Democratising the South African Drupal Community
I've picked up on a topic that I feel passionate about myself and that I find echoed in the opinions of several people I have spoken to about. The South African Drupal community feels subtly commercially hijacked, especially in Gauteng.
I want to propose that we work together as Drupal users here to democratise our community.
The problem
Our most obvious identity here is presented through the Drupal.co.za/.org website. It is registered, developed and service sponsored by one commercial venture which have, from it's inception, been listed as the first service provider in its service listing. My own feeling is one of unfair advantage on the website and I prefer not to participate in related activities while I hunger for a community to participate in. I feel this situation hampers organic community growth enough that it should be addressed.
Thinking towards a solution
I thought about this for several years now and up to last month's Johannesburg meet-up, the only people I'd have felt more OK with involved at the top of organising our local community is the flat-structure, amicable community builders at Telamenta.
At the meeting though, I met Ivan Breet who works in a big company that is not primarily a Drupal shop, so does not compete with other small shops that may want to participate in the community but feel worried about the fact that one competing company features so prominently in it and seems to use it unfairly to it's advantage. People like Ivan must exist in more companies like his, though he is also an excellent community builder, communicator, well versed in Drupal-related technologies and quite sociable.
That does not mean I want to discount commercial ventures' participation; That is a very valuable element of the community and can be harnessed to everyone's advantage. Creating a positive platform that allows all parties to participate is essential and companies including small competing firms in the market should be able to participate to their own advantage while contributing to the community in a fair and open way. My own company is such a company.
Proposal
A new community-run website is essential, but democratisation needs to become part of everything we do. Building a site requires work and running it requires service costs (a bit of money). The site can be kept quite simple though and functionality can be decided on in an open way on the groups account. Most of what the current Drupal.co.za presents can be done in Groups.Drupal.org and maybe later aggregated to the new website.
Groups.Drupal.org is free, open and a great place to communicate. It has very low barriers to participation, so even if you are a shop like ours that do not have git skills yet, you can participate. It should be a steering point for our community.
Similarly (to using Groups.Drupal.org) it may be a good idea not to add complexity to the new website for functionality that is duplicated elsewhere. It can be a great landing page that will direct people interested in Drupal to the South African group on Groups.Drupal.org for discussion and to ask questions, direct donations to the Drupal Association, direct business opportunities to the existing Drupal Association-provided pages for listing service providers in a country and it can be built with something like Drupal Gardens that will allow community participation until community-donated time to build a site and community demands outgrow that solution. Don't aim high for the site in terms of initial functionality, aim open and participant.
We'll continue to face a few issues, one is name/identity-related such as the name under which the domain name should be registered and another is handling money. If we grow, we may start a non-profit to handle such things. For the moment I think we can handle money as individuals.
For this to work we'll need a couple of things. I'm sure there's more, this is just what I think of off-hand now that I quickly type my thoughts up.
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Democratically elected people who make themselves available for things like the name associated with domain ownership with term limits and always in a private name, not a company's (until or if we get an association going).
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Sponsorship for fees (hosting, T-shirts etc.) should allow companies to be represented, but should come in portions (not wholes) so that several companies can sponsor one thing, the sponsorship portions should endeavour to represent as many companies or individuals as possible, should be first-come-first served with a lead time as to when sponsorship options will be made available and should be an open process (possibly just in text on Groups.Drupal.org for now).
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Individuals (in their own capacity) to donate time to build the new website. Organise the Drupal meet-ups (we need more in more places). Perhaps organise a central Camp, say in Bloemfontein for a first. Steer the website development and so on. Let's call these “seats” and they are really just volunteer positions that we can vote on for filling, but I think, to keep things dynamic, we can place term limits on them and have them rotate as much as possible nationally. That will enhance cooperation and communication too en spread community-building skill sets.
A great way I can think of to make sure we're open and inviting with the new process is to make sure that we have the organic participation of the Cape Town and other national Drupal users. If not, we should ask why and fix things. We should even go as far as requiring national representation for elected seats.
Another idea to alleviate the issue of brand-push that I have is to move “show-and-tell” that presents a company to the end of meet-ups after a 5min break so that those not interested in brand-related talks can go home or proceed to meet outside for further technical discussions. This will allow those new to Drupal or with a commercial interest, such as potential Drupal users/clients, to remain seated if they want.
Since I raised the issue, I want to also start by recusing myself from standing for any prominent seat in the beginning. In addition my company will not venture to fill any sponsorship portion early or first but will consider sponsoring remaining slots if they are not first filled by other companies and need filling.
What we have
What we have is the current site and meet-ups. Preferably the new solution should work, and will replace what we have currently and grow/change to suit the needs of the community, but we should not start by breaking things down, rather by building things up. So I propose a new website with a new domain name. Once it is up we are sure a community driven solution works, we can ask the Drupal Association to take ownership of drupal.co.za and drupal.org for the new community website’s use (http://drupal.com/trademark).
What now?
The best way forward is probably for as many people as possible to comment as constructively as possible to this post so that we can see where things may lead in terms of community needs and resources. If you see problems, please also add what you see as solutions to them in your comment if you can think of any. Maybe give it a week, then start asking people what they can contribute. Things like a bit of time to post here in Groups.Drupal.org, stand for election for seats (I know we're all quite humble, so suggest to your friends that you know suit positions to stand), volunteer a bit of time to work on the new site, speak at meet-ups, organise them, steer national Drupal interest, administer the new Drupal Gardens (or other solution) website etc.
If we have enough volunteers we can ask for a bit of a bio from each (just an identity paragraph so we can all get to know the people) and put things to a vote in the next week, or maybe with a week in-between to discuss voting procedures (like the requirement to have national representation and how that will be implemented). Depending on resources available it shouldn't take us too long after that to get a site up. Then we talk about it at the next national meet-ups bringing our thoughts here again and decide to proceed with replacing what we have or not from there. We can keep initial terms short to figure out if volunteers manage and if systems and positions work. Say two or three months, moving to a year in future.
Seats, as voted for, will not be positions of power so much as positions of volunteer servitude tot he community that implement what the community decides on. So for example, a seat that currently holds the Google Analytics administrator account for the new website will give read access to anyone who asks for it, if that is the consensus among the community. We should try to keep responsibility loads light for these volunteer positions until we figure out what resources are available.
Let's do everything we can to keep brand influence on community value limited.
2013 can be a great new year for our community!
Comments
Drupal websites
My 2c:
Yes, "business ethics" in SA is an oxymoron and eCon is taking nominal advantage by listing their service first, but:
To my mind it's pretty much a non-issue.
A Better Drupal.org.za (redirect from Drupal.co.za)
We can make Drupal.co.za (redirected to Drupal.org.za) more useful than it is now. Not necessarily through functional upgrade, but by setting it free. Several Drupal shops have no problem linking to Drupal.org on sites they build and most refer clients to Drupal.org or (as I often to) to this group on Groups.Drupal.org for more information.
Drupal.co.za ranks low (among other reasons of course) because it has less than a couple of dozen incoming links. Hits on a future site will likely remain low if we start with minimal content simply linking to existing relevant Drupal infrastructure. But such visits are high-value, for those visiting, the one link out they take should be the one adding most value to their visit too the website. It should also be high-value for Drupal (which a domain name with “Drupal” in it, especially as the only word, represents).
For myself, I'd prefer not to make this a named eConsultant issue, which is why I didn't actually name the firm myself. They operate a good Drupal business and I'd prefer them as much part of any new solution as any other Drupal shop, just on a level playing field.
Suggestion on way forward.......
I have read what you are proposing carefully, and in detail. What you are proposing is a voluntary association, with a constitution or rules that control the governance of the organisation, nominations and elections to posts of a steering committee / management committee.
This model exists in many different fields, (mostly the professions), where there is a need for a place to share ideas, knowledge, experience and expertise. What I suggest is necessary is as follows:
- a small group of people sit together to draw up a constitution, which details
- what format the association will take (formally constituted non-profit company, club, etc)
- how the association will operate (website address, administration, overheads etc)
- who the Drupal SA Committee can consist of (numbers, nature, authority etc).
- how long each person can be in office (hold a position)
- how people are nominated to that committee
- how people vote for the nominees
- how to deal with disputes and disagreements (appeal process etc)
- duties of the different people on the committee (such as portfolios that they look after - marketing, events, etc)
- how companies are to be permitted to sponsor or advertise
- a code of conduct for people who are members of the committee or who are listed on the voluntary association's website (anyone signed up agrees to abide by the Code of conduct)
- this draft constitution can be put to the members of this forum to make comment over a period of say 30 days.
- once the constitution has been updated by the small group, then they call for nominations and elections to the committee.
- the committee is then empowered to start the association, according to the constitution that is drawn up. Any future changes to the constitution needs to be approved by a vote from the members.
- annual nomination / voting (or other period depending on the constitution).
This will produce a properly recognisable entity that can accept sponsorships / charge for membership fees / will be a recognised body that is independent of commercial influence and which can speak for the Drupal Community in SA both within our borders and internationally.
Just my 2c worth, too......
Alain Jacquet
A formal non-profit, club etc. sounds great, but first...
This sounds like a perfect setup. Though it would be great to do a lot more of this transparently: the part of “a small group of people”. I'm worried that aiming for such a perfect solution right away would be tough to do and fizzle out. Maybe it can be a stated goal after we have some national representation in seats done informally at first and have a site up?
Making this an explicit goal will lend the initial effort credibility. One other reason for aiming for an easy-to-do initial goal is to create buy-in and participation, communication and see if there's enough buy-in to proceed to a non-profit in future. There may just not be a big enough community yet.
Does anyone here have knowledge about setting up and running non-profits? Maybe start a second topic for that so we can all ask questions and learn about it. I'd dearly like to. I'm guessing we can borrow much from other country-specific Drupal organisations and the Drupal Association too.
Much as I'd participate in the discussion for creation of a non-profit/club, I'd love to see something succeed that will show that we have some human resources behind the idea first. Especially national representation. If we have even casual discussions here that lead to elected seats that “small group of people” will have much more legitimacy and any constitution they draw up will be more representative; So likely also be more acceptable to the Drupal community here as a whole.
Democratising what...
Business has been under government influence for far to long IMO and now we have a proposal on the table to create a democratic group in the hopes that it will curb "monopoly"... As a long time Drupal consultant in the USA and now here in SA I am dead against it. Yeah lets follow some principles from the Drupal Association and perhaps even use their guiding principles but starting a group because the problem as stated is that a company has cleverly positioned themselves is ridiculous and anti-capatilism... I don't like monopolies either but lets bring it into balanace. 1. Advertise your drupal work more. 2. Market better. 3. Offer better services. 4. Deliver what you promise. 5. Its a competitive market so play the game.
Take your hat off to them, they got clever and used reason to achieve their goals. Then figure out what you can do to provide services to help your clients better, nobody can hold a monopoly for long if others provide better and most cost effective services, its the nature of business.
E.G. I did R300K in Drupal business last year at the enterprise level in Gauteng from zero. I didn't go after websites I approached the corporate world and went up against the likes of Sharepoint and CRM products that cost an arm and a leg. The web is not the only space to play and Drupal is not just a CMS, its a development Framework.
PS
I am not affiliated in anyway with eCon but I will defend the right to do business for anyone in whatever field they choose. Additionally "NO offense to anyone here"... But lets compete so that he who has the best service wins. Nature has a way of evening things out. Sans competition we're all screwed because then there'd be no market to play in in the first place.
My less than 2c's worth.
Community/Skills Building, Correct Representation of Drupal™
Riaan: JHB/Fourways
Maybe part of the reason I did not raise this issue in open discussion for several years was that I felt I could do, as a company, with the domain myself. Right now though and for a while already, capacity is a problem, not work. So the motive for change is to better the community.
As the business case goes: Capitalism is great, but so is a free market and operating on a level playing field. By all means: “1. Advertise your drupal work more. 2. Market better. 3. Offer better services. 4. Deliver what you promise. 5. Its a competitive market so play the game.” But do not hijack the Drupal Trademark (marked that way and protected through the same systems we admire in these two posts) which is meant for Drupal-related non-profit use. That isn't “clever”, it is misrepresentative and anticompetitive and thus damages the Drupal trade mark in our country.
Our market is great here, we need more startups like yours; we also need more community-building and need to gain more skilled Drupalers in the country.
@IgnitedCoder and team
Folks
As a user of Drupal and the services that the Drupal comminty provides, I agree with IgnitedCoders sentiments. As a long time member of ISACA (past Director) and IOD of SA, there are pro's and con's of going this route. (No I'm not volunteering) The willing few will do the work and be abused. Being on the commitee of such a body is not always for altruistic reasons. Service providers see it as a chance to elevate their selling potential e.g. I'm a director of Drupal Whatsit SA and you can trust me to provide the best ...blah blah or the reverse, I operate a big drupal site at a big cost and I want to protect my investment and drive costs of maintenance and development down. So there is a reall chance of hijacking.
With regards to the supposed copyright infringment of Drupal.Co.za, why not escalate this to Drupal themselves and let them adjudicate? This would be in my opinion the non-partisan approach. If Drupal wish to address it with the owners of the site, then they should do so.
I get the sense that there is some discomfort in a competitor having stolen the march on his peers. If the intent is to form an association to prevent this kind of behavior, then it is indeed counter productive and non competitive behavior.
Rather look to yourselves and provide better and more innovative ways of marketing your product and services. This approach galvanises the market and everyone benefits. Consumers are not necessarily stupid. We do look through the bull and marketing talk. Real value and a professional service is the name of the game.
2.5C worth
Drupal™
Well described motivations for hijacking yes. It's something we can guard against. I think term limits and elected seats will help, but for opens source and GPL products, it's worth always being on guard.
"No I'm not volunteering" ;-) You knew I'd ask hey ;-)
With regards to the Drupal trade mark; I'd hope that we do not actually have to escalate things to move ahead. There's some very friendly people involved and being an optimist too, I hope things will simply flow in the right direction with support from most people involved.
I felt more at ease raising this matter now than in years past because we mostly operate outside of the South African market ourselves. Most of our business come from international clients, so it is most the local community that I may have motivation in seeing succeed. We're also saturated with work, so promoting the growth of the community and through that more skilled Drupalers is a major reason for me to have posted this.
Removing myself from taking a position also helps take care of any ulterior motive.
It would be great to be able to move away from confrontation-related topics towards community-building ones with a focus on a sustainable Drupal.org.za (redirected from Drupal.co.za) presence over the next few weeks.
National/General Location
Riaan: JHB/Fourways
Would you guys mind posting something like JHB, PTA or CT before your posts. It would be great to see where people come from so that we know whether this is just becoming a localised discussion and needs more national input.
Non profit experience (Jhb / Buccleuch)
I've set up and run non profit trade associations for the past 15 years. Happy to help or offer advice.
My 2c would be to focus on the objective and not get too caught up in the bureaucracy. Let's not overcomplicate this.
Davy Ivins
AssociationWorks
Non-profit Future
Hey Davy!
Wonderful. Would you have time to donate to help set one up or advise/steer? Would you mind standing for the first bit of election for a seat that would slowly steer/organize things if we go towards an association in future?
Hi Riaan I'm in the start up
Hi Riaan
I'm in the start up phase of a new business so my time is limited. That said I'm happy to share what experience I have (and some documentation like draft constitution etc), and see where it takes us.
Demands won't be high
Ideally taking a seat won't have terribly high demands. It's the skill set , the elected representation and the voluntary contribution that is most important in my opinion...
For a seat like this I'd guess there won't be more than answering a question or linking to government documentation from time to time, especially in the beginning as I agree it is best to start informally and just that will, with low time requirements from volunteers and us getting to know each other first, take a goodly amount of time.
Seats should not be onerous, just points of reference for facilitating communication. It should be something anyone can do in terms of time requirements.
A country level association would be great, but ...
I wholeheartedly agree that there should be a country-level association for Drupal to at least nominally co-ordinate efforts between regions. It appears to me, that past efforts in this have failed due to personalities/politics more than anything.
Riaan - I do disagree with many of your assertions though.
There aren't many companies in South Africa, that have raised the profile of Drupal in South Africa more than eConsultant. This through their development of many Drupal websites (including several high profile ones), their joint sponsorship of Drupal events, supplying of free refreshments for the JHB meetups, as well as their representation of Drupal at events such as the Software Freedom Day. Of course their goals through these activities aren't purely altruistic, but they do benefit the community as a whole.
As for drupal.co.za, many other community members have had admin access to the site (myself included). The lack of new features can be attributed as much to lack of action from the rest of the community, than to eConsultant.
Riaan - have you approached them about contributing improvements to the site that you envision? As far as I'm aware, that's always been welcomed. I think your characterisation of them as hijacking the Drupal trademark is off the mark.
George Ziady
(ex-JHB)
eConsultant is a Great South African Drupal Company
eConsultant is one of the great South African Drupal companies. Other than my feeling about Drupal.co.za and uneasiness with brand push in general at meet-ups, I've only had good things to say about them here. What you say bout them is correct.
Personally, I'd not like anything to do with the Drupal.co.za website until it is more free and open, with commercial interest removed. Since we're talking about Drupal here, and open project, and we're all choosing to contribute and make use of it for what it is as opposed to closed source work, I feel that the heart of the matter may be why you didn't see much community participation while admin. Admin isn't the developer either.
We shouldn't have to approach a commercially competitive entity to participate. Features isn't the problem with Drupal.co.za as much as that it isn't free and open.
While I think it is better to first build some buy-in for a new project for a new site (likely to start with actual fewer "features"), first find representation for it, then move to host it on Drupal.co.za (rather Drupal.org.za with Drupal.co.za redirecting) once it is free of commercial ownership for both domains, it would be cool to hear support for the idea of ownership of these domains moving away from eConsultant from them. Also support for shared open sponsorship. Hosing it in South Africa will be nice too eventually, but Drupal Gardens can be a great open tool for an initial website.
Pty I have for long felt the
Pty
I have for long felt the same way and thinking that drupal.co.za is a disgrace to the name of Drupal! For long i've been wanting to do the same thing so we can push Drupal in SA an so have registered drupalize.co.za and drupalcon.co.za before someone else registers it for their business use ie eCon...
So i make it available for this venture. I'm on speaking terms with some of the European Drupalcon Board so we can tap some guidance from them as well, we don't need to reinvent the wheel here!
Maybe first step is getting the wheel moving on small groups meeting in Pty, Jhb, Cpt and Blm? I've got some time to work on this initiative and website so hit me up and I'm there! I'm passionate about Drupal!
Donation of DrupalCon.co.za and DrupalizeMe.co.za
I suspect the later of the two to be a but Lullabot, less Drupal Association ;-)
Love your jump right in with the passionately expressed opinion and offerings!
Somehow, I think this topic will be raised at some of the Drupal meets in the country ;-) I know of the one here in Johannesburg, know of a community in Cape Town, but are there meet-ups in other places yet?
Do you have enough time to volunteer to stand for election as a dev or as a steer for the site?
OK - go for it.....
I have learned long ago that you should never wait for someone to give you permission..... do it, and if someone objects, then deal with the reasons that they give!
Go for it... let's get this thing going! Why not set up a nationwide event that everyone around the country can attend - once a month.... simply use the technology of a webinar! Every Drupal developer (and client like myself) has an internet connection, and probably better than most in SA - so let's use technology since we all use it every day!
I for one will be very happy to attend!
Webinar
What do you guys think of this? What technology would be the most accessible?
I know companies that use things like TeamSpeak, Drupal has a strong IRC presence, but I know fewer people here that use IRC. Text is probably better than video because it can be more easily referenced.
But maybe to start with this group is a good place? People can participate more easily when their time allows. It may then move a bit slower, but we still need to get to know everyone (I know very few of you in person) and where we're going etc.
Drupal trademark
I was pointed out to this page on Drupal.org and it seems that drupal.co.za infringes on copyright.
But on the brighter side, I'm available wherever I can help. I live in Pretoria so unfortunately i can't attend the Johannesburg meeting. I wish there was a meetup in Pretoria. But we could start a group discussion on Drupal.org?
Intellectual Property
I think in this case it is a trade mark (®/™) infringement, not copyright (©), though in all likelihood just opportunistic and may well be solved positively.
hmartens, do you know of another Pretoria resident that work with Drupal? You start with just getting together and inviting others right here on the Drupal Group for South Africa. Pick a topic (or three) that you will discuss. Like Drupal 8. Maybe prepare by installing it and the Spark distro. Really, there's nearly always a few beers involved, so nothing needs to be super serious.
If you think up an evening now and set a date, post the meet-up, I'm sure you will get another Drupaler or two to pitch up. More people come than say they will, we have a silent group of Drupalers online too.
Once you see how many you have, ask them if any of the companies they work for can donate a conference room for future meet-ups. Try to aim for non-Drupal-shops to keep the meeting point neutral if possible.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you jump right in ;-)
With that said, isn't eCon
With that said, isn't eCon using their offices for the meetups? If so, then that's a bit noble :)
I've complained a couple of times in the past about drupal.co.za where they used to allow non-drupal based websites to be shown on their showcase...and all my drupal-based websites were deleted from the showcase...and numerous times in the past the contact page captcha didn't work properly so i couldn't lodge complains...but there's no maintenance done on that website and you would think Drupal is some system from the 1990's...
It needs to be run by the community, for the community! It's time we put South Africa on the Drupal radar!
Not sure about this. You guys
Not sure about this. You guys seem to be ripping a company that was first to the game. Good on them, they had the foresight and took the risk to invest in drupal early on and it paid off and now you all slagging them because you dont think they are using their site correctly. Bloody hell. You sound like a the business dicks that sued samsung because the phone was rectangular. ><
I like how you use the word "Democratising" As we have seen from almost every major demockracy in the world , it is driven by corruption and greed. Which sort of sounds like what you want to do. You not getting enough work or think that eCon is getting it all so you want to try complete by grouping the smaller co.s together under the pretense of a "community" . That is what groups.drupal is for. and it works well. I think opensource is based more on socialism ( and hopefully a Noam Chomsky based paradigm ).
The amount of time you have spent of them post you could have already setup a site, and we all know you dont need drupal.co.za . Facebook was not the first social media system. People want to see products. Our company which actually does not work so much in drupal anymore rarely even goes to clients anymore without a beta working product. Otherwise its just text and talking. Whoever is the best marketer wins. And eCon does it well. Their sites are sh1t and they overcharge and charge based on free modules but thats their game and they are good at it and they have connections, and if they sleep well at night then they are certified psychopaths ( And i do know they amount they tried to charge an non profit organisation for their site - Shame on you at eCon!! ) . You either adapt or die. Start learning oAuth and turn your drupal sites into mobile/ tablet apps and complete in a better market. A market that is really fun without the hassle of lot of the crap that comes with web development.
Also you should take this to IRC. There is already a za group their . Heck the drunken bastards who run the pirate bay basically run their communications through IRC . And buy a baby server put a drupal install on, give the username and password to people and start .. this talk is redundant and seriously who has time for this?
No slagging
I use Samsung myself ;-)
Really, there's been no slagging; Wherever a company were mentioned it was mostly positive (well, till now ;-) and my feeling to the company in question is positive too.
I haven't seen corruption and greed in the motivations for moving to a representative solution here yet and I'm more of an optimist in that I prefer to assume that motives are altruistic.
Interestingly we've seen democracy, capitalism and socialism brought to bear so far on the discussion ;-)
The open community that is Drupal at large, works super well. For a while the emergence of companies like Acquia, headed by Drupal's founder, were worried about. But with the independence of the Drupal Association and Acquia going to great lengths to support the independent community, drive their service offerings in ways that support it and just plain history showing that such a company can be a super cool protagonist of the community in which many other companies work together with it on a level playing field has proven that the Drupal community model does work.
A little context for this discussion
Hi guys,
I think this discussion around Drupal.co.za needs some context. We have been actively participating in the Drupal community and hosting the JHB Drupal meetups for more than two years now. During this time the face of the meetups changed from being predominantly companies to individuals that want to learn, share and contribute to the community. Although small the group featured some really passionate people, young and old. Willem and the other guys from eConsultants actively participated by regularly attending, giving talks, showcasing their work from day one.
The last meetup of 2012 we came up with the idea to revamp the drupal.co.za site as an all year long project, and we wanted to use the meetups as the vehicle for discussing the various technologies, tricks of the trade etc. The idea was a solution to allot of difficult questions around Drupal meetups:
- How do we include talks that would benefit both novice and advanced Drupalers?
- How do we add some structure to meetups and still allow the freedom of discussions, un-conferencing etc?
- How can we contribute to the Drupal community as a whole?
Building a simple meetup platform that people can download and install to run their own meetups and gatherings, whether it is a Drupal group, church gathering sports team etc. would be very beneficial to the Drupal community and other communities around us. We get to revamp the Drupal.co.za site and make it more relevant for meetups (better subscribing, notifications about upcoming events, syncing with your calendar, mobile presence and more). The project we proposed would cover everything from basic installation, performance, using Drupal as a data store for front-ends, and we even wanted to touch on a mobile apps in general. Everyone in attendance at that time was super excited to get this new plan for 2013 rolling.
Unfortunately at the first meetup of 2013 we discovered that Willem tasked someone else to revamp the site. This wasn't what we discussed the previous year. Willem mentioned that he was thinking that the drupal.org.za site might not be appropriate as a project and we should use tools more suited for this purpose. I feel we form part of a community and that decision wasn't made by the group.
Building this meetup project could benefit so many people that we still wanted to carry on with it, and registered the project on Github to make it accessible to everyone. This will hopefully be a way to allow Drupalers around the country to contribute and add some structure to our meetups.
Riaan, wildcoast, Alain and the rest raised some valid points. Although politics in these type of user groups in inherently unavoidable, I feel we can curb it a bit.
Community Drupal.org.za
Awesome!
I only joined for this last meet-up, so was unaware of the eventual goal initially and of why we were learning git and Vagrant at the meet-up (I played a bit with git and a lot with Vagrant afterward).
What an amazing project. It is a serious bite to chew on though, I hope we can do it and will renew my effort to learn just enough git to be able to participate.
Since this will take a bit of time to bring a distro to fruition and then implement it for ourselves, maybe we should set up a Drupal Gardens (or other solution that is quick) during the mean time so as not to lose momentum on this.
Do any of you have some ideas/suggestions for a domain name in the mean time? Once we have even a front page up with the legitimacy of a community incentive as opposed to a site tasked-out like this it will be better than anything, however featurefull that have been tasked. We can then primarily proceed with further community development, fleshing out the site and either use the donated Drupal.co.za and Drupal.org.za once their registration and hosting is free if they are donated or ask DA to take the matter up.
Outsider point of view
Hi everyone
Allow me to weigh in as someone who's been active in several national Drupal communities (Belgium, France, Senegal). Context: I worked with the core Belgian community back in 2007, helped start the community France, co-organized Drupalcon Paris in 2009 and helped breathe new life into the Senegalese community in 2011.
We went through much of this same scenario in France in 2008/2009. We decided we needed a legal entity (non-profit) to have a good and fair representation of the developer and agency landscape, but also to be able to organize events and raise funds in a transparent way and without any single person or company needing to take the financial risk.
This is also what most other national and regional communities do, so in that sense I think this is a perfectly good suggestion.
Regardless of what Ecomm may or may not have done right or wrong, I don't think anyone can deny they've been instrumental in putting Drupal on the map of the South African tech scene and to show the local businesses that Drupal is a viable solution. As a business owner myself I know how tough it is to build a Drupal shop from scratch and invest in community development at the same time.
I think it's the next logical step for your community as a whole to progress into a non-profit-lead organization where (hopefully) Ecomm takes part just like the other individuals. I honestly don't see how Ecomm would have a problem with this, as witnessed by their pioneering open source spirit.
It doesn't help to shout about copyright infringements, monopolies and thievery though. If you guys are really interested in building a healthy, thriving ecosystem, do it together and look to the future.
Getting a non-profit up and running can be done quickly. Get a temporary board going with temporary statutes and get one team to build out a site (or take over the drupal.co.za site) while another team works on the more permanent legal and practical side of memberships, commercial visibility, etc. Decide to re-elect a more permanent board and statutes 12 months from now. Boom, you're done. The world is to the do-ers, not the talkers.
Lastly, regarding the domain name: it is true that Dries holds the 'Drupal' trademark, and that its legal use is enforced by the Drupal Association. More information about this can be found at http://groups.drupal.org/legal and http://drupal.org/licensing/faq.
In practice I've seen that mostly drupal community related domain names are either owned by the community related non-profit in question or by Dries himself (often ownership is donated to Dries after registration, yet daily usage for community purposes is retained without intervention from Dries).
Thanks for listening. I don't presume to instruct you guys what to do. I just wanted to offer what I've learned from my past experiences and hope it can help guide you through this discussion.
Good luck.
Joeri.
Non-profit
Haha, I can just see a non-profit resisted right away like a domain name without any community input ;-) But you're right, we should maybe move ahead with that quicker. It will certainly galvanize participation.
I was thinking that there will be much discussed at the Cape Town meeting tomorrow and if we wait for the Johannesburg one next week, that one too. Maybe enough discussed that we should just wait for something as serious the inception of a non-profit until we have more community input.
I think it was BigCheif up there that mentioned he has the skills to set one up, but not the time right away. Maybe some more of us do? Anyone?
Considering the topic we're addressing, I hesitate to urge speed over community participation, but we do need momentum.
I'm 100% sure eCon will continue to be as positively involved as before, but we'll probably see a lot more participation too from other companies once we free the domains and sponsorships and create a level playing field.
From that position, I'd likely always push to keep brand low and information high for anything topical, but then at least my voice will be one of many. ;-)
Joeri. Thank you so much for taking the time to give us such a nice overview of how things can work out great!
Association Constitution
UK Drupal Association Constitution - Proposal: http://groups.drupal.org/node/239538
Just the first link that came up when I Googled. But there's probably a lot more material like this out there to work with.
Meet-up Venue Available in Joburg
Hello All,
Been following this thread with much interest....
Like all complex issues these matters are best discussed face to face...
I have a facility available in Braamfontein, Joburg, for meet-ups should anyone be interested in gathering a core group. The venue can accommodate 20-25 people, has toilets and a kitchen. Parking is safe and off the street - we're next to Wits University.
Evening meets or weekends (SAT or SUN) are possible. There are no charges - the venue is free for all Drupal related activities.
If the interest is there the facility is available - as often as required.
Pedro Buccellato
Architects Association (SA)
19 Henri Street
Braamfontein
Johannesburg
A place for meeting in person...
Double meaning in the title ;-)
But I think there's a time and a place for in-person meetings and when we're already so separate, nationally, keeping discussion online can only help. I know that for myself I also do not like travel much. A single night's meeting would not have revealed such well-thought-out comments and allow so many people to participate when their time allows.
Grand on such a central location for Johannesburg. I'm right here next to the Fourways meet-ups, but it cannot be so convenient for people from the South or farther East. Maybe a good place to organize a future meeting.
In jpoesen's post he mentions teams as part of an organization (and I'm getting a lot of off-line communication too from people not quite ready to go public with opinion for various reasons). Such team ideas may need separate smaller meetings, you never know. Another venue option is always welcome, Thanks!
I see a way forward now
I'm not going to repeat what others already said here, but I agree with the context.
But, my feeling is yes, our own little Drupal assoc. should be separate from commercial gains, and for the growth of Drupal in SA. Great for companies like Econ and individuals who have pushed Drupal collaboration so far in SA, but it feels to me that it has become too localized to two groups. Nobody outside those groups actually knows what is going on.
I would suggest that after the CT and Jhb meetings, we have a national meeting on webinar or IRC. for everybody to catch up and discuss the way forward.
Quentin
I like this idea: IRC
I like the idea of using IRC (just installed XChat for the first time today). But as git may be a barrier to participation for me, I worry IRC may be a barrier for others to participate.
Other than this group, I think we have a git repo (though very JHB) and IRC as options. Maybe a separate post (thread) asking people what their means of participation is. Something like:
Groups.Drupal.org
E-mail
git shared repo
IRC
Since git and IRC are essential tools in one's Drupal toolbox, I should get down and get to know git too, but setting up and participating in IRC was a snap, so can't be too much of a barrier for people?
Another possible poll, or perhaps rather a Wiki page that can be edited for people to fill in:
Name, Location, Contact Details. Once any area has two or more people mentioned, we help them organize getting together?
Chatzilla firefox addon ..
Chatzilla firefox addon .. done
Thanks you!
As the day comes to a close, thank you so much to everyone for commenting so positively! I was so worried that this would simply turn into a flame war. Instead it is inspiring and informative.
Please keep ideas coming and if you have had doubts about participating in this discussion, just read it again to see how many people added such great ideas, stated their opinions and didn't get taken out for them ;-)
Super Rockstar community! - can't wait to meet all of you!
Easiest way to communicate - and free
GoToWebinar
Adobe also has a solution
Webex is another...........
Looks like Video/Voice
Video and voice may work for some circumstances, but to allow multiple people to talk and for easy referenceability and searchability, something like IRC will be easier to use for a meeting like this. Voice kinds requires one to keep a conversation going, so you're prompted to talk when it is "your turn" while not being able to contribute when you have a good idea and someone else is talking. No easy way to reference parts of a video/voice conference call either.
JHB
I apologise if I repeat anything that has been said before...
Building a community is a lot of work, and I think it could be made easier by providing structured mechanisms for various people to become involved in various capacities, such as joining "boards" of some sort. So the suggestion to democratise (although, perhaps this is the wrong word... maybe formalize?) the South African/Regional landscape is a good one.
Over the years, various people in JHB have been involved in creating spaces for interested community members to collect and learn from each other. People such as Charles Tanton, Guy Taylor, Willem van Straaten, but not limited to ;), have given their time where able to make sure monthly meetups happen and that new members are always welcomed.
The difficulty is that the meetups get very old very quickly. Drupal's learning curve is steep and with it comes a massive amount of new information and understanding, which helps you grow exceptionally fast. Once you're over the hurdles and understand Drupal, showcases on "how to use views" become redundant and don't add value. It is thus, that stops people from continuing to form part of the community. I am one of these, where I've been working with Drupal for ±6 years and have only been to two or so meetings a year for the past 3/4 years.
Forming committees/groups/boards, might help to generate groups with varied interests, and push different needs and requirements onto the community to solve.
An example of which, is available skills and resources for development & projects. Drupal is advancing in SA, and with it, the need for developers. I know many dev houses who are stretched to capacity. Training, that is more complex, such as the intricacies of working with the Form API (and splitting multiple content types, across multiple pages) would serve to build each other much more than what is currently being provided. This is an area, that a board could be dedicated to. Another example, would be a "Pro bono development board" to build distributions together that can be published. Governmental sites, Charity / Non-profit organisations, etc. We know there are many of these distributions already built, but SA does have unique challenges, and thus opens and interesting window to support one another, and create new avenues of support for worthwhile projects.
Anyway, the point is... formalizing a structure (whether called democracy or otherwise) might bring Drupal further into the landscape of choice for Corporates and Government and Others, and therefore can only be seen as a good step forward.
My opinion regarding drupal.co.za (org.za) is that it should be representative of the people working in Drupal locally in South Africa. It should also, not work to replicate functions provided by other Drupal sites, such as the Groups platform, or the forums of d.o, as well as help topics such as api.drupal.org etc. It should be as simple as possible, potentially with a page of useful links. Host it on Drupal Gardens if the community thinks thats appropriate.
Working Groups, More Groups and Drupal Gardens
I like the idea of working groups... what I'm thinking here is that you're right, we need both the very beginning stuff like installing Drupal, working with views and the more advanced stuff like staging site development through dev to production and distro development.
I loved the last Drupal meet-up in Johannesburg which had less of the essential beginning topics and more intermediate ones. They hit my level of understanding just right, but I know if I brought my daughter or project manager they would not have followed and many Drupalers had the talents that we were just broaching there, so would have been bored too.
Meeting people at meet-ups (even DrupalCons) are often listed as one of the most valuable aspects of meet-ups, so perhaps the meet-ups can be staged with little 5min breaks in-between. That will allow people to mingle a bit and some to step out if the next topic is out of scope for them. Great conversations happen in the hall ;-)
If enough people of a certain interest gather in the hall, it is time to split a group and perhaps have separate or more valuably (since people will mingle still) parallel meet-ups.
Do you or anyone here have experience using Drupal Gardens? I just tried it once a long time ago and it seemed to do what we want it to do. Anyone with recent experience?
I tell u what, drupal has
I tell u what, drupal has such a epic community, really miss it actually. Definitely socialism ;) our government could learn a thing or two from it. Instead they are buying wordpress sites for 40 million.
I tell u what, drupal has
I tell u what, drupal has such a epic community, really miss it actually. Definitely socialism ;) our government could learn a thing or two from it. Instead they are buying wordpress sites for 40 million.
More exciting and relevant JHB drupal meetups
Hi guys,
I don't think people really understand what's going on at this meetups. Some people have mentioned that they have been here before, and also mentioned that the drupal meetups get very old quickly. Therefore you understand why the drupal community needs to change the way we have been doing stuff at the JHB drupal meetups.
We as a JHB drupal community voted last year, at the last drupal meetup to start with a small drupal community project, that focus on everything from begin to the end. This will give everyone the chance to get involved in the project ( from someone who knows nothing about coding or web developing, to the most advance coder). Drupal developers from all over the country are welcome to follow the git drupal meetup seed that we created specifically for this drupal meetups.
This will give everyone with a specific skill set to come and do a presentation on a specific topic, and afterwards people can discuss what they have learned. And by following the git drupal seed everyone will be able to follow the progress and contribute to the project.
Nice relevant topics, and much more exciting than the previous meetups. At least everyone will get the chance to learn and give their 2c worth at the meetups.
git
So I loved the git (and Vagrant) talks at the last meet-up. Played with Vagrant no end and it was fun, but will only be using it for VMs - don't like it's high demand of learning Ruby for it to do anything remotely useful (beyond the basics). I spent hours just searching about variable and control structure syntax.
git I know I'll have to learn some time. But even knowing that as a developer, I once again have to caution that there are loads of people for which this will be a barrier to participation. I just followed a tutorial, cloned the meet-up repo, made changes and when I got to push it asked me for a github username. I understand the requirement, but elected not to sign up yet (I'm just averse to many sign-ups, so will probably do this in coming months if/when the need arises, just not casually now).
For now, git is too much of an overhead on the day's time requirements.
For many people in the Drupal ecosystem that do not develop (theme or programming) simply getting them on a command line is so scary they will change jobs right away. This includes business managers, project managers, most themers and many more.
Distro Community Project
git aside. The project is such a cool one and will be really nice for generating the topics (already planned, I see). Can't wait for all the meet-ups now ;-)
Sorry to be weighing in so
Sorry to be weighing in so late, I have just found this post. I have been a member of the JHB Drupal Meetup branch since January 2012. I represent the 'old' in Ivan's post. I had no previous experience in web design so I set out to search the web to find such a product. I came across the three main contenders and read extensively. My choice of Drupal (which is clearly more challenging) was because I found the Drupal Community and Drupal.co.za. My view of Community is a grouping of people with common intent, belief, resources, preferences needs and risks. I began my journey of learning Drupal (subscriptions to various training sites) and attending the Drupal Meetups. I was initially disappointed that the Drupal Meetups were more of a commercial gathering than a user based Community group. At that time I was really having a problem, with as it turns out a very simple problem. I emailed one of the senior members of the Drupal Community pleading for some assistance. Only to be told that I should find my own solution on the internet as they do. I spent another month on the internet. At the April Meetup ( three months into my development) and on the verge of considering changing to Joomla or Wordpress, I mentioned my problem to a couple of guys before the Meetup. Within 5 minutes I was given a solution and the rest is history. The majority of the members are Community based and I have received amazing assistance/advice on modules, hosting, tricks and really good friendship.
We really need to develop a Community based group and the project that we decided on at the last Meetup of 2012 is the perfect Community Project. The components of the project include web, mobile and some of the latest front end software to mention but a few. I cannot believe that commercial fellows will not benefit from this project.
The thread above has developed a number of very positive ideas which we need to embrace. I am willing to take on any administrative portfolio that will develop this Community Drupal Group for the proposed initial phase.
Participation pays back in value
I've heard it said so many times, but participation does pay back in value so much. I learned a huge amount from just that one meeting I went to. Think I saw you there, but we didn't meet fully - hope to do so this week coming :-)
Administrative help will be some of the most valuable for building this community initiative. I know someone's already considering compiling this topic into a Wiki for us here, so I'm sure (s)he (never sure of gender when nicknames are involved) will take note and list you for help, thanks!
Lots of great ideas in this
Lots of great ideas in this discussion, so not much left to say :)
A structured group with an open ethos and overall goals of contributing back to larger Drupal community and growing the SA member base will be awesome.
As mentioned there seems to be a great shortage in Drupal resources and this is a local problem that the UG can play an important part in solving.
I have attended a small number of meetings over the last 2 years and hope to attend more frequently. I am Centurion based so at times it can be difficult, it's not really that far but traffic and other factors can become a problem. Unfortunately there are probably a large number of members who face the same kind of factors. I think as mentioned above IRC and other online means will definitely help - IMHO. recording each meeting, making it available on youtube and possibly even google hangouts will be a good way to keep members like me interested and involved.
Looking forward to see the fruits of this discussion and willing to assist time permitting.
Pretoria
I noticed two other people from Pretoria int he discussion so far. It's time to get things organized there ;-)
It will still be great to have people join a central meeting, but if the distance prevents them from coming and there's enough in a specific area, time for them to meet up more locally too.
Perhaps the Wiki should include a list of people that are interested in attending meetings and their preferred areas.
So you would add:
dineshcooper (Pretoria/Centurion)
And then we can have meeting areas, like the existing one in Johannesburg as headings:
Johannesburg/Bryanston
Then people can move their names to under the headings they will attend so that when there are enough of them, a new local meeting comes about.
I'm just giving this topic much attention till tomorrow, then maybe start on topics/wiki-participation/group-building etc. in new threads here on g.d.o.
Whoa...
This has been quite a hot topic and I can understand why and it is always good that these sort of things come up for discussion.
From my personal experience, and I could be naive here, I have never really felt the meetups to be commercially hijacked. A lot of the things were already there before I joined the community but the people running the various initiatives were always open with information and giving full access.
One thing I have learnt while trying to get more and more involved is that building a community not only takes time, but a lot of dedication. It is not as easy as I thought, especially if one wants to do so successfully. A agree that formalising is probably a good approach to go. Having unfortunately missed the last few meetups I can see that this is what seems to have happened in the JHB meetup and I think the plan there is great.
Creating a national body could also be of benefit. I have recently come across the Drupal Austria (http://www.drupal-austria.at/) group, and this is what they seem to have done. They charge a membership fee and seem to get very involved in growing the community. What I like the most is that they seem to use the collective power of their local community to do things like code/documentation sprints, module development as well as creation of distributions.Some of those even get funded by the local government. Again, this seems to be similar what Ivan mentioned about a year long project to be built at the meetup.
I also think it would be great to get the various regions (currently i guess it is only JHB and CPT) to collaborate. Not sure why those are still the only 2 areas as there is nothing stopping meetups from happening in other areas. I don't think this will always be possible as maybe certain areas have different needs.
JHB Event 3 April
Something to think about.... at least there is some action rather than just words:
Greetings, BigChief,
A Event has been created in group South Africa: April Drupal Meetup - JHB, 3 April 2013
The next monthly Joburg meetup will be held on 3 April 2013 (the first Wednesday of every month) from 18:30.
An exciting initiative has been launched for this year. A Drupal/Angular project to simplify the running of various usergroup meetups. to find out more check out the following link, https://github.com/drupal-meetup/angular-drupal-meetup-seed and get involved.
For more details and to signup, go to: http://drupal.co.za/content/april-drupal-meetup-jhb-3-april-2013
Look forward to seeing you there.
Robin
Please Attend
If you are in Cape Town: 2013-03-26 18:00 - 20:30
http://groups.drupal.org/node/289358
If you are in Johannesburg: 2013-04-03 18:30 - 20:30
http://groups.drupal.org/node/290298
Please everyone, come! I'm sure it will be well worth it!
If you have IRC, hang in this channel on Freenode: #drupal-za
http://groups.drupal.org/node/290133
Where to now?
A few options other than the complete voting system I proposed were:
a do-ocracy (http://www.communitywiki.org/en/DoOcracy) which I like too, but I think we need to counter the existing problem with a bit more representation and active solicitation of participation.
sent to me off-line, a suggestion for a meritocracy (Long: http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/meritocraticGovernanceModel TL;DR, posted by the author: https://github.com/Respect/project-info/issues/13#issuecomment-12304158) which I really like, but again will need some active solicitation for participation from all of us.
Drupal Gardens I tried quick this morning and it is unusably slow, being located int he 'States. So we'll have to get a basic site up locally. Better for an SA site to be hosted locally too. A basic site with Drupal.org-themes standard theme will do, but we'll need at least one volunteer to be user 1 for the first term of three month, and then ideally a few admins to curate the one front page to start with.
Please, everyone, edit the new Wiki to add yourself as someone interested in or already attending meet-ups and volunteer there if you have already in this topic. The Wiki is here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/290653