Predictions for 2007

I suspect that after a strong showing in this year's competition, and following on from growing success and adoption of Drupal version 5, we will see this headline in the next year:

Drupal claims first prize in the 2007 Packt Open Source CMS Award!

will be held at 1127 Mainland Street, Vancouver.
--
The news is Now Public | Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | A bedroom without a teddy is like a face without a smile.

• Drupal wins a major open-source award for all the effort put in to make Drupal more usable, without compromising its flexibility.
• With the shiny new default theme, designers give Drupal a second chance, and start theming again. Thanks to more serious PHPTemplate improvements, theming becomes easier and more powerful, still.
• 2007 sees the inclusion of some form of drag-and-drop blocks to the admin. Possibly reordering book pages and menu items.
• After having upgraded the plumbing underneath Drupal.org, the site gets a serious restructuring and facelift on the outside too.
• Someone sets up a major OpenSearch-powered search hub/service, on top of Drupal.
• Another core committer steps up.
• At least one more Drupal developer moves to Vancouver.
• The Drupal Association gets significant money from big Web players who join it.
• Dries starts a company.

:)

1. Still no WYSIWYG editor in drupal core, but less people will care because the "Drupal for Dummies" profile will include it.
2. Same goes for image / asset management, because upload previews will take care of that and will be in the "Drupal for Dummies" profile too
3. Of course "Drupal for Dummies" will be an instant hit.
4. More pretty themes will be made for drupal, and more drupal themes will be ported to wordpress
5. The downloads section of drupal.org will be redesigned again, with a lot of goodies like community rating of contributions, and prominently featured install profiles.
6. Drupal.org will get more than 200.000 nodes before the 3rd quarter of 2007

--
I work for Ontwerpwerk

• One main drupal developer leaves the project.
• Drupal 5 provokes a major boom of the drupal community (exponential growth does not stagnate and become linear ;-) )...
• ...and makes it win a couple (more than one, less than four :-) ) major CMS prizes.
• There is a module creation boom
• An awesomely impacting new theme comes out (other than garland)
• I will only get 4 predictions right :-p

Cherrs,
Phil

I am not giong to predict what stuff will and won't be nodes. I lost all confidence in that part ever becoming right anyway :). So here is a more general prediction:

I think Drupal will play a big part in something that will start in 2007: 'We' taking back the web from the big companies like Yahoo! and Google. The distribution of the web2.0: social web communities, but ran from our on small servers. "We" taking back our ownership of our web.

Bèr
---
Professional | Personal
| Sympal: Development and Hosting

Ha, I am glad to see that Drupal is still growing strong with it's community.

I stopped developping or woreking with Drupal for a good 8 months, but now I want to get back at it with a new site I will be developping only with Drupal 5.

Hope everyone has an awesome year, and let's see these modules come out, I will be sure to make my site the best of it's kind with the help of Drupal.

(previous sites I have developped with Drupal include: myetalk, GameBGS)

jeforma - beautifying the world of humans.

Last year, I was right 1 out of 4. Let's try to make it better!

1- Bad news first. Drupal will become so popular that one of the server holding drupal.org infrastructure will not hold the pressure and will crash. (Hope you have backups)

2- There will be a module that will interface with one of Apple product. iMac .Mac ipod, iTV, etc. One of them!

3- The views module will be the most downloaded module. (Or is it already?)

4- Some major government always announcing that they will switch to Linux will actually also switch to Drupal!

5- And this extra one is for the developpers, cvs will switch to subversion (svn).

Alexandre Racine

www.salsamontreal.com La référence salsa à Montréal

• Someone creates a Texas-Holdem Module
• A Module is created that installs other modules and makes it easy to browse modules.
• Drupal.org is one of three major websites with Drupal Modules. The other two only have some duplicates.
• Searching for 'drupal' on HotJobs or Monster will turn up +100X more results.
• First Drupal Worm will spread similarly to the phpBB worm.

• It will be possible to download and install modules directly from the administration UI including automatic dependency fulfillment
• The former popular WYSIWYG editor modules will stagnate because a jQuery powered Drupal-specific solution will appear integrating / interfacing with existing modules
• The administration interface will get a lot of ajax enhancement as drag-n-drop ordering, working without page reloads, etc.
• drupal.org will see a lot of traffic which leads to improvements of the tracker and thread subscriptions

An academic program that has gone Drupal wins an award and/or is profiled in an academic technology publication. Deans everywhere tell their 'webmasters' they want a Drupal.

I was a little ambitious in my 2006 predictions, but I *very nearly* nailed it with one of them: a major post-4.7 Drupal release would ship in 2006. Drupal 5 might not be released before the new year rolls around, but we all know it's darn close. ;-)

Without further ado, here are my predictions for 2007.

1. There will NOT be a huge explosion in Drupal installation profiles. That's a good thing; profiles will take a lot of work to do well. Instead, we'll see a handful of highly targeted profiles that combine best-of-breed modules with 'glue' modules to tie them together. Profiles will also emerge as a great way for top-flight Drupal consultants to package up work for their clients in an easily maintainable format.
2. Along the same lines, Drupal For Bloggers will be reborn as a profile, and will make setting up a Drupal blog much easier. Wordpress will continue to dominate the dedicated blogging market, however, because it's a more focused tool. Again, that's a good thing.
3. As more sites us CCK and Views, there will be more demand for performance optimization.
4. The community of core Drupal participants will face important choices about the project's architecture: radically rework the CRUD infrastructure? Ad a query builder? Keep things simple? Add more jQuery magic? Reducing API complexity, maintaining the readability of the core codebase, and solving underlying architectural limitations without bloating core will be the biggest challenges.
5. Drupal will 'arrive' and no longer be seen as the hot newcomer. This will be evidenced by individuals and companies that use 'Drupal' as a resume-fodder buzzword without actually knowing how to work with it, an increase in of 'Drupal backlash' on sites like SlashDot and Digg, and blog stories by disgruntled former Drupal users. This won't be an inherently bad thing: it's what every system experiences. As Yogi Berra once said, "No one goes to that restaurant anymore: it's too busy."

Hmmmm. All my predictions sound bad, but I don't believe they are. They're all about Drupal maturing into a web platform that has its home in the real world, and that excites me. 2007 will be a great year to Drupal. ;-)

--
Lullabot! | Eaton's blog | VotingAPI discussion

Objects will creep into Drupal. One morning you will wake up and find Drupal core being kind to objects, welcoming their arrival and making them a nice espresso. No, it is not 3007, it is 2007.

petermoulding.com/web_architect

Must be time for Dries to produce something other than Drupal releases. Time for Drupalettes. Would make great human interest story on the home page. Better use for the photo gallery than geeks at a conference. Fifty percent chance we will find drupal.org blue theme changed to pink.

petermoulding.com/web_architect

I hope for rapid growth following the release of v 5.0. Hopefully there will be great development in the organic groups module and affiliated modules that will allow community sites to grow rapidly leading to more buzz for drupal.

Also I think that there will be more than 300,000 registered users by this time next year.

newms

Oh and a few (more than 2) US presidential campaigns will use drupal to power their site.

newms

I will have to join this one year, so I might as well do it now. :-)

My predictions are the following:

1.) Garland will become the most-ported theme ever.
2.) Colour pickers will become a standard feature of any future "big" theme.
3.) Future releases will be design-driven - as opposed to code-driven. Better looks and usability, same code quality.
4.) The Drupal CI will noticably change in 2007.

That's it, now looking forward to the results.

My predictions:

http://dave.notik.com/node/41

--D

--
http://dave.notik.com

Okay, I'll take a shot:

1. A new theming engine based on drupal_render(), formapi-like #keyed arrays, and hook_elements will emerge. This advance will be a prerequisite for a powerful theme editor aimed at non-coding users. People will realize that arrays are a much more efficient and less error-prone way of expressing HTML than actual HTML tags.

2. A drupal-centric CSS framework will appear in the contributions repository -- this framework will quickly become friends with the engine mentioned in prediction 1.

3. A contributed module based on importexportapi will enabled drupal users to share, enable, and disable site configurations as though they were a module. This same advance will allow a true "undo" button that potentially works for an entire site.

4. There will be a renewed interest in functions in a features geared towards making development less time consuming.

5. Competing platforms and products will catch up to us faster than anyone expects. This will fuel a boom of innovations.

6. The formapi, module install files, and importexportapi will have a mutant child that thinks a form, its validation process, its db inserts, updates, deletes, as well as db_schemas declared in install files should not be seperated since they completely depend on each other's consistency to work. This mutant will demand a distinct "state" for a drupal site called "development".

7. Chx will continue to remain impervious to distraction.

8. O'Reilly will publish a book on drupal development.

9. A new formapi key will control, and configure jquery effects.

10. Ditto for the theming engine mentioned in 1.

11. FAPI 3 will make FAPI 2 look like the form functions in 4.6

12. I'll show signs of insanity as I work on items 1,2,3, and 6.

13. Many of these predictions won't affect the core until drupal 7.

--
"I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect." - George Carlin
--
Personal: http://www.nicklewis.org
Work: http://www.onnetworks.com

Internet phones, such as Wengo phone, are becoming Web phones. Pick one and make it work in a Drupal block using a phone.module. Add a phone number to registered users. Add the directory stuff to a Drupal site. Instant phone calls to any other person registered at your Web site.

I do not know which of the open source phone applications would best suit Drupal. Some were flaky last time I tried them. Some are browser resident instead of Web page resident. All will need Ajax to deliver a large phone directory search or select from a block. Drupal 5.0 with Ajax looks like a much easier base for a phone than Drupal 4.7.

petermoulding.com/web_architect

CCK will get into core. Views will not.

Comments as nodes will not be in core but will become an option for those who want it. It pretty much is there now.

Menu API will become much faster and consume less memory

We will finally get quality metrics and even even user ratings for projects

We will have selfish loudmouths on the developer mailing list

1. Drupal receives a huge donation from a site/company/group that uses Drupal.

2. A huge social networking site using Drupal and more social networking modules coming in row.

3. Improved Instant Messenger (IM) modules - now they not just show our status online, instead allow you to chat with persons using a pop-up chat box. (No they are not gonna use online tools or APIS from Meebo etc)

4. Online phone module that will launch up and dial any number (may be pick a contact # from the user profile) and speak freely.

I hope Drupal will achieve more than what it is currently, wish all Success in the New year :)

Dollars 5 Solution
Mobile Software Developer

Moshe took all of mine. I'll reiterate a view.

• CCK will get into core. Views will not.
• A query builder will get into core, but there will be a huge fight over it.
• A new theme engine will absolutely revolutionize theming with drag & drop configuration and easy-to-use site sectioning.
• The administration, which has already undergone vast transformations, will continue.
• AJAX and JS effects will become a major part of Drupal but a core value of always-degrade-gracefully will persist, but this will come under fire from both sides.
• New caching methods will be introduced to greatly improve Drupal's overall performance
• New file handling and excellent media management modules will make Drupal a platform of choice for media hosting, but this will not be fully realized until 2008.
• Dries will still be married. Steven will still not be married. [I know I'm not reaching too far with this one]
• Toward the end of the year a sudden fear that the market is saturated with competent Drupal developers will create a scare that may cause good developers to leave or scale back for financial reasons.
• The tracker module will go the way of the archive module.

-- Merlin

[Point the finger: Assign Blame!]
[Read my writing: ehalseymiles.com]
[Read my Coding blog: Angry Donuts]

An easy, straightforward, no frills way of adding an image into a post will be created.
I.E. a user would be able to click browse, upload an image, and move it around in the post.
...But in a clean (not-as-clunky) interface unlike TinyMCE and it's counterparts.

...ok maybe this is more of a wish than a prediction, but let's see.

Sorry guys, I've just come from the future heres what I can confirm:

1. Drupal will be html, css, sql and js preprocessed and/or cached to such a degree that if your database falls off it'll still manage to keep going (for anonymouse users at least).

2. Major reduction to the number of queries per page.

3. Significant speeds and page loads. Beating our nearest rivals in terms of performance benchmarks.

4. Drupal 6 will be released and become a record breaker opensource CMS beater with many prizes under its belt.

------------------------------
BioALIEN
Buy/Sell/Trade with other webmasters: WebMasterTrader.com

Here are some of my 2007 predictions:

• Poll.module will be removed from core. During Q2 most likely.
• jQuery will become pervasive to the extent that every core module will have an accompanying .js file.
• As a result, Drupal coding standards will be extended to apply to javascript files.
• Sites will be automatically notified of module updates and will be able to install new versions via a web interface.
• True i18n support will be integrated into Drupal core, including RTL languages.
• Drupal will become E_ALL compliant.
• The Drupal Association will be launched and will raise $100,000 for Drupal.
• Zen will be added to core (with color.module support).
• Drupal will add native support for DST and pre-1970 dates.
• Drupal won't switch to SVN.
• Drupal will add support for MSSQL and Oracle.
• A Drupal blogging installation profile will emerge to compete with wordpress/livejournal/xanga/etc.
• A Drupal forum profile will emerge to compete specifically with phpBB/vBulletin.
• A Drupal mass hosting company will be created to compete with wordpress/livejournal/xanga/etc.
• Book.module and forum.module will be removed/abstracted from core.
• Drupal.org will double its hardware infrastructure.
• Theme functions in core will be replaced with .theme files.
• Drupal will gain a web-based theme editor.
• Drupal will support ssl-logins.
• Drupal will support WAP.
• Groups.drupal.org will be refactored and will become an effective collaboration tool.

What? No jokes about DruJava? Can I predict the move from CVS to SVN then? Darn. Someone else did already.

You said no "comments as nodes", but actually users as nodes is on its way to being reality (started by Ber Kessels, and Wolfgang's SoC project which became usernode), albeit outside of code.

I got two right last year, almost two. http://themes.drupal.org/ DOES finally has its DNS pointing right. http://association.drupal.org is up, and the organization is registered.

As for predictions, they are fun, but that is it. They remind me of an old woman with a head scarf gazing in tarot cards. If you see the industry pundits, they thrive on that stuff, because being wrong has no downside. The rest of the industry still listens, and being right one of out 10 predictions still pays. For example look at John Dvorak and his continued predictions.

Some of that is wishlist, some is humor, some is crystal ball gazing ...

So, here are mine:

The NOTs:
- Users as Node will NOT not be in core during 2007.

The WILLs:
- Community continues to grow, including new developers and shops jumping on the bandwagon (yeah, Mr Obvious).
- More core module will continue to evolve into being APIs (following the lead of voting api, ecommerce api, ...etc.)

Other stuff:
- The "community" will be more courteous and sensitive to newbies and outsiders, even if they are criticizing us.
- Less discussions leading to surprise decisions on the dreaded IRC (an unofficial channel).

--
Drupal development and customization: 2bits.com
Personal: Baheyeldin.com

- the multi-domain feature will become a multi-site feature or the possibility to run multiple sites with different content & design using the same source files and database and not having to deal with table prefixes
- users/roles will get better user information and role settings management
- access control will be improved using the code of the taxonomy access control module
- the Forums module will see major improvements
- the blog module too
- by improving CCK, drupal will allow better integration between content pages (stories or blog posts...) and the forums, allowing to display the content pages and their comments into the forums
- drupal will add scalability features, among them better multi-database support that doesn't require as much tweaking as now

These are actually half predictions and feature request :).

The jQuery effect will be removed from collapsible fieldsets because it is as annoying as those fade-in/out and effects in Windows. Or at least I will get an administration option to turn that off.

And don't say to turn off javascript completely because I do think it has its place, but slowly showing fieldsets is not one of them!

Digital asset management becomes a priority.
A major restaurant adopts drupal for its web site presence.
Drupal is asked for by name in ever more RFPs.
YAAPI!
The drupal icon toy hits virtual shelves.
andre

- Full integration with web services, at the level of database layer, to send and receive data from external systems (expected to be bug-free by june 2008)
- Real full multilanguage support in the core, using external automatic translator services to assist the translations (integration in the core of Drupal 6)
- Improved learning curve, much more easy to create a fully functional site for a newbe, as well as the powerful already existing system.
- According to google trends, Drupal will be more relevant than Joomla: http://google.com/trends?q=drupal%2C+joomla
- Easy to install clones (themes) for major social sites (such as digg, youtube, ... and of course, blogs)
- Major CMSs' companies start to contribute with their modules
- Full integration with 'free' external services (maps, OGC, video, photos, ...)
- Module providing comprehensive license system for all content of sites(Creative commons, ...)

When all these points are achieved:
- Drupal is awarded nr 1. CMS by several online and offline media
- Drupal is studied at universities as "the CMS"
- The web evolves: the information can be accesed in our usual way (web page); all kind of gadgets can use the information provided by drupal sites (thanks to the use of web services); servers comunicate between each other to transfer information by web services in a completely cooperative new way.

1. Drupal developers will feel 'interfaced out' after all the work that they put into usability and UI improvements back in 2006. The first half of 2007 will consist of long hours that are spent staring at the Garland theme (and the new jQuery effects, and the color picker, and the new admin front page) in loving admiration. The second half of 2007 will be spent coming to terms with the fact that the UI hasn't been improved since 2006 (gasp!).
2. One new contrib module will emerge as the 'must have' module for 6.0 (at least one - maybe more). This module will be another one that — like its predecessor 'must have' modules, Views and CCK — will be incredibly versatile / extensible / themable / swiss-army-like, and will instantly make another 5 existing core modules redundant.
3. With the rise of install profiles, there will be a growing demand to reduce Drupal core to a developer framework, to move all the extra cruft to the default install profile, and to split the default install profile off into a completely separate project (with a separate name). "That's how it is with Zope and Plone; that's how it is with RoR and Typo; that's how it should be with Drupal", people will say. The core committers will reduce core a bit, but not nearly as much as many developers will want them to. The 'default install profile as separate project' thing will most likely not eventuate.
4. The menu system will suck a lot less than it does now.
5. There will be less hooks in core, and more callback mechanisms.
6. People will try to build really rich AJAX apps (e.g. Gmail-like apps) using Drupal, and in the process, will cause Drupal's AJAX support to rapidly mature and blossom. For example, AJAX-based dynamic loading of page elements ( currently in the dynamicload module in the jstools contrib package) will hit core.
7. A simple relationship API will get into core, and will allow modules to easily provide their functionality to all entities within Drupal, rather than just (for example) to nodes. E.g., taxonomy will let you tag not just nodes, but also users, comments, CCK fields, etc. Similarly, you will be able to comment on users, on views, on files, etc.
8. FAPI3 will be very cool, but it won't quite qualify as an "everything API".
9. Drupal Buytaert will be born.
10. Everyone else will have to make these predictions come true, because I won't be around to do so: I'll be on vacation for most of 2007! :-)

Jeremy Epstein - GreenAsh

• Drupal.org will get a new look
• Drupal will be second at CMS awards ... Joomla will win again
• One of the main developers will leave the team
• Drupal will have something with Microsoft
• Drupal 7.0 will be released

1. Drupal is used more for non-HTML applications
   email, SMS, VOIP, and sector applications that define their own DTDs
2. Jakob Nielsen, Edward R. Tufte, and Donald A. Norman start using Drupal, usability goes through the roof
3. teddy_bear.module is released, someone is distracted

Cortext Communications
Drupal Themes & Modules

I have to say that I am both wishful and fearful for what the future holds for our beloved Drupal:

• although I hope that "True i18n support will be integrated into Drupal core, including RTL languages", I think this won't be done during this year, however, one of the contributed related modules will improve drastically.
• drupal.org will undergo some serious improvements mainly in terms of functionality, like the ability to subscribe to nodes without having to comment on them, :)
• I am worried for the future of accessibility of drupal especially if "AJAX and JS effects will become a major part of Drupal".
• forum.module, or a similar contributed module, will surely recieve some attention this year.
• more awards and adobtion will be granted to Drupal, (the project)

Mohammed al-shar'

Nattiq Technologies

Drupal will not be renamed to "lapurd", other than that one prediction, I have no idea ?_?
------------------------------
Naruto - narutomonkey.net - Naruto Forums

1)
Drupal will be in the the 2007 EContent 100 List.

2006 list is here:
http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=18642

Typo3, eZ systems and WordPress are listed for the 2006 list.
Plone, a Python CMS is in the list.
Liferay and Alfresco two other Java Open Source system are also listed.

Engel Sanchez
Solunion Group

Only one prediction this year, see http://buytaert.net/drupal-predictions-for-2007 :

"There are many million websites out there. But by the end of 2007, if you take 1,000 random websites, at least 3 of them will run Drupal. Spam sites and pornographic websites must be excluded from any such experiment."

(A review of last year's predictions can be found at http://buytaert.net/evalutaing-my-drupal-predictions-for-2006.)

• A huge number of WordPress users will determine that they need more power and will switch to Drupal.
• Stilltruth.com will switch to drupal within the first few weeks of 2007 for the same reason. ;-)

--
tcblack
- Truth Is Still Truth, Even If You Don't Believe It

Views and/or CCK will become core modules.

I got nothing else, since I am new around here.

1. The drupal.org site will setup up a donors page with direct links to the donors sites similar to http://moodle.org/donations/ and money will start coming in since lots of companies (and individuals) will like to have a link from drupal.

2. Internationalization and multilingual support would be a core feature (or at least would be a breeze to install in a module)

3. Modules will be able to detect newer versions and autoupdate with a push of a button from the admin

world experts tag cloud

-- Drupal collaboration with the 'NGO in a box' project grows, benefitting from Drupal forks into NGO all-round functionality
(à-la-carte cookbooks, focused distros of contrib+core modules)
http://openpublishing.ngoinabox.org/toolpage/1/6

-- a Europe-based Drupal-focused development company launches (as opposed to a web boutique), benefitting from Venture Capital

-- a Drupal site for language-learning and computational linguistics launches

Hopefully drupal will continute to provide an awesome blogging platform. Hopefully add some better support for Atom feeds tho.

--
Eric Gawater's Blog - http://www.pro-article.com