Drupal Gets Non-Profit Backing

DrupalAssociation writes "Drupal, the popular and widely used CMS, now has the backing of a non-profit association. Having grown in size and scope for the last six years, the Drupal software project needs more structured support with infrastructure, marketing and funding. The Drupal Association will help with these needs but will not be directly involved with Drupal software development. Donations are now being solicited. Plans for Corporate and individual membership are being drawn and will be announced at a later time. Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal and the President of the Association, announced the Association on Drupal.org today."

Domain Should be Owned by the Group

[garcia]

From their FAQ [drupal.org]:

Why does Dries, and not the Drupal Association, hold the domain name?

Dries has always retained access to the domain name, and has a proven track history of being responsible with its care. The Drupal Association as yet is unestablished, and would represent a great risk to place something so important to the community in its hands, at least at this stage.

In my limited experience with non-profits and owning/running a website that goes along with them, it is in the best interest of everyone that the holdings be owned by the association rather than individuals tied to the association. Simply put, regardless of how someone has dealt with the ownership in the past, if anything goes south, the first response is sometimes to spite them and yank the holdings and then you're screwed.

Operating the business behind the domain is one thing but having full ownership of it is another. If the group is serious about this being the face of Drupal, I suggest that they go into it the entire way before something similar to the recent ESR [slashdot.org] drama and they pull out after years of support.

CMS?

[skintigh2]

I love it when people drop random TLAs (three letter acronyms) that hardly anyone has ever seen and not bother to define them.

It's even better when they have multiple definitions.

It's even better when none of them actually fit, since the website says Drugal is a content managment platform (CMP)

Re:huh?

[fymidos]

Could you define marketing? It is my experience that marketing has a great influence in the development of the software ...