In the year 2000, Dries Buytaert created Drupal, a freely licensed and open source tool to manage websites, as a bulletin board for his college dorm. Since Dries released the software and a community of thousands of volunteer developers have added and improved modules, Drupal has grown immensely popular. Drupal won the overall Open CMS Award in 2007, and some speakers in Drupal's spacious developer's room at FOSDEM 2008 were dreaming aloud of its world domination.
Buytaert (now 29) just finished his doctoral thesis and has founded the start-up Acquia. The new company wants to become Drupal's best friend, with the help of an all-star team and US$7 million collected from venture capitalists. Wikinews reporter Michaël Laurent sat down with Dries in Brussels to discuss these recent exciting developments.
((Wikinews)) : How important is an event like FOSDEM for yourself and for the Drupal community?
((WN)) : Do you go and visit other projects as well?
((WN)) : Can you give some examples of websites that use Drupal?
((WN)) : Wow, it must be everywhere if it ranges from Britney to Ozzy. Tell me, how has your role changed over the years?
((WN)) : Do you think Drupal is important for software in Belgium? Countries like France have a big software industry but we don't.
((WN)) : Looking at your new start-up Acquia, there are some people in the Drupal community who are concerned that you're combining your leadership role with that of Acquia CTO. You could have done like Jimmy Wales, who started Wikia and took a step back from Wikipedia.
((WN)) : If I listen to some community members, I get the impression that they trust you, and that they believe it will be all right.
((WN)) : On the other hand, you have to satisfy your investors, they have invested heavily and they will want something in return. How will you generate revenue from your free software product?
((WN)) : Some fear that if you focus on wealthy enterprises, NGOs might be disadvantaged.
((WN)) : Speaking about Drupal 6, you had a talk about it this morning. I'm not going to ask you to repeat that presentation, but what are the most important new elements in Drupal 6?
((WN)) : As a final question: where will Drupal be ten years from now, and where will Dries be ten years from now -in Boston?
((WN)) : Thank you for your time and for the opportunity to talk to us.

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Interview: Drupal founder Dries Buytaert balances community and company interests