An Interesting Thought

In the Drupal development mailing list, an interesting conversation has been taking place (See the first post) that I believe applies to all Open Source Software. In short, with the exponential growth of the Drupal community, a number of module/theme/whatever maintainers are becoming more like module/theme/whatever "submitters." They are merely submitting these things and then not touching them for an extended period of time, if ever. The most recent response (as of 5/27/2008), in my opinion, sums up what almost all Open Source projects with a community eventually face:

...we have an ecosystem. The ecosystem is getting larger, and the fact that more types of organisms and relationships are in it means the ecosystem is healthy. Symbiosis does not include only mutualism, it also includes commensalism, and even parasitism. You can have a lab environment that is sterile, but it will not be as vibrant as the one that has less than ideal organisms and relationships, warts and all ... So, this is the price of success, and a small one at that ...

As Drupal or any other Open Source project grows, its community will attract many different kinds of people, including those who may not fit the mold established by the rest of the community. These people should slowly be introduced to the community's way of doing things, so as to avoid any incidents that could provoke a small-ish flame war.

On another note, don't expect too much from me for the next few weeks, as I have Final Exams coming up. School ends on 12th of June, so then I'll be free until September!