Hmmm...
Submitted by sepeck on Sat, 2006-01-07 12:57
So, there's this new Drupal Guild announced. It will be interesting to see what it does. At first glance it looks look a way to create the Drupal equivilent of the early paper MCSE's with all the talk about fees and certifications and ways for people to make money by paying the founders training programs and that would be a shame. It seems you pay to join and pay to contribute.... Not sure how this would improve things yet. We'll see what happens.
My biggest wonder is, if this is a guild that purports to be for and about advancing Drupal and Drupal development.... Why is it run on a Wiki? Surely they can find one person to help them setup a Drupal site. It doesn't give one great confidencce to see an organization that wants to set about improving Drupal resources not using the software they are advocating.
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Why a wiki?
Good question regarding the what the Drupal Guild is all about and why it should happen. I had my own comments (which are on the wiki page). Just FYI we (CivicActions) uses a wiki internally for our team. We tried using Drupal for this - but when you need a wiki, you need a wiki. The DrupalGuild stuff is on there more historically than anything else. I'm not clear what you are worried about ("..that would be a shame.."). For me the DrupalGuild idea is mostly about attempting to build and professionalize the Drupal community (or at least create more space for professional Drupal people).
Drupal Guild Does Not Exist
I repeat: Drupal Guild does not exist.
The concept of the Drupal Guild is outlined on this wiki page http://www.civicactions.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DrupalGuild
I will calim responsibility as the original author of this concept. It grew out of discussions with some Canadian Drupal Developer Shops at the Web Of Change Conference in September. I have shopped the idea around with some other drupal developers in the intervening months, including at DrupalCon in amsterdam (where I spoke with a few developers about the concept).
It is a concept. It is on a wiki so that folks can join in the conceptualization process, ask quesions, offer suggestions. Dan is right: when you need a wiki, you need a wiki.
The membership fees listed in the concept "paper" are conceptual, suggestions, of how membership might be defined. But since drupal guild doesn't exist, suggesting that the fee structure is there to enrich the founders (who don't exist) is kind of silly.
Before drupal guild can exist, there would need to be people/shops willing to sponsor it. The goal, as outlined in the wiki, is to improve the drupal vendor community. The idea behind paying to join is that it would in concept create a more invested membership, provide funding to run trainings, support marketing efforts, allow the drupal guild to sponsor certain development, or anything else that the drupal guild board / directors might decide a worthy expenditure for the drupal guild (if they decide to charge a membership fee to begin with).
If you would like to participate in the discussion, you can register on the wiki and add your comments, concerns, questions and suggestions.
If and when the Drupal Guild moves out of a conceptual stage into something real, I am sure that there will be a drupal powered website for it. So i guess i just answered your biggest wonder ;-)
thanks for stopping by...
My concern came from my experiance with the sometimes predatory practices of sectors of the IT industry to 'jump on the bandwagon' and exploit a perceived up and coming market. For a small training fee and class, you too can be a high paid 'I.T. Professional' (in this case, Drupal developer). Generally these are involved in marketing 'training' and oportunities. Many are familier with their glossy ads.
So, I asked around and none of the folks I asked had heard of the Guild idea (#drupal). Sort of an out of the blue announcement with Dries asking what it was as well. I hadn't seen it mentioned on the development mail list, nor the Drupal user group meeting announcements either. I had been considering requesting time off work to go to the meeting so had been following it until my wife's injury.
For something out of the blue, it seemed rather well fleshed out as a plan but with none of the introductory discussion from your presentation accompanying the announcement. I am not against such a thing in general, just surprised and expressing my concerns. I have been told when I am surprised, I can express my concerns rather strongly. I would not want to see Drupal drawn to soon into that marketing and bandwagon marketplace where the predators lurk.
I look forward to seeing more. Currently, my attention is on the Drupal.org handbook and making it better. I hope to make one of the S.F.Bay area meetings soon.
On the wiki note, I know all you full time devs like them but I just haven't warmed to them yet myself. I used one of Bryghts Drupal wiki guides to setup a Drupal based one and it seemed to work well enough. I feel strongly that if you are going to promote a technology, you should use it as it forces you to deal with it's limitations and quirks and hopefully to develop improvements and solutions. Of course, I don't make money off Drupal services either so that affords me some flexibility that full time developers may not have.
In my experience the Drupal
In my experience the Drupal Wiki module just isn't there yet. We have have talked about using more drupal internally for KB stuff, but have a whole wiki infrastructure in place right now. Maybe sometime in the future we will see fit to migrate it.
Most of the early "discussion" took place over 1 weekend at the Web Of Change retreat, and during individual discussions with some drupal developers / shops. I talked to a few folks (Ber and some others) at DrupalCon.
I felt strongly that it would be important to flesh somethign out before saying "Hey! What do folks think about a drupal guild?" because then there would be all these questions "what woudl the guild do? who would be in it? why?" So i tried to anticipate and answer many of those questions, so instead of there being a blank page, there are some ideas.
The concept did not grow out of the developement side of things at all. It really came from our experience as a drupal shop and (the experience of other shops i have spoken with) of not having enough developers to meet the demand for drupal websites, and then not having enough time to really clean up code and make it a generally released module when you are driven by client funded development.
That is why the problem statement starts as one of man power with the example of the housing boom.
Thanks for your comments, and I understand where your fears might come from. But if you see the kind of people we are at CivicActions and our values and business model, I think it is clear that we're not trying to be predatory, or looking to make money off of this. (I should also say that the Drupal Guild Concept is really more of a pet project and has not been officially adopted by CivicActions.)
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