Dries Buytaert

Today, we released Drupal 9.0.0! This is a big milestone because we have been working on Drupal 9 for almost five years.

I updated my site to run Drupal 9 earlier today. It was easy!

As I write this, I'm overwhelmed by feelings of excitement and pride. There is something very special about building and releasing software with thousands of people around the world.

However, I find myself conflicted between today's successful launch and the tragic events in the United States. I can't go about business as usual. Discrimination is the greatest threat to any community, Drupal included.

I have always believed that Drupal is a force for good in the world. People point to our community as one of the largest, most diverse and most supportive Open Source projects in the world. While we make mistakes and can always be better, it's important that we lead by example. That starts with me. I am committing to the community that I will continue to learn more, and fight for equality and justice. I can and will do more. Above all else, it's important to stand in solidarity with Black members of the Drupal community — and the Black community at large.

During this somber time, I remain incredibly proud of our community for delivering Drupal 9. We did this together, as a global community made up of people from different races, ethnicities, genders, and national origins. It gives me some needed positivity.

If you haven't looked at Drupal in a while, I recommend you look again. Compared to Drupal 8.0.0, Drupal 9 is more usable, accessible, inclusive, flexible, and scalable than previous versions. We made so much progress on such important things:

• Drupal 9 is dramatically easier to use for marketers
• Drupal 9 is easier to maintain and upgrade for developers
• Drupal is innovating with its headless or decoupled capabilities

It's hard to describe the amount of innovation and care that went into Drupal since the first release of Drupal 8 almost five years ago. To try and grasp the scale, consider this: more than 4,500 individuals contributed to Drupal core during the past 4.5 years. During that time, the number of active contributors increased by almost 50%. Together, we created the most author-friendly and powerful version of Drupal to date.

Thank you to everyone who made Drupal 9 happen.