How to Have an Open Relationship... With Software (and Still Make the Paper)

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You love Drupal. You love Linux. You have a pet penguin and you recompile your kernel daily. So what, at the end of the day, you've got to pay your mortgage, and last time I checked, the bank doesn't take patches.

Like many of us, we have to balance the real needs to earning a living and spending time with our families (or going out drinking) with our desire to be contributors in the Drupal community.

I've been a Drupal developer for 5 years, 4 years as a contributor. I've worked for consulting shops, freelanced, started a business and I now work for the largest Drupal company, Acquia. In all these situations, I've had real deliverables which are always behind schedule and over budget.

In the process, I've learned some simple techniques that allow me to contribute to the community while still meeting the bottom line.

Super powers discussed:
- Architecting your code to make contribution simpler.
- Blogging: Keep it regular, keep it simple
- Structuring "community time" for developers
- Networking and building a support coop
- How to talk to your clients about contribution
- Managing version control between Drupal projects, patches and deliverables.
- Integrating contributions into your agile process.

Intended audience

Developers and Site builders Project managers

Questions answered by this session

How do I make a name for myself in Drupal community?

How can I convince my clients to pay for open source contributions?

What is the value (monetary) of contributing to Drupal?

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