The Drupal Association has been working to figure out the most effective ways it can help local user groups organize Drupal camps. We quickly realized that there was a lack of data about how past and present Drupal camps were currently being organized. With that in mind, we created an online survey for DrupalCamp organizers that would help everyone understand how Drupal camps currently worked.

Over the course of about 7 weeks, we collected a total of 51 responses, with 6 duplicates and unusable, making our sample size 45 Drupal camps. In a previous article posted on the Drupal Event Organization Drupal group, I posted the results from the first 31 responses. Since that article was published (and because of it), we had an additional 14 responses, making the data that much more valuable.

Overall, the 45 camps that completed the survey had over 6,200 participants, a combined budget of almost $250,000, and were organized by over 400 volunteers.

The resulting data is extremely valuable to both the Drupal Association and Drupal user groups around the world. The Drupal Association now has an idea of how camps are currently being organized and can make informed decisions about how to help future organizers. Local user groups can use this data to help plan future events. In particular, the average cost-per-particpant and participants-per-volunteers data (highlighted below) should be considered when planning future camps.

Update: Drupal 7.0 Alpha 7 is available now!

Our fifth Drupal 7 alpha version was released a little over a month ago. Today, we're proud to announce the release of the sixth (and hopefully final) alpha version of Drupal 7.x for your further testing and feedback. The first alpha announcement provided a comprehensive list of improvements made since Drupal 6.x, so in this announcement we'll concentrate on how you can help ensure that Drupal 7 is released as soon as possible and is as rock solid as the previous Drupal releases that you've grown to love!

This release includes many critical bug fixes, a nearly working upgrade path, and a new default core theme: Bartik!

Please see the release notes for more details.

When will alpha become beta?

We have identified several "beta blocking" issues, and itemized these at the Drupal core community initiatives page. On or about August 1, 2010 (or when the upgrade path is working, whichever comes first) we will create a new official Drupal 7 release. If this list is fixed, it will be a beta release. Otherwise, it will be another alpha release. It's expected we will have a few beta versions and at least one release candidate before Drupal 7.0 is finalized. We can potentially reach beta within the next month by focusing on this short-list of issues! Please help!

We are proud to announce the keynote speakers at DrupalCon Copenhagen 2010: Rasmus Lerdorf (topic to be crowdsourced), Jeremy Keith (Design of HTML5) and Dries Buytaert (State of Drupal).

The State of Drupal

Dries Buytaert, Drupal Project Lead
Tuesday, August 24th

Dries Buytaert will discuss where Drupal is and where it is going. In particular, he’ll discuss the final preparations for the release of Drupal 7, the Drupal.org redesign, and the plans for Drupal 8.

Dries Buytaert is passionate about the web, open source, and photography. He is the original creator and project lead of Drupal, an open source social publishing system. He is co-founder and chief technology officer of Acquia, a venture-backed software company that offers products and services for Drupal. Dries is also working on Mollom, a service that helps you identify content quality and that stops website spam.

Topic to be decided by you

Rasmus Lerdorf, PHP Project Founder
Wednesday, August 25th

Tell Rasmus which topic you would like him to focus on by leaving a comment on the DrupalCon Copenhagen site.

Rasmus Lerdorf is known for creating the PHP project in 1995 and he has contributed to a number of other open source projects over the years. Rasmus was most recently an infrastructure architect at Yahoo! for over 7 years before joining WePay in 2010. He was born in Greenland, grew up in Denmark and Canada and has a Systems Design engineering degree from the University of Waterloo. You can follow @rasmus on Twitter.

The Design of HTML5

Jeremy Keith, Author of HTML5 For Web Designers
Thursday, August 26th

Everyone's talking about the benefits of HTML5 for Web applications but the specification also introduces an extra layer of semantic richness to our Web documents. These additions aren't wishful thinking for some far-flung future: you can start using them today. That's because the design principles driving HTML5 are steeped in pragmatism. Find out how important good design principles are to any project, whether it's a website, a content management system, or the very language that underpins the World Wide Web.

Jeremy Keith is an Irish web developer living in Brighton, England where he works with the Web consultancy firm Clearleft. He wrote the books DOM Scripting, Bulletproof Ajax, and most recently, HTML5 For Web Designers. His latest project is Huffduffer, a service for creating podcasts of found sounds. When he’s not making websites, Jeremy plays bouzouki in the band Salter Cane.

On August 23rd, the day before the main conference kicks off, you'll be able to attend training sessions facilitated by leading Drupal experts. These sessions will take place at the main conference venue.

The training sessions will cover:

• Performance and Scalability
• Drupal Powered E-Commerce
• Module development
• Security: process, code and hands-on training

It is possible to attend the training sessions even if you're not going to the main conference. If that's the case, simply buy a ticket for the training session you'd like to attend.

If you buy a ticket for a training session together with a ticket for the conference, we will subtract €30 from the price of your conference ticket (making it €249 + VAT). The discount will be applied automatically during checkout.

Check out the training page for more information on the training sessions.

ThinkDrop Consulting and the non-profit organization MACILE are collaborating on a pilot program to introduce open-source technology and Drupal to children living in less-advantaged communities, helping them overcome the hurdles that prevent them from openly accessing and sharing information.  In July, we will travel to Itabo, Dominican Republic to teach a two-week class to 6th-12th graders and educators on Internet Technology, Open Source, and Drupal.

In addition to educating both students and teachers on Internet technology and Drupal, we will be documenting the process using OpenAtrium and releasing our curriculum under Creative Commons licensing. Our goal is to create a consistent curriculum to teach kids around the world who may have not ever even used a computer.

Donate Today!

We are seeking $8,000 in funding through Kickstarter, an innovative website that allows users to fund creative endeavors. The funds we are seeking will pay for full-time coding and project development, travel and housing expenses in the Dominican Republic, and additional computers for educators and students. As we will be working in less advantaged communities, maintaining access to consistent electricity and the internet will be a challenge, so a portion of our time will be spent developing a model approach to this problem.

Although we have set our funding goal at $8,000, we hope to exceed it. Any additional funds we receive will be used to continue expanding the Internet Technology programs of COSOLA and MACILE. 

A couple of days ago, we announced the track chairs and published the final descriptions of the six tracks at DrupalCon Copenhagen.

To make sure that everyone has had a chance to submit a session targeted at a specific track, we have decided to move the session deadline back a week. The revised schedule is as follows:

• The final deadline for session submissions is July 4th.
• Voting will take place from July 5th until July 11th.
• The initial schedule will be published on July 18th.

We have enjoyed seeing all the sessions submitted so far, but it has become apparent that the lack of detailed track descriptions has made it difficult to categorize some sessions. Hopefully, the track descriptions will make it easier for you to target your session at a specific audience.

Please consider the following track descriptions when submitting a session proposal:

• Introducing Drupal
  Chaired by Boris Doesborg
  For users and developers new to Drupal.
• Theming, Design & Usability
  Chaired by Roy Scholten
  For people who focus on usability, user experience, and design.
• Code & Development
  Chaired by Gábor Hojtsy
  For people interested in Drupal's architecture and the future of its codebase.
• Configuration, Set-Up & Performance
  Chaired by Florian Loretan
  For people who want to spend less time coding and more time working on the content of their sites.
• Drupal for Business
  Chaired by Jakub Suchý
  For people who using Drupal as a tool for running their business.
• Providing Professional Drupal Services
  Chaired by Thomas Barregren
  For people who provide Drupal-related professional services.

We can't wait to receive your session proposals!