[development] Drupal Association

[Dries Buytaert]

Hello world,

last week I was away from the keyboard, and earlier this week we  
announced the Drupal Association.  I'm still catching up with e-mail,  
digging out from the Drupal Association buzz.  I did start committing  
patches again though.

Incorporating the Drupal Association was a _lot_ of work -- we worked  
on it for months.  We don't expect that you instantly understand the  
ins and outs so if anyone has questions regarding the Drupal  
Association, I'd be happy to answer them.

The Statutes are available online (http://association.drupal.org/ 
about/statutes-and-internal-regulations) and we tried to answer all  
common questions in the FAQ (http://association.drupal.org/about/ 
faq), but if there is anything you'd like to see clarified, just ask.

The important point (for this mailing list) is Article 4, Section 4  
of the Statutes:

   "The community of Drupal developers decides independently on the
    functionality on the one hand and on planning the development of
    the Drupal software on the other. The Association shall not have
    a casting vote in such matters."

This means that the Drupal Association can't enforce that certain  
features make it into Drupal core, nor can it enforce that a  
contributed module has to incorporate feature X and/or drop feature  
Y.  Instead, there is a clear separation of powers.  The Drupal  
Association manages the assets in such a way that it supports the  
(developer) community, and the (developer) community continues to  
provide support and works on the code.

--
Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/