Drupalcon Pittsburgh Wrapup

I got to go to Drupalcon NA in Pittsburgh thanks to Plaform.sh’s sponsorship of the DDEV project, and it was a great time.

Listening to the Community About DDEV Sustainability

My most important goal was to learn from key DDEV stakeholders about how to make the DDEV project sustainable over the long term and lots of people were willing to sit down and chat with me about that; it was super useful. We talked about how to grow contributors, how to grow contributors into maintainers, and how to encourage stakeholders to properly fund the project. I’m excited about the future of DDEV and the community it depends on. Some key takeaways:

• To grow maintainers we need to teach them about project architecture and the many components. Because DDEV is such a hodgepodge of DevOps components like Linux, Bash, Docker, Docker Compose, and Golang, folks from the PHP communities that are its biggest users may not have the confidence to dive in and improve it. But we can do some training sessions that could help with this.
• Financially, we should be thinking about how to make clear statements to the many companies and organizations that depend on DDEV. We can start out with a small set of insiders who make a specific commitment, and then make noise about their commitment and build on that.
• Clear goals are key. For example, stating that we need an additional full-time maintainer, a docs maintainer, and a test engineer would help funders to visualize what they’re supporting.
• Communication about fund usage will help stakeholders to be confident of their investment.

Aaron Winborn Award

I was honored to receive the Aaron Winborn Award during the Driesnote.

The Aaron Winborn award is presented annually to an individual who demonstrates personal integrity, kindness, and above-and-beyond commitment to the Drupal community.

This was a surprise to me (not at the event; I was notified in advance) because I’m really connected to the Drupal community these days mostly by DDEV.

To me the most awesome thing about this is that the Drupal community takes personal integrity, kindness, and community so seriously that their most important award is based on those values. (The award was done in the first part of the Driesnote, the most-attended session at every Drupalcon.) I’m proud to be part of a community that thinks that way.

Getting to Drupalcon by Bike

My wife Nancy Lewis and I traveled to Drupalcon by bicycle from Washington, DC. It was amazing to ride on the C&O Canal Towpath and the Great Allegheny Passage “GAP” trail. Such amazing history riding along beautiful dirt paths. Thanks to all of you DDEV folk for being patient with me for slow responses as we were gone those two weeks.

Here are a few of pictures from the trip, or browse more of them: