Two months with a new puppy

As the year came to an end, I shared a blog post title, Ozzy, the puppy, vs. Drupal, the open-source project. This blog post began a discussion about the sustainability of my involvement in the Drupal community, specifically focusing on the maintenance of the Webform module.

In the New Year, Ozzy and I reprioritized my commitment to maintaining the Webform module for Drupal 8/9; I changed my morning routine. Instead of opening my laptop at 5 AM to start work, usually on the Webform module, I make a cup of coffee, sit with Ozzy, and read a book for an hour. It’s something I haven’t done in years. Then I take Ozzy for a walk in the park. Because work and family come first. Gradually, I’m timeboxing my contribution to Open Source to a few minutes during the week and an hour or two on weekends. This change is a personal decision as to how I manage my time and commitments.

Changing my commitment to Drupal is a taxing decision because I’ve been a very active contributor to Drupal for the past 5-years, and a member of the Drupal community for over 10 years. Overlapping with that, I’ve held a full-time job at the same organization for over 20 years, and now I have to face professional change, challenge, and a decision.

Two decades working for the same organization

In my first ten years with this organization, I built and maintained a custom Content Management System (CMS), using ASP Classic, JScript, and ColdFusion. Ten years ago, we transitioned the organization’s website to Drupal 6, and then more recently migrated to Drupal 8.

Now the organization is building a Digital Experience Platform (DXP), and they have chosen to move to a proprietary CMS. Naturally, I…Read More