In the last five years, we've gone from "employees will never have to go into an office" to "employees need to be in the office because creative and innovative work can only be done face-to-face between humans" to "lol we don't need humans"
An independent voice for women (trans and cis), nonbinary folks, and gender-expansive people in the Drupal community.
Not affiliated with the Drupal Association or official Women in Drupal activities.
In the last five years, we've gone from "employees will never have to go into an office" to "employees need to be in the office because creative and innovative work can only be done face-to-face between humans" to "lol we don't need humans"
After reading the news about #Meta and #Threads. I am happy that we decided to not federate the drupal.community #mastodon instance with Threads.
We didn't federate because we felt that Meta's track record made them unreliable, and against the values of the #Drupal community.
I do not think we will ever federate with any of Meta's products.
The AI bots that desperately need OSS for code training, are now slowly killing OSS by overloading every site.
The curl website is now at 77TB/month, or 8GB every five minutes.
Now that the US intentionally excludes trans people from travelling, and isn't all that safe for them should they be able to enter, @rachel calls on the @drupalassoc to consider hosting #DrupalCon in a different North American country rather than excluding a large number of important people from our community for the next 4+ years.
thanks @danmcd for pointing me to this excellent TechDirt piece from Mike Masnick that sort of captures my thoughts here:
Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)
"While political reporters are still doing their view-from-nowhere “Democrats say this, Republicans say that” dance, tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recognizable plan unfold — a playbook we’re all too familiar with. We’ve seen how technology can be wielded to consolidate power, how institutional guardrails can be circumvented through technical and legal workarounds, and how smoke and mirrors claims about “innovation” can mask old-fashioned power grabs. It’s a playbook we watched Musk perfect at Twitter, and now we’re seeing it deployed on a national scale.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a few people reach out about our coverage these days. Most have been very supportive of what we’ve been covering (in fact, people have been strongly encouraging us to keep it up), but a few asked questions regarding what Techdirt is focused on these days, and how much we were leaning into covering “politics.”
When the very institutions that made American innovation possible are being systematically dismantled, it’s not a “political” story anymore. It’s a story about whether the environment that enabled all the other stories we cover will continue to exist.
We’ve always covered the intersection of technology, innovation, and policy (27+ years and counting). Sometimes that meant writing about patents or copyright, sometimes about content moderation, sometimes about privacy. But what happens when the fundamental systems that make all of those conversations possible start breaking down? When the people dismantling those systems aren’t even pretending to replace them with something better?
But there’s more to it than that..."
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/why-techdirt-is-now-a-democracy-blog-whether-we-like-it-or-not/
Now that the US intentionally excludes trans people from travelling, and isn't all that safe for them should they be able to enter, @rachel calls on the @drupalassoc to consider hosting #DrupalCon in a different North American country rather than excluding a large number of important people from our community for the next 4+ years.
I am super in favor of people working for big tech "to do good from the inside" or "to change them from inside" realizing that you don't change the system, you either leave or you are changed.
Sometimes I'd love to see a tracker though: "It took me making 1 million dollars to realize that you can't twist capitalism into something good from the inside" would at least help contextualizing later fundraising.
We need to move beyond the self-proclaimed "experts" and center the conversations on real needs, genuine growth, and amplifying voices from marginalized communities who've been most harmed by centralized corporate tech.
me: i’ve single-handedly written software used by tens of millions of people, you can see it right over at github.com/april
prospective employers: sorry, but unfortunately you did poorly in a high-stress 40-minute coding exercise, writing code with no time to think about how to solve a problem you’ve never seen before, in a terrible dev environment, while someone stares at you the whole time
@morgthorak I think you might want to make sure you don’t follow me.
Because your “woke communist propaganda” comment makes me think you’re a moron of the first order.
I strongly suspect I am one of those “woke communists” you worry about. But you probably couldn’t actually explain what either of those words actually mean, could you?
I’m a card-carrying atheist, I think a woman’s right to choose is very important, I think that “well regulated militia” means that guns should be carefully licensed and not just randomly given to any moron with a pulse, and I couldn’t care less if you decided to dress up in the “wrong” clothes or decided you’d rather live your life without feeling tied to whatever plumbing you were born with.
And dammit, if that all makes me “woke”, then I think anybody who uses that word as a pejorative is a f*cking disgrace to the human race. So please just unfollow me right now.
Would love to see the white men who have gotten rich with Drupal put something real on the line to defend democracy like this
Wordpress contributors have moved from “wtf?” to getting organized. That doesn’t guarantee a fork but it’s the next step. (Via @404mediaco , which has done great reporting.)
I wrote about why I confronted Rep Nancy Mace at the #ProjectLibertySummit: not to convince hateful bigots to stop hating, but to spark a conversation in the tech policy space about what our strategy is going into the next four years.
Will we cozy up to wannabe fascists in the name of "finding common ground"? Or will we build meaningful resistance to tech-enabled human rights abuses?
https://touchgrass.fightforthefuture.org/p/8322f531-b5dd-42f9-acaa-41c5fa3045ef/
In every tech organization, there are some people that seem to know every system, everybody, and every problem. They're super helpful, and save coworkers months of wasted efforts, by short-circuiting dead end paths, sharing efficient workflows, knowing which services already exist, and generally having great technical judgement.
*None of those skills are quantifiable on performance reviews, other than peers saying thanks (if they're lucky).
*Many underrepresented engineers fill these roles.
Open letter about discriminatory practices at Twilio (which likes to claim it is not)
https://medium.com/@wryanmedford/an-open-letter-to-twilios-leadership-f06f661ecfb4
Average transcript of a meeting
Woman:*makes point*
Man 1: "I agree"
Man 2: "Man 1 made a good point"
Nominations are open for the 2025 Aaron Winborn Award
A great opportunity to recognize someone who embodies service, integrity, and kindness in the Drupal community
https://www.drupal.org/community/cwg/blog/nominate-someone-for-the-2025-aaron-winborn-award
I wish more people who are worried about FOSS supply side attacks would realize that universal basic income and free healthcare would result in an almost infinite stream of excellent software from people who care more about quality than profit.
"'WordPress.org just belongs to me personally,' Mullenweg said during an interview with The Verge."
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24262232/matt-mullenweg-wordpress-org-wp-engine
Listen to him:
It doesn't belong to the community of contributors.
It doesn't belong to the community of committed users - many of whom modify the code in some way to fit their needs, even if it's just a template.
It belongs to Matt. It was *never* yours, and he never intended for you to use it without his permission.
Time to switch. Or build your own.