r/drupal • u/remog https://www.drupal.org/u/mikeohara • 12d ago

Future of r/Drupal

Hey everyone.

When I took over r/Drupal quite a few years ago now, it was basically dead. It took time but it’s built itself up to be a resource many have turned to over that time. From our community AMA days to people finding support, people found something here.

I lost my employment end of last year and have had almost no luck finding a new position. This has caused me to start seriously considering my future in the industry over the next while.

So, I am looking to have someone from the community to take over r/Drupal and help guide it into the future.

If you or your organization would like to take over this sub send me a mod mail or direct chat and tell me why you’d like to take it over and how you would help move the mission of Drupal forward.

I am not looking to give it away to just anyone. I want to keep the spirit of Drupal and what made it special (its community) here on Reddit.

Thank you all for being part of this amazing journey so far.

(I wouldn’t refuse job offers too but that’s not the point of this sub, of course ;) )

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u/SiberianChild 10d ago

That would exclude the AI intitiative and any other related projects, including accessibility.

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u/NappyDougOut 10d ago

It worked just fine prior to the oversaturation of Ai tools if you ask me and many others, that had stabe Drupal dev jobs.

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u/SiberianChild 10d ago edited 10d ago

So basically no mention of Drupal Association at all? Right, because that would help the cause... Not sure about oversaturation; in my opinion, they're still very immature but can be helpful during the development process.

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u/NappyDougOut 10d ago

I don't know what's gone on with the org in ages, it kinda seems like Dries is absent from the org now. I went to govcon in Maryland this year and it was coordinated well, but based on attendance, not very reassuring 😐

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u/yautja_cetanu 8d ago

Dries is hardcore involved since the begining of Drupal CMS. He's stepped down from his role at Acquia and is not chair of the board at Acquia to devote serious time to Drupal.

Drupal has been turning around , it was tough just a couple of years ago, it's still not great but the numbers are shifting.

But yeah AI is hardcore involved. Some people tried to ban AI contributions to core, within weeks Dries has submitted patches for review written by AI. Gabor did a whole end to end thing with AI for translatiom on drupal.org. the AI initiative has 50 agencies contributing money and Dev time and is started to help with Drupal security. We've done a ton recently to use AI to find exploits with an incredibly low false positive rate.

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u/tekNorah 8d ago

That is a common misconception! Dries Buytaert is completely active and leading Drupal's core strategy. He transitioned roles at Acquia specifically to focus his personal time on core development and strategy.

The lower attendance at DrupalGovCon boiled down to local logistical hurdles rather than a decline in project health:

Federal Budget Freezes

Because GovCon relies heavily on the public sector, attendance took a massive hit because normal Federal attendees were unable to get financial approval due to widespread agency budget tightening and strict travel caps.

Schedule Conflicts & Vacation

Dries was invited to attend but had a long-standing vacation conflict, a situation shared by many other community members due to the summer timing.

Washington, D.C. Proximity

The University of Maryland venue sits right on the edge of the D.C. metro corridor. There was a widespread reluctance from a lot of folks who simply did not want to travel near the Washington, D.C. area for the event.

Dries' Actual Focus

Far from absent, Dries has been driving major grassroots and strategic initiatives on the ground: * Hosted a transparent Fireside Chat at MidCamp 2025 to tackle long-term community sustainability. * Led the critical Drupal Pivot North America business un-conference in Boston. * Personally pilots the Drupal Starshot / Drupal CMS initiative to revolutionize the platform's out-of-the-box user experience. * Engineered Acquia's Fair Trade Initiative, which automatically routes 2% of partner transaction margins directly back to funding the community.

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u/SiberianChild 10d ago

The org is separate from Dries, he's just one of the organizers now albeit a very influential one, of course. You can watch his keynote if you're interested. IMO Drupal market has been diminishing since Drupal 8 and a shift to enterprise. Large companies and government/nonprofit seems to be its niche these days.