Dries Buytaert

I just got back from the "Fields in core" code sprint that I helped organize. Our participants all had the same goal for this five-day sprint: get CCK functionality into Drupal 7. The participants were Yves (CCK maintainer), Karen (CCK maintainer), Barry Jaspan (CCK contributor), Moshe Weitzman, David Strauss, Florian Loretan, Károly Négyesi, David Rothstein and myself.

It was a very productive week. For 14 hours a day, we discussed CCK, aligned our visions, tackled important design questions, wrestled with terminology, wrote code, and hit some important milestones. We can, for example, "field-enable" any object using a clean API. As a prototype, we've field-enabled both users and nodes. While the new Fields API isn't in core yet, a lot of progress has been made and I'm confident that we'll get something in core soon. Work continues now we're all home. To learn more about the current status, or to help drive this home, please consult the fields in core group. Expect to see more detailed and technical write-ups from participants to appear within the next couple of weeks.

All things considered, this sprint was a big success, and I'm now toying with organizing a "drupal.org upgrade" sprint at Acquia during the last week of January. The goal would be to upgrade drupal.org from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6, and make progress on the drupal.org redesign work. Is anyone interested in participating in or helping fund this sprint? If so, more soon.

I'd like to thank everyone who helped make the fields in core code sprint a success, and give a special mention to:

• Yves, Karen, Barry, Moshe, David, Florian, and Karoly for their time and energy — and for putting up with the jet lags and snow blizzards.
• Everyone who provided remote help.
• Four Kitchens for paying for David and providing Karoly and Florian accommodation.
• Acquia for hosting the sprint and for donating Barry's time (as well as some of mine).
• Our 146 sponsors — only by all of us bringing a small piece to the table have we been able to pull this off. Together we were able to raise $5,682 USD to support our Fields In Core sprint. Special thanks to Chapter Three, LLC and Gravitek Labs for donating $500 USD each.
• And, special thanks to Pieter De Clercq, who sold his Guitar Hero 3 game and donated the money to this code sprint. Respect!