Powering Platforms: How Drupal as a Service can save us all

Speaker(s): mlncn

Drupal continues to be better than ever, but Drupal's success is threatened from two sides. On the one, we risk discouraging new users and contributors, who face too much of Drupal's complexity early on. On the other, proprietary platforms increasingly squeeze out custom web development through sheer economies of scale. Retreating into Drupal's new fortress, the enterprise, aside from leaving many present and would-be members of the community behind, doesn't change these dynamics, which will continue until there's nowhere left to hide.

Adding a new economic model, that of software as a service, can make Drupal the best choice for small organizations. This, in turn, can drive innovation and contributions. Instead of waiting for proprietary SaaS companies to slowly add features and come eat our lunch, we can swoop in and eat theirs. At the same time, a well-designed Drupal SaaS provides many more people with the traditional entryway to web development and Drupal: hacking around with HTML and clicking together functionality. So long as we continue to adhere to the principles of Free Software, it's only going to make the Drupal software and community better. And if we organize SaaS-providing businesses as platform cooperatives, we'll be putting the people of the world in control of the software that controls our lives, which, in an age of flying killer robots, may be almost as important as the health and happiness of the Drupal community.

Drupal LibreSaaS can save us all!

Come with:

Basic knowledge of Drupal-based business models and interest in the possibilities.
Learn:

What leads to long-term success in a software project?
What Libre SaaS efforts exist in Drupal?
How to identify some areas where making the leap from services to product may make sense for you or your sector.
Speakers
Benjamin Melançon
Worker-owner, developer @ Agaric
At Agaric, i use open source free software to give people and groups power over their online communication and web presence. To help all people gain power over our own lives, which we need to make progress toward justice and liberty, I volunteer at a nonprofit organization called, and for, People Who Give a Damn.

https://drupaldelphia.org/session/powering-platforms-how-drupal-service-can-save-us-all

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