Drupal founder Dries Buytaert laid out his case for Drupal being the CMS for the future at SXSWi panel on Monday.
Drupal is a free, open source Content Management System that allows for open development from anywhere. At its most basic, Drupal is akin to something like WordPress, which allows for easy publication without FTP or without much develoment knowledge. At its best, Drupal can be used to develop large scale, complex Web sites. In theory, you could use it to make your own social network or video uploading service.
That’s what Buytaert put forth Monday. Users are your content creators and many CMS systems do not allow for that. He said proprietary systems that depend on one company to develop for it can often times fall behind the curve. A dedicated community around open source software can keep up to date with the most recent technological changes. That is because they are pulling ideas from thousands of developers who genuinely want the community to be sustainable. Furthermore, he said if you have one company developing for your proprietary CMS and that company goes away, you’re stuck in the water.
Furthermore, he said, Drupal can scale to lots of traffic. He pointed to emmys.com as proof of this. He said the Web site receives two massive spikes in traffic a year: when the nominees are announced and after the winners are awarded. Even with that massive amount of traffic, the sites did not crash.
The White House has also started using Drupal to develop all of their Web sites. Sometimes they have to get a Web site made in under 60 days, and Drupal allows them to do that.
I have developed using Drupal and look forward to do it again in the future. The thing I was most impressed with was how truly diverse it is. I haven’t found a limitation to it yet. Furthermore, scalability goes both ways. It runs on my $10 a month Web site. It does allow for creating content quickly, but it’s not as easy as starting a WordPress blog. This lies somewhere between a wordpress blog and using a Web framework. If you want to learn more about Drupal then there are lots of great online videos for free from Lullabot.
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It seems as though more and more developers are turning to open source as a way to make their products succeed. I think this is a good thing, because the internet really is a giant community willing to collaborate to make something work for their purposes.
I hadn’t considered why proprietary software becomes outdated so quickly compared to open source, but it makes sense that the lack of continuous development is the key.
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This is pretty cool. Drupal seems to making it so that anyone can make sites for anything. It’s like a new era of computer sciences.
I remember in jr. high making lost dog ads on Microsoft Word so that we would get the hang of that new technology. It’s weird to think that making websites might be what my children learn to do in elementary.
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This sounds like something I would be interested in later on down the road when my computer skills get more advanced. The only reason I say this is because it is harder than setting up a WordPress blog which wasn’t a walk in the park me in the first place. But it seems interesting.
I like how the White House has started to use this for the development of their websites. One thing that I wish was more prevalent is the lack of crashing that will have to be proven at a later date I guess. The ability for a website to being a to run consistently without problems would be something I would definitely something I would like to associated with.
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Drupal sounds amazing to me! I have just recently started a WordPress blog, and I have learned so much about HTML just by messing around in my spare time. Drupal sounds like a great step between something simple like WordPress and creating a Web site from scratch. I am definitely not skilled enough to do that, but I feel that with some guidance, I could learn to work with Drupal.
I felt that WordPress was really easy to get started, so how much more difficult is Drupal? Is it a step above WordPress or a step below Web design? I feel like there is a huge difference. Everything about it sounds great for me. I would love to make a personal Web site using Drupal.
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I like the idea of Drupal. I used to make basic HTML websites in middle school and later in college, but have never used other software such as Dreamweaver. So this is why I am interested in Dupal.
I used to blog at another website and found WordPress easy to use. Website building is fun, but it can be a challenge for “newbies” so this why Drupal will be useful for those who have little experience in blogging or making their own websites.
Someday I would rather have “full” website to showcase my work then a WordPress or a Blogger. It cheap too, so that is a plus. Good ol’ open source lets users learn about new technology out there and lets other try out new programs. I am going to explore Drupal later. Someday, could websites be made using Drupal-like software?
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Nice write up, Scott.
What did he have to say about users being content creators and what was his case for Drupal being better suited for that than any other CMS?