Dear Drupal Association

So what is DA for? To what extent is its thinking aligned with the team of kex people, many of them now associated with Acquia, and to what extent with the tree-hugging hippies?

Sorry to be so dense. I have pad my Inidividual DA subs, have used Drupal for over 2.5 years, make part of my living from it, have been to two DrupaCons (at my own expense, no employer to buy my ticket!) and some local events, and have actively contributed to Drupal every day for 18 months (not code, though...but a checkable contribution, if anyone wants to know) so I feel I can qualify to be on the fringes of the community rather than a complete outsider.

But I have no real idea of what DA is supposed to do (apart from organize DrupalCon and 'promote Drupal'). i had no idea DA had moved to Portland, and was horrified to hear it from your post because it suggests and unhealthily close assocation with Acquia. I tell my clients Acquia are the best... So it is not a criticism of Acquia when I say that a very close alignment of Drupal and Acquia could strengthen both both, but, (though the Drupal communitiy leaders may find it hard to see why) such an alignment also threatens to destroy both. As a semi-outside observer, I am optimistic about Drupal 8 (but worried about upgrade path). And yet, as someone well above the average Drupaller age, with more experience in business, local politics and law than in software, I begin to wonder how sustainable the Drupal project and community are. This is a pity because Drupal does inspirte intense loyalty, 'love' even.

The fact someone like me, who DOES read d.o. and Planet Drupal daily, is unaware of what is going on, suggests that communication could be better.

You have said in the above post that you are concerned, so on a more positive note, what would you like to see change, and what needs to happen to bring that about?

BTW text / background colour contrast in your cmment box is not not great for people with weaker eyes, so apolitiges for any typos.

Morten - I'm still digesting a lot of what you put in your post, but to stay general, I think you point out an important issue: the DA has done some great work, but the community doesn't know about this great work because the communication about it has been weak. This poor communication damages the standing of the DA in the eyes of the community. In reality, the DA has been great at supporting and shepherding community resources in ways that were not possible pre-DA (and I've been in the community since before the DA came into existence).

Unfortunately, the DA is most visible when there is a blow up in the community (one more obvious/recent example, the cancellation of DC Sao Paolo) - when something goes wrong, the cry of "where is the DA" is very loud - and, as you point out, the folks within the DA are often too busy doing the work to talk about the work they are doing.

In short, from my observations, the DA is in a thankless position: when things go well, it's the community. When things go poorly, it's the DA. Unfortunately, the communications from the DA have been sub par for a long time, which complicates the situation.

RE this line from the first comment: " i had no idea DA had moved to Portland, and was horrified to hear it from your post because it suggests and unhealthily close assocation with Acquia."

The fact that both the DA and Acquia are in Portland has nothing to do with an "unhealthily close" relationship between these two organizations. Acquia's main offices are in Massachusetts, Acquia's offices and the DA offices are in entirely different parts of town. I'm also in Portland, and I see folks from Acquia on a semi-regular basis, and folks from the DA rarely (usually at community events). There are a large number of Drupal shops in the Portland area; many of us have been involved in Drupal for a while. But the fact that both the DA and Acquia have offices in Portland is more a reflection of the open source roots in Portland than any unhealthy overlap between the DA and Acquia.

So I was wrong in thinking that DA is closely aligned with those leading contributors who are connected with Acquia. Well, I still have no idea why the move to Portland, but I guess I could research the point.

Thanks for the links. I have read the first one. There is scope for more active cmmunication to assist people like me who joined, and visit d.o. daily, but still have proved slow to grasp what is going on! I am not sure why d.o., g.d.o, and a.d.o. do not work better than they do at communicating. Somehow they are not a good advertisement for Drupal's strengths in the areas of UX and design, particular when it comes to serving the type of website users (of whom I fear there are too many) who expect to be fed and sold to, rather than treating the web as a research tool requiring diligence and skill.

Newsflash: it was not shoved down our throats. To tell the truth, it didn't involve a lot of the community, but that's a story of our own: we are finally tying up as a community in Brazil, starting to show up at our neighbors' Drupal Camps, throwing several camps a year and stuff. Last year we met Dries at LatinoWare for our Drupal Summit Latino and it really meant a lot — it was the only Camp in Brazil for years!

So, we are really glad Dries and the DA helped get our communit rolling again. It was a plea by some in the community that finally got DCSP to be scheduled, although it was too hasty and definitely not embraced by the whole of the community. Mostly, again, because there was no actual community by the time the planning started. However, all of us were, every single one of us, thoroughly excited about DCSP and we were sure to gather in São Paulo to greet the international community (that decided to show up).

We are now planning stuff together and will do our best to show up at Drupal Summit Latino Ecuador and support Drupal Picchu, while trying to have a national camp at Rio soon. Our internal issues will get sorted out and we will probably host a DrupalCon one day.

As far as my side of the story goes, the DA was mislead by a member of the Brazilian community who would rather throw a DrupalCon on top of the gone-missing Brazilian community than leave it to rot. And as far as I can tell, he acted on good faith.

But if the DCSP did no harm to our community (besides the sour taste of almost hosting the awesomest event of our community), the Drupal Summit Latino at Foz do Iguaçu, organized by our own South American community and partially sponsored by the DA did get our community rolling. Thanks DA.

And btw the king of the north is welcome in South America. Bring some stickers (my girlfriend bugged me for one) and learn cuss words in new (and ancient) languages.