Our first contribution to Drupal 8 core

Yesterday one of our patches to the Drupal 8 core was approved. Which means it will be released into the wild very soon. It’s an exciting milestone for Manifesto and signals our intent to keep giving back to the Drupal community by investing time into developing the core product.

Jumping into D8, feet-first

Our contribution was developed as part of our work on a client website. The decision to go with the newest version of Drupal for that project came at the end of long discussions with the client about whether it was more sensible to go with D7 or D8.

The pros and cons went like this: Drupal 7 was more familiar and gave us the ability to use all the modules we’d normally use without having to worry about their stability, but it lacked the newest features and would require an upgrade process earlier; Drupal 8 would require a bigger investment of time in learning the product and helping to build the functionality that hadn’t yet been ported over but it is the latest version, comes with all the new bells and whistles and would, to an extent, future-proof the website.

Not that the technical challenges daunted us. After all, it’s php and we’re developers – nothing should stop us! But in the end, our advocacy for Drupal 8 was a product of our values. We believe in Open Source and we want to be part of a community building software which facilitates positive change in the world.

The role of agencies in developing Drupal

The Drupal project has generated incredible value for anyone who’s built a site with it. All too often, agencies are among the beneficiaries of that value without contributing back to the community. It’s easy to understand why this happens – after all, we’re under pressure to deliver projects for our clients on time and on budget, which doesn’t leave a lot of space for making contributions pro bono.

But at Manifesto we don’t want to get caught in this trap. We know that by helping to build the capabilities of Drupal, and by enhancing the value that it delivers, we’re also investing in the future of our industry.

That’s why we’re determined to growing our input into the Drupal community and look forward to making more contributions in the near future.

Join in

If you also want to help make Drupal even better, there are plenty of ways to contribute. You can also become a member of the Drupal Association, like us.