1000 Drupal Sites

It's OPEN SOURCE! :) ... Actually, I blog using the best dang blogger in the world - WordPress - and there are a couple of great websites that *other* people have slaved over that we are about ready to launch that I hope will be helpful and encouraging to open source in general, and those sites are built using Drupal. Right now, let's be honest. I think it's tough to beat Drupal in the community building area. It is a key strength of that software and no one else competes as well in that space. I also think the Drupal community is very strong - I love the Drupal Groups concept and am enjoying meeting many of you friendly Drupal-ites. Dries is a very engaging leader and I see how he motivates and encourages and enthuses his community. So, it's pretty tough not to be impressed with Drupal. But, my heart belongs to Joomla!, it is my first open source love :-) and I am so proud to be a very tiny part of that amazing community. And, it is doing amazing things for the world, too. When I think about how far it has come since forking from Mambo, when I think about the enormous job the developers have been through refactoring the code, the thousands of websites built, the ease at which one can build a Joomla! website and all of the benefit to the world. I am just blown away. I know these people and I know they care. I have been assembling a list of websites that show "what can you use Joomla! for" - and it is so flexible it encouraged me greatly. Check it out. Phenomenal what the Joomla! community is doing. OK. So, here's what I think. I think the Open Source Community is what matters and we all need to bloom where we are planted - contribute what we can - learn from one another and help keep software affordable and available to the world. I think Drupal and Joomla! and WordPress and Mambo and Typo3 and Plone, etc. (I mean look at Plone and how they understand community! They are leaders in thinking about people and interactions and purpose) All combined we are the open source community and we each have areas of strength to share with one another. I realize there are lots of little "we are better than them" Blog tiffs going off here and there, but all of that is silliness, IMO, and counterproductive. We have to help one another. Even combined, we are up against nearly impossible odds and bankrolls with seemingly endless reserves -- and a world that can really use everyone's help. There - that was my blog for the day. Congratulations to Drupal on the 1,000 site on DrupalSites.net. We are very proud of our Drupal neighbors and friends. We look forward to learning and growing right along side the Drupal community.