4 ms·

I spent a good portion of my early career working with Drupal on large-scale media sites and got to know some folks central to the movement. I liked almost ever

I spent a good portion of my early career working with Drupal on large-scale media sites and got to know some folks central to the movement. I liked almost everyone I met, including Dries, but after starting my own agency, left the platform and the community. Not because of individual conflicts, but because I concluded that I did not want my agency to orbit Acquia. This is what happens in commercially mature open source communities, and a huge source of mundane conflict. The founder and BDFL of the movement becomes the founder and BDFL of a venture funded, IPO-bound startup, and incentives start to become crossed. Or in the case this case, incentives become entirely perverted. So I have a darker take on this: Dries banned Crell as a face-value reason to strip a competitor of a seat at the core contributor table. Crell works for Platform.sh, a challenger to Acquia's main hosting platform product. Drupal has lots of very senior architectural voices already, so losing Crell isn't going to jeopardize the platform, and it's more convenient for Acquia for them to work in the same place. According to Crell's post about this [https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/tmi-outing], the Drupal Association apparently attempted to apply their code of conduct and found repeatedly that Crell had done nothing wrong. But then Dries decided to ban Crell with little fanfare. Hard to believe that Dries cares that much about Crell's sex life. Easy to believe that he's become a cutthroat opportunist who would use the Code of Conduct to optimize Acquia's outcomes. What would have happened if Crell had worked for Acquia? That's the thing about a BDFL. Give him enough VC money and ultimately all that's left is a giant D.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
lowry 10y ago
Thumbs up. Acquia has too influence on Drupal. This is exactly why I stuck with Drupal 7 for my side projects, without any plans to migrate to Drupal 8.
nearlythere 10y ago
There's an appearance of conflict of interest, and you are not the only one to make this accusation. But this is a red herring. It was also brought up on the related Reddit thread. Someone surmised this might be "motivated by the direct competition." To which rszrama (Ryan Szarma) said "As a co-founder of Platform.sh, I know with absolute certainty this is not the case." Assuming Ryan knows more than both of us, and he would be in a position to gain from making such a claim -- it's important to note he emphatically said NO. https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfield_on_harassment_in_the_drupal_project/dfcg0n8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfie...
- netaustin 10y ago
  I'm with you 100% here, yeah, and I agree entirely with the points made here [https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governance-decisions/ https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governanc...]. But I don't think Dries has the credibility to act in the community's best interest and also in the best interest of Acquia. As an officer of Acquia he has a fiduciary responsibility; his responsibility to Drupal is purely ethical. I'd argue that Ryan can't really gain from making a claim that Dries is trying to damage his business, because then he's admitting that his business has been damaged without any real recourse. But I do agree that he knows plenty that we don't! My thesis is not that Crell's behavior was acceptable. I know I don't have the standing to opine on that. My thesis is that Dries isn't accountable for this conflict of interest and the demands of running a venture-backed startup are largely at odds with the demands of running a community worthy of its code of conduct. Of course, Dries is not the only BDFL with this kind of a conflict of interest. Many of us who have a career on the Internet live in the shade of one tree or another...
ajsalminen 10y ago
I noticed that your company does develop on WordPress. Don't you think it has the same issue just as much if not more since Automattic seems to have even more control over the platform than Acquia?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

lowry 10y ago

Thumbs up. Acquia has too influence on Drupal. This is exactly why I stuck with Drupal 7 for my side projects, without any plans to migrate to Drupal 8.

nearlythere 10y ago

There's an appearance of conflict of interest, and you are not the only one to make this accusation. But this is a red herring. It was also brought up on the related Reddit thread. Someone surmised this might be "motivated by the direct competition." To which rszrama (Ryan Szarma) said "As a co-founder of Platform.sh, I know with absolute certainty this is not the case." Assuming Ryan knows more than both of us, and he would be in a position to gain from making such a claim -- it's important to note he emphatically said NO. https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfield_on_harassment_in_the_drupal_project/dfcg0n8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/60y9mq/larry_garfie...

netaustin 10y ago
I'm with you 100% here, yeah, and I agree entirely with the points made here [https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governance-decisions/ https://subfictional.com/thoughts-on-recent-drupal-governanc...]. But I don't think Dries has the credibility to act in the community's best interest and also in the best interest of Acquia. As an officer of Acquia he has a fiduciary responsibility; his responsibility to Drupal is purely ethical. I'd argue that Ryan can't really gain from making a claim that Dries is trying to damage his business, because then he's admitting that his business has been damaged without any real recourse. But I do agree that he knows plenty that we don't! My thesis is not that Crell's behavior was acceptable. I know I don't have the standing to opine on that. My thesis is that Dries isn't accountable for this conflict of interest and the demands of running a venture-backed startup are largely at odds with the demands of running a community worthy of its code of conduct. Of course, Dries is not the only BDFL with this kind of a conflict of interest. Many of us who have a career on the Internet live in the shade of one tree or another...

ajsalminen 10y ago

I noticed that your company does develop on WordPress. Don't you think it has the same issue just as much if not more since Automattic seems to have even more control over the platform than Acquia?