The following are the strategic initiatives for Drupal core, in alphabetical order.
Automatic Updates #
Updating a Drupal site can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. While implementing an automatic updates system is a difficult problem, and not without its risks, it is a problem that has been solved by other platforms, and that Drupal can address.
Plan: #2940731: Automatic Updates initiative
Status: Under development (contrib: Automatic Updates)
Easy out of the box #
Making Media, Claro and Layout Builder part of the standard Drupal experience.
Plan: Define "Easy out of the box" Drupal core initiative
Status: Under definition. Work ongoing on previously defined Claro goals at the same time. Join the Claro team in #adminui on Drupal Slack.
More about easy out of the box
GitLab Acceleration #
This initiative seeks to accelerate the move of Drupal.org to more standard GitLab workflows, while retaining as much of our collaborative contribution style as we can. The goal is to make contribution to Drupal more accessible to new developers who are more familiar with contribution to other projects.
Plan: [Meta] GitLab Acceleration Initiative
Status: Gitlab CI enabled by opt in, Record of Contribution is being prototyped, SSO in development, Issue migration in development
More about Gitlab Acceleration
Next Generation Page Builder #
Drupal has several solutions for site builders to enable non-technical users to build pages with complex, unstructured content. However, all of the solutions have their own downsides, making site builders responsible for weighing trade-offs between feature set, user experience, accessibility and technical scalability.
Plan: Improve the page building experience
Status: Under definition. Join the team in #layouts on Drupal Slack.
See the plan issue for more information
Project Browser #
Today, finding and installing modules requires too many steps. Some steps require you to leave your Drupal site and navigate to Drupal.org. Other steps require technical skill such as using Composer on the command line.
Our goal is to make it easier to find and install modules for people that are (1) new to Drupal and that are (2) site builders.
“The Project Browser makes it easy for site builders
to find and install modules.” - Dries
Recipes, Starter Kits, Distributions #
Recipes are a new vision for creating bundles of Drupal functionality to serve specific needs, that unlike the earlier efforts with install profiles and distributions are meant to be easily installed and uninstalled, as well as combined with each other.
This functionality should make it easier for site builders to build the kind of web application they are looking for, and extend the work being done in project browser to make it easier to get started with Drupal.
More about Recipes, Starter Kits, Distributions
How are Core strategic initiatives chosen?
The list of Drupal Core strategic initiatives is maintained by Dries Buytaert, Drupal project lead. Factors leading to initiatives being listed here include:
- Data: The need for the proposed idea is backed up by data; for example, usability studies or surveys.
- Vision: The idea helps Drupal become the leading platform to assemble the world's best digital experiences (it ain't just about websites anymore), particularly focused on non-technical content authors and site builders.
- Market: The idea helps Drupal become more relevant in the market, and improves the Editorial Experience, Developer Experience, and/or Customer Experience relative to our competitors.
- Discussion: The idea has been validated by broader community discussion; collaboration is the essence of Drupal.
A strategic initiative has all of the following traits:
- Results in a breakthrough for Drupal
- Clearly linked with survey data, vision, and market
- Requires focused resources and high priority
- Involves collaboration among many stakeholders
Source: Dries Buytaert's State of Drupal May 2016 presentation
