Acquia Gets Ready for Release of Carbon – Commercially Supported Drupal

Posted by Jeffrey Scott of TypeHost | Monday, August 25th, 2008
Acquia, Carbon, corporate web development, drupal, Open Source, professional support network

Acquia - Value-added software products and services for the Drupal

One project that is generating a lot of buzz throughout the Drupal development community is the upcoming release of “Carbon”. Carbon is the first “commercially supported” release of Drupal from Acquia, a start-up company launched by Drupal founder Dries Buytaert. According to the Acquia website, “The Carbon distribution will include the Drupal 6 core release and essential extension modules for rapidly assembling compelling social publishing sites and applications.”¹ The main goal of Carbon will be to provide a professional support network for Drupal to further its penetration into the corporate environment. But what new features will it include, how will it be priced, and what effect will it have on the Open Source development community? These questions remain unanswered though Carbon is slated for release, possibly within the month.

Drupal & Corporate Web Development:

Drupal already has a strong presence in corporate website development, particularly is the music industry. The list of top clients using Drupal for their websites includes:

Boris Mann, who works with Bryght and Raincity Studios providing Drupal web design and dedicated hosting solutions, makes the point that this success has come even as no businesses are currently marketing Drupal to top level corporations. He writes, “Acquia, with its funding, business model, and approach, will be/is focused on delivering to the Global Fortune 1000 / Fortune 10000 enterprise customer … most of whom have never heard of Drupal at the CxO level.”² Acquia will be offering certifications to developers who want to offer industry standards or benchmarks to their clients as a proof their skills in order to attract a higher salary. In addition to this, they will be providing full technical support for the CMS to clients who purchase the Carbon license.

The End of Open Source?

Many users worry that this development spells the end of Drupal as an open source software platform. With a commercial version available, the reasoning goes, developers will migrate to support paid and proprietary solutions, neglecting the community that gave birth to Drupal. Some suggest Drupal could start down a path of paid modules and plug-ins similar to that that which revolves around the Joomla CMS, something that has largely been absent from Drupal except for in the realm of theme development. However, such worries if often voiced remain unfounded. Plans are currently underway to transfer the Drupal trademark to the non-profit Drupal Association for long-term management. The GPL license is in no danger of being revoked, and even the new release of Carbon will be available for all users free of cost. It seems the only thing Acquia will be charging for is technical support and development assistance for clients who want to use the new version. Carbon will be more like an “installation profile” combining the Drupal core with a set of popular and reliable modules that is released together and supported by Acquia.

A Message from the Founder:

To put these fears to rest, Drupal founder Dries Buytaert posted the following statement on a thread at drupal.org discussing the release of Carbon:

Acquia is in the business of providing support. Carbon is a set of publicly available modules that we choose to provide support for. We can’t possibly support all modules, so we have to draw a circle around the modules that we will support. Carbon is that circle. Carbon will be GPL, and by design, everyone will be able to use and work with Carbon if they choose to do so. You don’t have to pay Acquia if you want to use Carbon — you only have to pay Acquia if you want Acquia to provide you support for Carbon. If you want to pay company ABC to provide you support for Carbon, that is allowed by all means. Furthermore, Acquia is developing Carbon on drupal.org … Acquia employees are actively contributing on d.o — both to core and to contributed modules. We’re an active participant in the Drupal community just like many other companies/people are. We submitted a good amount of patches and these patches, if accepted by their maintainers, will end up in both Carbon as well as the individual modules that you can download directly from drupal.org. I’ve been working on Drupal for many years and Acquia is my company. I know how Open Source works, I know the Drupal community inside out, I know how companies should work with the community, and I have no intention whatsoever to destroy my own child.”³

Carbon – Pre Release Specs:

So if Carbon is no danger to the open source development community, and will be equally available and shared by all, what sets it apart other than its offer of technical support? As stated above, Carbon will be more of an installation profile, containing the Drupal core bundled together with modules and extensions that make it an optimal system for development purposes. How it will be themed remains a mystery, but preliminary reports are that it will include these modules:

Page layout: Panels 2
Custom content: CCK, Date, Imagefield, File
Views: Views 2
Lightweight markup: Marksmarty
WYSIWYG: Kupu (Discuss WYSIWYG editors here)
Scheduled publishing: Workflow, Actions
Image management: As fields - Imagefield, Imagecache; As nodes - Image, Image assist
Events: Calendar
Forums: Forum
Comment spam filter: Mollom
Social bookmarks: TBD
Content rating: Voting API, Fivestar
Search: in core, ApacheSolr
Categorization: in core
RSS: in core
Content aggregation: tbd
Workflow: Workflow
Content versioning: Core, Diff
Tag clouds: Tagadelic
SEO URLs: Pathauto
Utilities: Primary Tag, Custom pager, JS Tools, Google Maps, Google Analytics, Wiki freelinks
Import / migration: tbd
Authentication: Persistent login, Securesite, LDAP, OpenID
User Groups: Organic groups
Email gateway: tbd
Email notification: Subscriptions⁴

The combination of Mollom (Anti-Spam) and Spokes (Automatic Update Alerts), both proprietary new developments from Acquia with the release makes Carbon all the more interesting. If all goes as planned, look for Carbon to give a huge boost to the Drupal community when it is released this fall, and spur another influx of new users to the CMS. The roll out of a customized, corporate-level release of this popular CMS directly from the office of its founder, and bringing all the best in Drupal modules created over years of development by thousands of coders into one package is sure to be a blockbuster. Look for an official release of Carbon somewhere between September and November of 2008.

Comments2008-08-25+23%3A04%3A14Jeffrey+Scott+of+TypeHost to Acquia Gets Ready for Release of Carbon – Commercially Supported Drupal

Aaron D. Campbell
August 26, 2008

I love what some companies are doing with Open Source! They’re really taking it to the next level with paid support (Automattic/WordPress, SixApart/Movable Type, RedHat/Linux, Canonical/Debian Linux, and now Acquia/Drupal). It’s giving corporations, that NEED that kind of support, access to a whole new set of Open Source Tools.

Greg Milby
August 26, 2008

i’m not sure how excited i am about cms’s going from open source to commercial, but the support feature is nice - especially for the business community. hopefully the respective cms’s will keep a clear line between their free product and the paid one - keeping it available for the open source community & easy to find without digging through a lot of ads/spiels.

Carbon Neutral
August 28, 2008

The quote from Dries worries me a lot…it sounds like he hasn’t thought through the cultural impact of his approach.

Drupal has got to where it is today, partly because of Dries’ original idea and mostly as a result of all the members of the Drupal community offering each other (free) modules, patches, module support, module ideas, testing, troubleshooting and helpdesk services..all for free….the cultural impact of changing that open source dynamic may have a detrimental effect on the Drupal project.

Consider one obvious scenario where Drupal module developers take note of what Acquia are doing with Carbon and decide to offer their contributed modules on the same basis…i.e. people have the choice of paying for support or downloading the modules for free and working it out for themselves?

That is still technically ‘open source’ but it’s more at the trialware/shareware end of the software food chain and more importantly it’s a massive cultural shift from the core community dynamic that has made Drupal what it is today.

I wish Dries the best with Acquia…but, I’m afraid I don’t agree with the approach. It supports the anti-open-source brigade and their claims that open source doesn’t work…it must go commercial at some stage.

Dries could just as easily have setup Acquia as a commercial company, like any other Drupal company, offering support for Drupal. Launching a ‘new’ version of Drupal, with a new name, was unnecessary and, imho, a big mistake.

Aaron D. Campbell
August 28, 2008

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but it seems that “Carbon” is just a name for Drupal + “Plugins they support” right? Right now it seems that MOST people are stuck with the “downloading the modules for free and working it out for themselves” option with Drupal. True there is some community support, but won’t that still be available?

Carbon Neutral
August 29, 2008

@ Aaron

You’re right. At the moment, the Carbon 1.x beta download is based on Drupal 6.x and some plugins, but, when Acquia signs commercial contracts with enterprise companies, Carbon will obviously become increasingly more tailored for enterprise applications and further away from Drupal - which is tailored for the wider Drupal community.

Down the line, should acquia discover that they need to add in new features or change their core code to suit enterprise applications…a dilemna arises i.e. should those new changes/features to Carbon be added to Drupal core?

If those enterprise features aren’t added to Drupal core, Acquia not only loses out on the huge drupal community and all the free testing, bug-fixing, patches & improvements that goes with that, but, it also faces the domino effect on contributed (non-core) modules Acquia ships with carbon.

That’s a simple commercial V open source dynamic that’s not hard to imagine occuring at some stage.

Perhaps more subtle is the cultural impact on the wider development community…particularly with contributed module development, which has thrived on the open source spirit.

Why would a developer submit a patch to improve an existing module or provide support for free, when they can copy the existing module, update it, rename it and distribute it on a trialware/shareware basis? i.e. you get it for free, but, you pay for support.

My general point is that I don’t think Dries has fully thought through the cultural impact of the Acquia approach.

If Acquia was simply providing bespoke solutions based on Drupal for the Enterprise market, rather than launching a “NEW” Drupal in the form of Carbon (particularly on a shareware/trialware basis..i.e. you get it for free, but, you pay for support), the situation would be very different.

Jeffrey Scott of Typehost
August 30, 2008

I think a lot of users will switch to the “Carbon” version of Drupal for their base development- without paying Acquia for support services. They will probably use the Drupal support forums in the same way, to ask questions of fellow users to work out specific problems. I also think the release will encourage more companies or design firms to release “installation profiles” for Drupal in the same manner, combining new themes, modules, and configurations for specific uses or applications. There is a lot of room for this type of development - a few projects like this have been posted in the past:

http://drupal.org/project/Installation+profiles

But they are not altogether well supported. This type of branching of the Drupal core has a lot of possibility that is currently untapped. What I would not like to see is Drupal development become like Joomla, where every third contributed module is a paid release. Granted it is good for the development companies profiting on it, but that is exactly what Open Source is not about in my opinion.

Carbon Neutral
August 31, 2008

@Jeffrey Scott of Typehost.

You make a good point about installation profiles, that’s essentially what Carbon is. The problem is they have launched it as if it’s a new product, rather than a new distribution of Drupal, with a new name and new branding.

I think a lot of users will switch to ‘carbon’ because the majority of the core developers behind Drupal are all working full time with Acquia now and if there’s a large shift in users….it’s likely contributed modules will be built for carbon first, rather than Drupal.

Especially when Carbon is based on the trialware/shareware ethos..i.e. you get it for free but you pay for support. I would be amazed if contributed module developers didn’t start charging for support and equally amazed if we don’t see a splurge of new modules.

In other words, why would a developer submit a patch, improvement or idea to an existing module, when they can simply copy and modify the existing module, release it as a module and charge support?

That doesn’t really happen at the moment because of the open source ethos, within the Drupal community, that has brought Drupal to where it is today. Now Dries has introduced a shareware/trialware ethos into the community and that’s a very different dynamic to true open source.

Jeff Whatcott
September 2, 2008

Hi there. I would like to clear up some misconceptions.

“The problem is they have launched it as if it’s a new product, rather than a new distribution of Drupal, with a new name and new branding.”

Carbon is a temporary code name, not a new brand name. Acquia does NOT plan to introduce a totally new brand name for our Drupal distribution. It is a “distribution” in the true sense of the word. Perhaps we erred in using a code name, but we’ve consistently called it a “commercially supported distribution”, which is what it is. Sorry if that caused confusion.

The reasons that a distro is needed are to:
a) to define the body of code for which you can obtain commercial grade support and
b) to define the body of code that has been tested and reviewed at a level beyond what the community does organically and
c) to make it more convenient for people to install the most commonly used code.

It is not practical for Acquia to support the entire body of Drupal code with its 2000 modules. Customers want to know that what they are using has been thoroughly tested to work together. They also want to avoid having to hunt around for all the most commonly used modules on their own. So these are real problems that a distro solves.

Acquia intends to keep the Acquia distribution of Drupal fully aligned with the version of Drupal on Drupal.org. If there are differences, it will be because there are good technical reasons like security, compatibility, performance, stability for not using the latest code on Drupal.org. If Acquia makes patches to address customer issues, those patches will be promptly submitted into the Drupal project for consideration.

It’s best to think of the Acquia distribution as a defined safe zone *within* (not separate from) the amazing stream of code that is the Drupal project. It adds value and takes nothing away as far as I can see.

“Carbon is based on the trialware/shareware ethos..i.e. you get it for free but you pay for support.”

Acquia’s Drupal distribution is not trialware/shareware. With trialware/shareware, you have to pay not only for support, you also have to pay to use the fully functional software without nag screens. That is not the case for Acquia’s Drupal distribution, which is available at no charge.

What you pay for commercial grade support, which is different than the community support that currently is the only option for Drupal users. This model is well established elsewhere in the open source world and now it is coming to Drupal. If one does not see value in commercial grade support, then free community support will continue to be available.

“why would a developer submit a patch, improvement or idea to an existing module, when they can simply copy and modify the existing module, release it as a module and charge support?”

They could do that before Acquia existed. But they don’t, because providing support for a single module is impractical for customers. They want support for a whole system, or at least the major parts of it, not just a single module.

People will continue to contribute to Drupal for the same reasons they always have: solving the problems they come across in building web sites, peer recognition, etc.

Let’s not assume that the Drupal culture is so fragile that it can’t bear the introduction of a commercially supported distribution and a vendor to back it up. Harming the Drupal culture would be counterproductive for Acquia because the success of the company depends on a harmonious, mutually beneficial relationship with the rest of the community.

Aaron D. Campbell
September 2, 2008

Thank you for the clarification Jeff. I’m relatively new to the Drupal community, but I’ve been working with WordPress for years. In the WordPress community, Automattic has been offering commercial support for some time. They don’t offer support for much in the way of plugins, but they DO support the core. However, we still see plenty of people contributing to the WordPress core, and we still see plenty of WordPress plugins. In addition, Automattic itself makes a TON of improvements to WordPress.

Why do they submit those patches rather than hording them? For the same reason I submit patches when make improvements for my clients:

I enjoy benefiting the community. Even if they don’t there are other, more business minded, reasons.
By submitting the patch, I can do upgrades faster in the future because I don’t have patches to add
As long as I continue to patch, upgrade, and use the same code as the community, I benefit from all the patches and upgrades that the community submits. It’s like having a whole horde of part-time employees, but you don’t have to pay them!

Carbon Neutral
September 4, 2008

@ Jeff

Thanks for posting, Jeff. I’m probably not explaining properly what the key worries are. Let me try again.

You say “Carbon is a temporary code name, not a new brand name.” Well, Carbon already is a totally new brand name and product in the media as a result of acquia press releases. The Acquia website even lists it under the acquia product listings, along side other new brand names and new products, such as mollom and spokes.

You say “The reasons that a distro is needed are to:
a) to define the body of code for which you can obtain commercial grade support and
b) to define the body of code that has been tested and reviewed at a level beyond what the community does organically and
c) to make it more convenient for people to install the most commonly used code.”

That’s an astonishing comment on a number of levels.

What you’re essentially saying is that either the open source model isn’t able to create a body of code worthy of commercial support…or the team steering Drupal failed to harness the Drupal community to create a body of code…worthy of commercial support.

It’s also a very scathing and condenscending remark towards Drupal that not only offers more fuel to the “open source doesn’t work” brigade..but, anyone reading the news reports about Carbon: the new commercially supported version of Drupal would be smart enough to read between the lines and conclude that Drupal is way too flakey to use in a commercial environment.

Which is not true and I think it’s a tad shoddy the way you are presenting Drupal in that way to promote Carbon.

Your comments also support my prediction, earlier in this discussion, that because Carbon is being presented as a ‘hardened version of Drupal’, a lot of developers working in a commercial environment will migrate from Drupal to Carbon - many without paying for acquia support. The same developers who contribute modules, patches, ideas and fixes to Drupal.

It’s not difficult to predict that as a result of that, those same developers will develop for Carbon first and Drupal…maybe later - if they have the time and the inclination.

Finally, I beg to differ with your definition of trialware/shareware. The Acquia proposition with Carbon is crystal clear: you get it for free, but you pay for support (and/or network solutions). You could fit a carbon atom between that approach and the trialware/shareware approach.

@Aaron re: continuing to patch etc.

I see your point about being part of a community. My point is that the acquia team are presenting Drupal as a sub-standard solution in the press, media and online or to paraphrase the acquia blurb: “Carbon is a hardened version of Drupal”.

Now, forgive me if this sounds dim, but, if you were making a choice on which variation of Drupal you might run with…would you go for the sub-standard version? or would you go for the hardened version?

I imagine most might plonk for the ‘better’ version and as a result, the Drupal community is split.

On the other hand, if Acquia launched an “acquia installation profile” for Drupal, rather than launch a new product, Acquia could still provide commercial support and network services but, the impact on the Drupal community would be very different.

Jeff Whatcott
September 4, 2008

I am sorry if I have failed to communicate clearly. I think we actually agree, but that we are hung up on language, specifically one word, and that word is “hardened.”

Upon reflection, I think that it was inaccurate and inappropriate for us to use the word “hardened” in reference to Acquia Drupal. It certainly has led to misunderstanding, which is not what we want. It was overreaching in our messaging, and I regret it. Mea culpa. Thank you for calling us on it. We were wrong.

We’ve decided to ditch that word, and words like unto it, in our future messaging. I encourage you to take a deep breath, erase the word “hardened” from memory, examine the facts, and see if perhaps we might not be more aligned that it would seem.

“What you’re essentially saying is that either the open source model isn’t able to create a body of code worthy of commercial support…or the team steering Drupal failed to harness the Drupal community to create a body of code…worthy of commercial support.”

No, I am not saying that at all. In fact, I am saying the opposite. The Drupal community created something wonderful and useful and “worthy of support”. And we are the company that is going to offer that support. And what we support will be the same thing that the community has created, not some errant variant.

As I said before, there is *no difference* between the code in our distro and the code in what you can download from Drupal.org. So we’re not making a value judgment about “worthiness”. We can’t support everything. There is too much code out there. We have to draw a line somewhere. We are just defining what code we support and what code we don’t (yet).

Here’s a visualization of the situation.

*****************************************************************

The asterisks above represent the whole body of current Drupal project code, pre-Acquia. Here’s the situation with Acquia in the mix.

[*********]**********************************************************

The brackets represent our distro. We’ve added a couple of asterisks to represent the new modules we introduce (and GPL) to connect our distro to our network services and support systems and the new themes we introduce (and GPL) to create a great out of box experience.

The body of Drupal code has grown. Yay! Acquia has defined a subset of the body of code as eligible for support by Acquia. Yay! Acquia has complete functional and integration testing and in-depth security review on all the stuff in the distro *and* contributed the corresponding issues and patches back to the Drupal project, benefiting everyone. Yay!

The code is not fractured as you suggest. It is strengthened and made available to all. The community is not fractured either. It is strengthened by having a strong new member in the fray.

I noticed that you were OK with the “installation profile” concept but not OK with the “distro” concept. We looked at installation profiles and the engineers ultimately decided that the specific implementation of Drupal installation profiles wasn’t exactly the right approach to meet customer requirements. But I think the spirit of what we have done with our distro is much more aligned with the spirit of an installation profile than the forked and “improved” version you seem to believe we have created. I would encourage you to think about what we have done as more installation profile in nature.

Again, I am very sorry that our momentary messaging insanity offended you and possibly others in the Drupal project. Such was not our intent. I hope that it’s clear that we want to engage in an authentic dialogue, listen carefully, and get it right through constant iteration with the community at large. We firmly believe that there is a way for companies like us to create net new value for the Drupal community and for customers, and we’re dedicated to finding the right way to to do that.

Aaron D. Campbell
September 6, 2008

I appreciate the explanation/clarification. I can understand how “hardened” gives the wrong connotation, since that would generally mean that you when through the code and modified it to make it more secure. That’s really not the case, and anything that you DID do would be submitted back to Drupal. Right?

Carbon Neutral
September 6, 2008

@Jeff Whatcott

You’re actually increasing the argument for not releasing Carbon as a new product and a new brand, in other words: what’s the point, if it’s the same?

And no offense, but, I am aware of the facts and I am also very aware of the heavyweight venture capitalists behind Acquia and Carbon.

If an outsider observer was to take an objective viewpoint about this, they might conclude that launching a new version of Drupal under a new name and a new brand, rather than just offering commercial support for an “acquia installation profile” is a very smart move, particularly for the venture capitalists behind acquia.

Not only does it bring brand equity and the assets that goes with ‘owning’ a new product, but, it also converts a lot of the more active Drupal developers across into the new, Carbon community. Which adds even more value to the Carbon product and brand.

That’s all great for the Acquia investors and owners of Carbon, but, not so great for the Drupal community.

Of course code will flow back and forth between Carbon and Drupal…but, nobody can deny that the community will be diluted now with a lot of the key developers working with Carbon as well as Drupal - as opposed to being 100% focussed on Drupal.

And if Carbon is so great for the Drupal community….and so great for the Drupal codebase, why didn’t the venture capitalists invest in Drupal and the Drupal community?

An objective outsider might suggest that the reason they didn’t is because Carbon is where “all the action” is going to be.

Unfortunately for the Drupal community, that will have a domino effect on the perception of Drupal from the investment and VC sector.

In other words, by releasing a new, seperate product and a new brand, instead of running with an installation profile, Acquia have set a precedent that makes it very unattractive to any other company trying to enter that same commercial space.

The key founder of Drupal and many of the key core Drupal code developers are working full time with Acquia now. What investor in their right mind would back a new Drupal startup that wants to compete in the same space?

On the other hand, if Acquia chose to run with an “acquia installation profile of Drupal” rather than a new product and new brand…it would have set a completely different precedent that would not only be enormously benefitial to the Drupal community, but, it would make it exceedingly more attractive to outside investors or other companies thinking of running with Drupal.

Jeff Whatcott
September 8, 2008

I think this thread has run its course. I’ve taken my best shot at explaining what we’re doing and what we’re not doing. While I am not satisfied with the conclusions in the post above, I have nothing more to say beyond the information and clarifications already offered. Let’s postpone judgment until a future date when we are outside of the realm of conjecture and have actual outcomes to observe and analyze.

Jeffrey Scott of Typehost
September 18, 2008

Jeff Whatcott has an interview at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York with Information Week published discussing Acquia and its Drupal support services. Read the article at:

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/09/web_20_acquia_p.html?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_ALL

Carbon Neutral
September 19, 2008

Just a quick update on this thread and blog post.

Acquia have just announced a business partnership with Top notch themes to sell commercial Drupal themes.

It’s very interesting that Acquia would choose a closed-source (closed until you pay for it) approach to selling Drupal themes. I think it’s a real shame for a number of reasons.

I’m a huge fan of the open source model, but, what dissapoints is when people involved in open source projects suddenly move the goalposts.

Acquia’s strategy of selling closed-source (closed until you pay for it) commercial themes is going to impact badly on the Drupal community - if a designer has created a great theme, why would they share it for free under the open source model when they can sell it for $300-$3,000 dollars (acquia’s business partner rates for commercial themes)?

It’s also not a big leap in imagination to see Acquia pushing forward a “Top notch modules” business strategy, selling closed-source (closed until you pay for it) commercial modules for Drupal. Again, why would a Drupal developer who has created an extremely useful module contribute it for free under the open source model, when they can sell it?

On top of that, it also opens up huge opportunities for companies like Acquia to come along…pick up existing modules already developed by the Drupal community, test them, package them, give them a new name and launch them as a “hardened” commercial version!!!!

In other words, precisely what Acquia are doing with Drupal.

Acquia are setting some very dangerous precedents with their new project and for me, it is not only a very sad day for the open source model but for the drupal community as well.

Jeff Whatcott
September 19, 2008

Hi. Wrong again. The themes we provide are free of charge and GPL licensed and the press release says so. Ditto for our distro. Please give us the benefit of the doubt and stop spreading misinformation before you have the facts straight.

Aaron D. Campbell
September 19, 2008

@Carbon Neutral: Could you link to your source on that? Sounds like it may have been wrong?

Carbon Neutral
September 19, 2008

@Jeff. I’m not spreading mis-information.

Here’s one of the many sources promoting the Acquia business partnership with Top Notch Themes….

“That’s how Acquia, the commercial arm of Drupal, wants to do it, working with TopNotch Themes to add their support to Acquia’s paid version of the community software.

They’re not giving away the store here. They’re just creating some special themes for the commercial distribution, code-name Carbon, while continuing to sell their current product line and doing custom work.

One point that confused me was their “buy-out price,” about ten times the normal retail. Turns out if you pay the big bucks, they won’t sell that design to anyone else.”

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=2874

Like I said earlier, Acquia’s business partnership pushing closed-source (closed until you pay for it) themes for Drupal/Carbon, will deter designers with great themes following the open source route….and it’s only a hairsbreath away from a “top notch modules” partnership deal along the same lines.

Nudging in this direction opens the doors wide open for companies to come along, pick up a module that has already been developed by the drupal community, test it, run security checks on it, tweak it a little, package it, come up with a new name for the module and sell it under the guise of a ‘hardened’ version of the non-commercial-grade module.

Aaron D. Campbell
September 19, 2008

So do these themes cost money, or do they have a more strict license than Drupal?

Jeff Whatcott
September 19, 2008

CN: ZDNet got the story wrong. It is that simple.

Aaron: The themes are free and licensed under GPL, just like Drupal.

We are including the new gorgeous (and free and GPL) themes because we want users to have a great initial experience with Drupal. We cut a deal to get them developed and distributed for free (as in beer and as in speech). I am having trouble seeing how this is a bad thing.

Carbon Neutral
September 20, 2008

@Aaron

Top Notch Themes for Drupal are *NOT* Free.

The prices for top notch themes cost between $300 and $3,000 dollars. They are essentially closed source themes..until you pay for them! Not too sure what the copyright control of the themes or the code licensing agreements are like. I’m an open source fan, so, I don’t think I’ll be trying them.

Jeff’s claim that it’s just a theme for Carbon that they are going to give away for free doesn’t sound right to me. Acquia paying Top Notch Themes for a theme doesn’t warrant a “business deal” or an acquia press release and certainly not any press coverage around the web.

@ Jeff “I am having trouble seeing how this is a bad thing”

That really worries me.

Would you see it as a bad thing if someone launched Top Notch Modules…selling closed-source (closed until you pay for them) Drupal modules?

A five year old would be able point out that, in that environment, developers would be more likely to submit their modules to a “top notch modules” site rather than submit them for free to the Drupal community.

You see, Jeff, Drupal would be nowhere near as advanced as it is now, without the open source philosophy and the Drupal community. It would be a mistake to forget that.

Like I said earlier..nobody has a problem with Acquia making money building drupal sites for commercial/enterprise clients. It’s the approach that people have a problem with.

Acquia could have released an “acquia installation profile” for Drupal and continued to sell commercial support services etc.

Instead acquia chose to launch a completely new product and a completely new brand. A choice which is BAD for Drupal and the Drupal community…but GREAT for the acquia investors and venture capitalists.

There’s only so long you can carry on claiming “everyone else is getting it wrong”, Jeff. ZDNET journalists are professionals and I find it hard to believe they mis-interpretatd Acquia’s press releases about the business deal with Top Notch Themes.

I suppose you’ll now claim that everyone misinterpreted the “Carbon is a hardened version of Drupal” themed press releases.

And can I also say that the way you and Acquia are promoting carbon by making Drupal look bad…like a sub-standard, not worthy of commercial grade tool, is extremely insulting to the Drupal community.

Dries Buytaert
September 23, 2008

Carbon Neutral, you are spreading false facts.

1. Acquia is adding new themes, developed by Top Notch Themes, to Carbon and giving these away for free. These themes, along with the rest of Carbon, will be distributed under terms of the GPL, just like Drupal. By doing so, we help solve an important problem — the lack of good themes in Drupal. I fail to understand why you think that is not in line with the Open Source philosophy, or why you think that is bad for Drupal?

2. Acquia has no intentions to sell closed-source modules as you seem to suggest.

3. Acquia is not selling Carbon. We are making it available as GPL; it is free for everyone to download, use, modify and redistribute. Furthermore, Acquia’s engineers work with the module maintainers directly on drupal.org (i.e. you can find all our fixes in the drupal.org issue queue).

Jeff Whatcott
September 23, 2008

Hi again. ZDNet did get it wrong. Here’s what our press release says:

“Like all components of the forthcoming distribution, the themes will be released under a GPL license and will be completely free of charge.”

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/09/prweb1305344.htm

Dana is a good guy, and meant well, but we all make mistakes and that day, he did.

It’s clear that you don’t approve of the Top Notch Themes business model. That’s fine. Honest people disagree on that point. It will be interesting to see where the industry consensus settles on that. But Acquia is trying to steer clear of this controversy by GPLing the themes we provide so there is no question. Or at least, that was the plan, this thread notwithstanding ;-).

Acquia’s Drupal distribution does not introduce a new brand. As noted earlier, it will not be called Carbon, which is a code-name only. It will be branded in a very similar way to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu Linux, or Debian Linux, etc. If you disagree with the branding of these Linux distros, you won’t like ours either. We can live with that. But, on the other hand, if you accept the standard branding approach in the Linux world, it would seem more than a little inconsistent to object to how we brand our Drupal distro.

With regard to the “hardened” word, I’ve already said that was a mistake. You (and others) were right. It was a poor choice of words. We did not intend to criticize Drupal or the Drupal community, for doing so would be counter-productive.

Please give us the benefit of the doubt here. If, six months from now, you can point to material ways that we’ve harmed Drupal software or the Drupal community, you can bet we’ll be listening for ways to make it right. We are doing our level best to engage in an honest dialogue here, providing facts and clarification in the full light of day, without hiding behind a cloak of anonymity.

Larry Garfield
September 23, 2008

I’m going to ignore the particulars of Acquia at the moment as I am not affiliated with them, but I do want to correct one factually incorrect statement that Carbon Neutral is making.

CN, you imply that selling a module or theme for money is “closed sourcing it”. That is not true. Drupal is distributed under the GPL, and therefore it and any derivative works of it must also be distributed under the GPL… *if they are distributed*. There is no requirement that the code be distributed or who it is distributed to, provided that when it is distributed it is distributed under the GPL.

If someone wanted to write a Drupal module and charge $10,000 a copy for it, they are absolutely legally entitled to do so. However, everyone who receives a copy that way must receive it under the terms of the GPL, meaning they are entitled to modify it however they want and redistribute it however and to whomever they want. The same applies to a theme company. There is nothing un-open source or un-Free Software (Free as in speech) about selling code commercially, provided that it is licensed under an open source/Free Software license (in this case, the GPL).

Thus your claim that “they are closed source themes until you pay for them” is disingenuous. Open source / close source does not apply until the code is distributed, and the GPL requires that if the code is distributed that it be distributed under the GPL. As long as when you receive the code you receive it under the GPL and get the rights therein, there is no problem.

–Larry Garfield, Director of Legal Affairs for the Drupal Project

Carbon Neutral
September 24, 2008

@Dries: I never suggested that Acquia has intentions to sell “closed-source” modules.

I was pointing out that developing a business partnership with a company selling custom themes - the source of which is not open until you pay for them - the way Acquia is, is only a short step away from developing a business partnership selling custom modules - the source of which is not open until you pay for them.

@Dries & Larry: You are both misrepresenting my point about “closed source until you pay for it”. What that means is the source is not OPEN, it’s closed until you pay for it and I’m very clued in to the nuances of GPL, thanks Larry.

@Jeff: If all these zines have ‘got it wrong’ as you claim…is the Acquia team doing anything to remedy the situation? Such as requesting that all these professional journalists, who ‘got it wrong’, to admit as such and amend their articles or publish retractions?

@Dries: I never suggested that Acquia would be selling Carbon. If you read my comments, you would realise that my core point is that Acquia could, just as easily, have released an “Acquia installation profile” for Drupal, rather than launching a new product and a new brand.

A new installation profile would have been great for Drupal and the Drupal community. A new brand and product is not so good for the Drupal community, because it will inevitably split the Drupal development community, even more than it has already.

I also think it’s totally not cool the way Acquia is presenting Carbon as a ‘hardened’ and a ‘commercial grade’ version of Drupal…as if to suggest that Drupal isn’t of commercial grade status or isn’t tough enough for commercial enterprise applications.

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