The end of Drupal? A look at the future

https://ddd2024.drupalcamp.bg/drupal-dev-days-2024/session/end-drupal-look-future

Drupal has been around for 23 years, and as community, we have built an amazing product that powers hundreds of thousands of websites, and especially in the top most visited sites.

However, every single indicator indicates that Drupal's market share is decreasing, and the upcoming end-of-life of Drupal 7 will probably accelerate that decline.

Drupal agencies should prepare the future, both by injecting new blood and ideas into Drupal, in order to make Drupal great again, and by making sure that their employees engage with the community. In my personal experience, companies talk a lot about "community", but rarely there is any real effort to make new hires belong to that community (and asking to pass Acquia exams does not count as "community").

More importantly, as developers, we need to be advocates for open-source to restore the community spirit with our colleagues, and we should seek to collaborate to make existing contrib modules the best they can be, instead of making dozens of weak solutions that compete with each other.

Most important, as a community, we should have a deep look at our current state. Many issues sit abandoned for years in the "Needs Review / Needs Work" limbo, or the bike-shedding is big enough to hold all the bikes in a small city. Many modules are effectively abandoned since the maintainer has moved on from Drupal, and no one else steps up for the role.

The presentation will start by showing the current indicators of Drupal's market share, and then focus on the challenges at community / agency / individual levels, and some proposals on how to address them for a bright future for Drupal.

I will specifically ask the audience to develop this theme further, as my presentation is only meant to be the start of a conversation that we should all really have.

I believe that bright future for Drupal is still out there. But only if we as a community do something about it. Otherwise, at the current rate, Drupal will not be around for another 23 years.

Transcript

1. The end of Drupal? A look at the future João Ventura @jcnventura Innoflair@EUMETSAT
2. A bright future for Drupal With a little help from everyone João Ventura @jcnventura Innoflair@EUMETSAT
3. Come for the software. Stay for the community.
4. My Drupal journey • Re-created personal website in Drupal 4.6.5 in Jan 2006 (18.5y ago). Static site since 4 months ago (was D7) • Disappointed that Drupal didn’t have Joomla’s “Export as PDF”, took over the print module to do so. (~17y ago) • Site builder for another personal hobby. First D7 and then ported to 8, 9, 10. Site already works on D11, but requires effort on contrib modules • Started doing Drupal contrib work on my spare time. Kept porting print to Drupal 5, 6 and 7. Still “maintain” it… • Drupal professionally in 2009-2011 in Portugal and then remote for Trellon • Drupal professionally again in 2015-2018 (Wunderkraut) and 2018-2023 (1xINTERNET) • Participated in local meetups in Lisbon, Munich and Frankfurt • Helped to organize DDD2018 and Drupal Europe. Redshirt in many other camps • Drupalcon speaker in 2012 and 2021. DDD speaker in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2024 • (Co-)maintainer of 20+ contrib modules • Contribution 831 credits (40 in core), several documentation pages (mostly about Drupal books)
6. What will the end of Drupal look like? - a fictional story • Diminishing number of installed sites ◦ Usage for new version worse than the previous version • Modules no longer maintained (even popular ones) ◦ Many RTBC issues ◦ Release intervals in years • Fewer community events (DrupalCamps, meetups) ◦ Events cancelled due to lack of sponsors / attendees • Smaller attendance at DrupalCons • Community getting older and smaller • Better paying jobs outside Drupal • Agencies dropping Drupal or adding other frameworks to their portfolio • Maybe a fork taking Drupal in a completely different direction Slow evolution over many years
7. CMS market share (7.2% ⇒ 1.4%) https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_management/ms/y
8. “Classic” / Modern Drupal usage
9. Usage change vs year before
10. Drupal 7 > 8 > 9 > 10
11. Contrib Modules, increasingly unmaintained • Drupal Starshot and the deprecated core modules all agree that innovation happens faster in contrib ◦ Increased workload on maintainers of Starshot contrib • Unlike Wordpress and Joomla, Drupal never developed a freemium ecosystem ◦ Webform (~$9000/year) ◦ Gin (~$1800/month) • Can Project Browser help to create an extension marketplace? ◦ Probably too late for that, and this topic is not new and never went anywhere • Many maintainers have dozens of modules • Issues are not reviewed (fewer RTBC than before) • Project Update Working Group, good idea, but only a bandage
12. Fewer Drupal Camps
13. DrupalCon attendance
14. Driesnote Portland 2024
15. Hands up if you’ve been with Drupal for 🙋🙋🙋🙋🙋 • 1 year or more • 5 years or more • 10 years or more • 15 years or more
17. PHP runs 80% of the Internet! https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/programming_language/ms/y
18. TIOBE Index PHP https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/php/
19. PHP is not cool PHP was language of the year in TIOBE in 2004 (#3). It dropped out of the top 10 in March 2024. It is now at #15. In the JetBrains State of Developer Ecosystem 2023*, PHP is the only language that dropped >10% since 2017. Python grew >20% in the same period. Only 1% of developers replied that they were planning to adopt PHP in the near future. 69% of PHP developers have been using it for more than 4 years. * https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2023/ (biased to users of JetBrains products like IntelliJ IDEA for Java or PhpStorm)
20. Meanwhile those 80% (Top 10K, 100K, 1M) https://trends.builtwith.com/framework/PHP
21. WordPress pivoting to JavaScript…
22. Do not go gentle into that good night
23. PHP’s problems are ours as well • PHP is improving, but suffers from bad image in web development • Bus factor of 1-2 until very recently • PHP Foundation (created in 2021) responsible for 10 Core Developers • Foundation membership open to organizations and individuals ◦ Acquia ($25K) ◦ Your company ($1K)? • Organization goals for 2023:
24. Growing the Drupal Community • Local communities and camps are disappearing ◦ COVID-19 ◦ Drupal is now business • If only we had a site that is used regularly by every Drupal developer and a field to ask that user for their location • Or if we only build a software that could announce events on the site Dashboard • Such a tool could allow local communities to broadcast within their radius about meetups and camps (after user agreement) • Drupal meetups and Drupal Camps are tributaries to DrupalCon
25. Drupal is corporate • Drupal development is not a “spare time” activity anymore • Agencies employ 50 to 100s of Drupal developers • Projects budgets can go into the millions • How to get Drupal clients to demand makers and reject takers? • Drupal Certified Partner will now require contribution credits (weighted) ◦ Diamond (5000), Platinum (2500), Gold (1000), Silver (500), Bronze (150)
26. What can Drupal agencies do? • Pledge to Starshot • (Co-)Maintain the modules used in your starter project / distribution • Be responsible for the modules created, even if no longer used ◦ Or provide migration path to alternatives • Give x% of time to Drupal contribution • Sponsor module maintenance • Organize / sponsor local meetups and camps
27. New developers • Drupal is a 9-5 job • Ticket-focused ◦ Bug needs fixing: local patch and move on • Free training on how to work on issue queues? ◦ Free certificate to prove it? • Certified Drupal Experts ◦ But no requirement for contribution … • How to make them interested in growing Drupal? ◦ Value of Drupal knowledge
28. Drupal One Shot? • In Starshot, we have a chance to break the cycle of decay in Drupal usage ◦ Hopefully as popular as Drupal 7 • Will there be another chance at making people take a 2nd (3rd?) look at Drupal? • What would it need to be AWESOME?
29. Thank you! It has been a pleasure to be a part of this community.
30. Thank you for joining us! Stay connected with Drupal Bulgaria Association for more exciting events, news, and updates! Also visit our website: https://ddd24.drupalcamp.bg
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