Dries Buytaert

FOSDEM, the yearly Open Source gathering in Brussels, was good ol' fun. We had a crowd of 150 people in the Drupal Developer Room that must have collectively skipped their Sunday morning breakfast. Respect!

Sadly, I only attended 2 presentations but it seemed like the room was pretty much maxed out all day. I wish I could have attended more sessions but I spent a lot of time talking to people in the hallways to the point my feet hurt and my voice occasionally started to fail. I also gave a couple of short interviews, and went out for lunch with Danese Cooper (OSI board member), David Axmark (MySQL co-founder), Erwin Tenhumberg (Open Source Program Manager at SAP), and John Morrison (Union Legend).

Over lunch, Danese explained what makes Drupal stand out; Drupal is a tribe. She is absolutely right — Drupal is a tribe of passionate users. These users all bring a piece to the table, making Drupal a great common platform. A platform that can be used to build any website you can think of — no restrictions. A platform that becomes more rich and powerful thanks to the quality of the people that contribute to it. Growing is finding more people that want to join your quest, that believe in what you do, and that want to help the project succeed. It is at meetings like FOSDEM, that you feel overwhelmed and excited by the many people want to be part of the tribe. It is all good stuff.