This year SANDcamp 2012 is featuring an innovative Distribution Summit aimed at streamlining all things Drupal Distributions.
Register and get more information at SANDcamp.org.
The event will help us jumpstart the year and build our plan for making an impact with Distributions. The Summit will give us an opportunity to support all the different solutions, collectively deploy best practices, facilitate coordination and overcome issues. The goal is to put roadmaps and business best practice plans in place for success in 2012. There is a comprehensive list of Distros and maintainers confirmed for attendance:
• Commons
• COD
• ELMS
• Open Atrium
• Open Enterprise
• Open Public
• Open Publish
• Pressflow
Why are distributions important for the health of Drupal?
Dries wrote about Distros in his end of year status in 2010. “Drupal Distributions help Adoption”
“Drupal distributions are an important part of helping organizations adopt Drupal. Drupal distributions are complete, ready-to-use solutions built on Drupal. Just install and go.”
“Acquia sees expansion of distributions as critically important to the future growth of Drupal. With that, we are acting as a software publishers for these and other distributions developed by partners within the Drupal community; supporting the marketing, promotion, support, and ongoing development of distributions to extend the capability of the companies who have incubated these incredible products.”
This was true in 2010 and will be even more so in 2012 as Drupal continues to spread in reach and depth. The Acquia team will continue to support and promote Distributions developed by partners. We have seen success this year with Commons and have put a playbook together that will be shared with the other Distro teams. There are now more than 1,000 Commons sites. The number continues to grow and the names are impressive. A good example is the Linkedin community site (#13 Alexa ranking) that was migrated from Jive Software to Drupal last year. The Drupal Showcase is a good place to see excellent Drupal sites and now sites can be tagged with the Distributions they were built with.
Come to San Diego in January 25-28 and join us for the inaugural Distro Summit and SANDcamp 2012. I have been tremendously appreciative of the support from the “Distro community” in pulling together the Summit. We are looking for an extended group of attendees so spread the word. Distributions will be kicking down doors in vertical markets for Drupal in 2012!