Drupal's Founder Tries to Emulate Red Hat

For me this is why its always been so important that the copyright of Joomla was not held by one single person or company. It was probably the number one reason that Joomla came into existance.

Hi Brian... I'm having a hard time following your comment. Are you saying Acquia is a bad thing? If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

@cory lets put it this way. How would you be feeling right now if you had contributed to drupal in the same way that you contribute to joomla.

How would you be feeling right now if you had contributed to drupal in the same way that you contribute to joomla.

I read it that they aren't selling Drupal on its own, they are selling a value added service around Drupal. Testing, installation, implementation etc. The spam management stuff isn't Drupal specific but from Mollom for which there are pro and free versions of the service (great service btw well worth checking out)
Surely most of us who make a living from Joomla are doing exactly the same, but on a much smaller level?

Surely most of us who make a living from Joomla are doing exactly the same, but on a much smaller level?

There is a big difference. In the Joomla world everyone competes on a fairly even standing. However if there was an "official" commercial arm everything changes.

The relationship between Fedora and Red Hat was until recently oft cited as an example of where free and commercial could work together unnder one hat but the recent security debacle has shown that the "freedom" of Fedora has been restricted by the commercial interests of Red Hat. See http://itmanagement.earthweb.c...Crisis.htm

@Brian... I think you make good points, and I cannot completely disagree with you. I see a lot of good things about Acquia, though. I guess I'm on the fence on this one.

I used to believe that the "large companies" would never touch an Open Source product unless they could "purchase" support etc directly from the authors. However in the last few months I've personaly worked with three Fortune 500 companies who are happy to use Joomla and I'm sure other people have as well, so I've changed my opinion on that.

In the Joomla world everyone competes on a fairly even standing.

No one ever competes on an even footing, that's life . Joomlatools are going to get better clients, press coverage etc than other shops because frankly they have some amazing talent who have worked really hard over the years for the Joomla project. Are you going to argue that they shouldn't offer their knowledge as a professional service because they did have/have/had a role in Joomla's core? As a business of course they are going to use their experience as a major selling point, and to me Acquia has every right in doing the same.

Large scale businesses are going to do due diligence and in doing so can you not emphasise with them when they most likely choose a qualified world recognised service provider? If this wasn't the case I'm sure all IT departments would be running Macs by now

I'm betting that Acquia will do great things for Drupal in moving it's brand perception into new markets (large businesses) something that frankly, I feel, Joomla is going to struggle to do (even with a better core (imho) than Drupals. I'm positive that this change will reap rewards for the entire Drupal project, and for all those providing services within Drupal.

However if there was an "official" commercial arm everything changes.

Hmm I don't see anywhere on the Acquia site or the Drupal association site where it says Acquia are the official commercial arm of Drupal. All I found was the Acquia FAQ section (http://acquia.com/about-us/faq) which states the inverse.

See http://itmanagement.earthweb.c...Crisis.htm

I read the article but fail to understand the point you are trying to make. I'm not a fedora/red hat user. Are you suggesting that Acquia would be in a position to jeopardise the security of Drupal for their own personal gain? I can't see the profit in them doing this, but perhaps I'm too naive

ps any way to refresh the thread apart from adding gobldygook to the end of the url? the page caching seems to be rather brutal

Interesting stuff. Anything Acquia "packages, does security reviews of, and delivers" will be available to everyone under the GPL so I don't see them as selling anything other than support, a brand, and "peace of mind". Selling "Peace of Mind" is a great business to be in.... just look at the Insurance industry. Will it have a negative affect on Drupal? IMHO, no.

Will it piss off the smaller providers? ... no more then the Rochen deal and the "recommended web hosts" list on J.org upsets other web hosts.

Will it destroy small providers? ... not a chance!

There is more then enough room for the everyone.

Do you know what has closed the deal more then anything else for me when I bid for web projects? ... "I will develop your website around Joomla!, the CMS that powers such high profile websites as [insert Alledia's list of major websites running J! here].

With Acquia bringing in big clients... the perceived(and/or real) value of Drupal in general will grow... which can't be a bad thing for anyone in the industry.

well summarized Steve - interesting times ahead

I have always believed that anytime someone gets a piece of the pie another whole pie is created. The times ahead for joomla are going to be exciting. I will take that a step further - corporate america will take a close hard look at joomla when the backend matches their current expertise - as an example using oracle or sql server. In the meantime their are lots of pies for all who want them.

Selling "Peace of Mind" is a great business to be in.... just look at the Insurance industry.

But perhaps not just at the moment.

Nick

Drupal has always been a one-man kingdom, however benevolently governed.

One-man kingdom = single point of failure. What happens if he gets run over by a bus?

Nick

@ Nick K
LOL, you're right about that. But not for long; now people will want insurance against insurance company collapses as well

As for single point of failure... not a problem IMHO... worst case scenario is that the other devs are forced to fork Drupal just to grant it a new name.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
- Shakespeare

Today, Acquia anncounced the release of their first stable Drupal distro, an I'm quite impressed on how close they have managed to mimick the Linux distro business prectises - even up to the point of offering long term support (LTS) packages. Drupal will get a significant boost throuhg this packaging, IMHO, as it takes the burden of picking the right modules and what not from users and lies in into the hands of the most knowledgable folks in that arena. Great move.