The future of the web must be open. It is essential. But it is not inevitable.
Therefore, at the Drupal Association, we feel it is important for the Drupal Community to take an active role in promoting the Open Web because of how crucial its principles of open access, open standards, free expression, and digital inclusion are to the well-being of modern societies.
As such, we are proud to issue our Open Web Manifesto.
Over the past few months, the Drupal Association has collaborated with Drupal founder Dries Buytaert and invited the Drupal Community to provide input into an Open Web Manifesto. The goal is a public declaration of the values that undergird Drupal the product and Drupal the community.
While developing the manifesto, we knew that the community’s input would be vital to creating a manifesto that served all of the Drupal community’s needs. To ensure that we covered all of the community’s needs, we collected input via survey questions to support the formation of the manifesto.
As an open source software, anyone can download, use, work on, and share Drupal. Drupal’s principles of collaboration, globalism, and innovation are directly tied to the continuation of the Open Web and vice versa.
In the community input survey that we created to gather input on the manifesto, we received many thoughtful responses to the questions that helped us shape and format the manifesto. The survey ran from 12 January 2023 to 27 January 2023 and consisted of eight questions, four open-ended and four multiple-choice. We were thrilled to receive input from 182 members of the Drupal community, who all provided insightful feedback!
Highlights from the community’s input via the survey include:
Open Source technology should put useful, quality tools in the hands of as many users as possible, while lessening the economic barriers to being able to leverage those tools (e.g., tech that can only be used or deployed by a small minority of stakeholders). – Survey Participant
I would love to see Drupal become a leader as an accessible-first CMS with a robust, intuitive user interface for content editors and site builders. – Survey Participant
Open Source helps level the playing field in a world where the government becomes a tool for large corporations to limit market choice, and large corporations the tool of government to limit individual freedom.
Now even the poorest people in the most oppressive governments, given any access to technology, can run open source programs for free and improve their lives. – Survey Participant
This input and all the ideas received directly influenced the creation of the manifesto – so thank you to everyone who took the time to give us your thoughts!
The Manifesto will be a cornerstone for our messaging and programming and will support our vision for Drupal moving forward.
As I lead the Drupal Association in the next chapter of its history, we commit to more actively supporting those whose work advances an open web and to speak against that which undermines it. And I invite the Drupal Community to engage with the Association in these efforts.
I now invite you to read the Drupal Open Web Manifesto here.
Tim Doyle
Chief Executive Officer
Drupal Association