At Drupal Down Under a few weeks ago, Dries was asked a question about how to get companies more enthusiastic about staff spending time on Drupal core.
One of the points he mentioned is that currently, people get recognition for contributions. For example, everyone who's spent a bit of time in the community knows people such as merlinofchaos, sun, chx etc..
But who do they work for? Are they working on Drupal core while they are being paid? If so, shouldn't the names of those companies be as recognisable and respected as the individuals? Personally, I think so. Companies would be much more inclined to allow staff to contribute to Drupal if their brand got more visibility.
The question is, what's the best way to make this happen? How is it judged? How does it mesh with individual contributions?
Comments
Logos & Links
I do think it would be great if the forums & issue queues had logos & links for the companies that developers are working for. If patches or reviews are submitted, then those should be highlighted as they are more work than simply participating in the discussion. Ranking might be an issue, but probably would need to be based on % of effort.
I'm a business owner and know it would help me justify the contributions of my team.
For individuals not publicly associated with a company, there's no reason not to either link to their blog or their Flattr page if they've got one. They could be organized in a different list than the companies, but...
One of the questions for me is what happens to those individuals who switch companies? My sense is that companies would see it as a liability if all of those links could potential change over-night. Would still be worth the risk I think. Would be difficult to keep this organized so that the count was based on when the issue was commented on.
Good idea though.
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OpenConcept | Twitter @mgifford | Drupal Security Guide
Follow-up from 2014
Here is one way to implement this:
https://drupal.org/node/2177459
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OpenConcept | Twitter @mgifford | Drupal Security Guide