢每人！！
今天晚上很好。我预料了10个人但是21人来了!

I'm a bit lost for words with this blog post. In short I'm amazed and overwhelmed with emotions. Last night the Drupal community in Beijing (北京，中国）met for this first time. At least I was told it was the first time. I'm overwhelmed because I was expecting a small group of maybe 6-8 people. I told people that I expected 10 people but to be honest I was just hyping things up. My "lie" didn't matter though because 21 people showed up!

21 people took time out of their life to meet other people that are using Drupal. To those that use Drupal, are OSS advocates and/or social organizers you know why this is significant. To those that don't understand why I'm so overwhelmed with this response and why I care let me explain...

I'll start with Drupal and work backwards. First Drupal is an awesome framework for building websites. The meat of this is the Drupal is really nothing more than a piece of software that helps developers and the geeky types build websites. Drupal, however, changed things in the web/software industry.

The first thing that happened with Drupal was that because of its really strong architecture, and its ease of use, people began to build highly "sociable" websites with relative ease. In the United States and throughout Europe it provided the infrastructure for a plethora of socially conscience websites. Drupal was initially picked up by social activists, non-profits and other entities whose goal was to better society in some form or another. The result was that a really, really strong community was built around the use of Drupal. This community then in turn promoted Drupal and contributed back to Drupal thus pushing everything forward. To use a common activist phrase...

This is what Democracy looks like!

OK so that is where Drupal began. Drupal is now changing and changing rapidly. Several companies sprung up to start using Drupal to make websites in the for-profit sector. Companies like Sony-BMG, the Onion, Ford, etc. etc. Multi-billionaire dollar companies started to use Drupal and many companies sprung up to support these large companies (ex. lullablot, Fast company, Achieve Internet, etc.).

Now this is where things get interesting. Well at least for me. People started to get hired to work on/with Drupal full-time. sssccrreeeccch...

Woah, woah. So now we have a free (as in Freedom) piece of software that people are getting paid to work on. Moreover these companies are contributing back to Drupal thus pushing the software ever forward at a sometimes blindly pace.

10 years ago the big software corporations SAP, Oracle, Sun, Microsoft, etc. etc. said this could NEVER be done. How could any "Free" software be good. Well it took a decade (and more when you consider the work of the EFF) but not only was the free software good it started kicking the BUTT of the proprietary, closed-source licensed software.

OK let me get back to meetups and this particular meetup. So why do I care or why should anyone care? Meetups do more than just get people together. Meetups connect people to each other, disseminate knowledge, and, very importantly, demonstrate the power of community while also creating awareness. They in turn help to create powerful communities and push the products forward. In this case the product is specifically Drupal but Drupal is OSS so indirectly these meetups promote the use of OSS.

How? (in simple terms) Drupal uses PHP and is generally ran on Linux and MySQL.
PHP is NOT ASP.net. Its OSS.
Linux is NOT UNIX or Windows. Its OSS.
MySQL is NOT Oracle or Microsoft. Its OSS!!!
While its not a 100% correlation between the use of Drupal and the use of Linux/MySQL it is pretty strong. Thus, for a web service, the proprietary products are being replaced with OSS products.

This, of course, gets into the whole EFF work to replace the AT&T/Bell Labs stranglehold on the UNIX/Mainframe, Linux with replacing the UNIX kernel stronghold (as well as BSD), MySQL hitting the Oracle/Microsoft strongholds .... The list could go on forever and all the geeks already know this.

What does this mean to the non-geeks?

The world is changing and OSS is pushing this change along faster than the big companies would like. My parents, the hippies, had a movement to change the world by ending wars and promoting peace. My generation is changing the world through technology; same objective different methods. We are breaking down the massive barriers of entry that have been erected by SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and a plethora of other companies. We're getting technologies into the hands of anyone that is willing to have it regardless of income. Technology allows knowledge to travel around the world faster than any other device in the history of the world.

Knowledge is power!

Comparing what you can build using the proprietary tools offered by the likes of Microsoft, Sun, etc. you can build a MORE powerful system with a LARGER community using FREE tools! This is the type of sea change that changes the world.

Why is it important that China meets up? Microsoft, legally or not, is HUGE here... it doesn't have to be that way. China is changing, China is growing, China is BIG and China is BRILLIANT! Everyday I meet someone with a brilliance and intellect that makes me stare in awe and ashamed of my own puny amount of knowledge.

What would happen if all of these highly intelligent people dove into OSS full-time? Not just as a hobby but as a full-time, life sustaining position. A job that they not only loved because of the pay but because of how they were contributing back to the world?

This is what I want to see and this is what I'm working towards. Fully employed, life sustaining jobs completely immersed in OSS, using contributing to and pushing forward
OSS.

Could you imagine what Windows would be like if it were OSS? Could you imagine what new technologies would have existed if many of the closed source technologies were open for people to make them better?

Former economists said that unless you closed software and technology and forced it proprietary with copyrights, trademarks and patent filings an economy would stagnate and innovation wouldn't occur.

We are proving them wrong! Economies exist! A means of sustenance exists! We are changing the world!

This is why I care. Why do you?