Dries Buytaert

I gave my State of Drupal presentation at DrupalCon Los Angeles in front of 3,000+ attendees. In case you didn't attend DrupalCon Los Angeles, you can watch the recording of my keynote or download a copy of my slides (PDF, 77 MB).

In the first part of the keynote, I talked about the history of the Drupal project, some of the challenges we overcame, and some of the lessons learned. While I have talked about our history in the past, it had been 6 years ago at DrupalCon Washington DC in 2009. In those 6 years, the Drupal community has grown so large that most people in the community don't know where we came from. Understanding the history of Drupal is important; it explains our culture, it holds us together in challenging times and provides a compass for where we are heading.

In the middle part of the keynote, I talked about what I believe is one of our biggest challenges; motivating more organizations to contribute more meaingfully to Drupal's development. Just as it is important to understand the history of Drupal, talking about the present is an important foundation for everyone in the community. It is hard to grow without the context of our current state.

In the third and last part of the keynote, I looked forward, talked about my vision for the big reverse of the web and how it relates to Drupal. The way the web is evolving provides us an opportunity to better understand our sites visitors or users and to build one-to-one relationships, something that much of our society has lost with the industrial revolution. If the web evolves the way I think it will, it will be both life changing and industry changing. While it won't be without concerns, we have a huge opportunity ahead of us, and Drupal 8 will help us build towards that future.

I'm proud of where we came from and excited for where we are headed. Take a look at the keynote if you want to learn more about it.