Do you own an existing drupal.org project that does not yet have a Drupal 9 compatible release? This week would be a good time to take that step and make a Drupal 9 compatible release! I am paying for two tickets to DrupalCon Europe for new Drupal 9 compatible releases. Read on for exact rules!

DrupalCons are a great way to learn and connect, but they are especially great to meet various people leading Drupal's future direction. DrupalCon Europe in a couple weeks is no exception.

There is of course the Driesnote to get an update on where Drupal's progress is and get inspired about where its going. There is a dedicated question and answer session with project lead Dries Buytaert where you can inquire about topics not covered in the keynote.

The initiative leads provide a glimpse into their respective areas in the Drupal Initiative leaders keynote. This is a great way to get to know the leaders and learn more about their plans and where you could help.

Various initiatives have dedicated sessions as well.

Drupal 8 and 9 core were already made compatible with Composer 2 back in May. Last week the Drupal package repository (packages.drupal.org) rolled out full support for Composer 2 as well. While Michael Anello did Drupal vs. Composer 2-alpha2 benchmarks in July and Malabya also did an even more detailed benchmark in July, various things have been improved in Composer 2 since July and the packages.drupal.org improvement should also show.

Last time I posted an update on Upgrade Status was four months ago. It is fair to say the Drupal contributed project landscape has changed quite a bit in the meantime and Upgrade Status should evolve too. Why? The primary role of Upgrade Status is to help get your site components updated for Drupal 9 compatibility. Most of your site components are contributed modules. In many cases, either your local copies or the remote available updates will already be compatible. 38% of Drupal 8 compatible modules are now Drupal 9 compatible (3535 out of 9258) and most others have a patch waiting to land to either improve or complete compatibility.

Drupal 9 was just released last month, and in less than two weeks we get together to celebrate it (again), learn, grow and plan together for the future at DrupalCon Global.

I presented my "State of Drupal 9" talk at various events for over a year now, and while the original direction of questions were about how the transition would work, lately it is more about what else can we expect from Drupal 9 and then Drupal 10. This is a testament and proof to the continuous upgrade path we introduced all the way back in 2017. Now that Drupal 9.0 is out, we can continue to fill the gaps and add new exciting capabilities to Drupal core.

DrupalCon Global will have various exciting events and opportunities to learn about and help shape the future of Drupal 9 and even Drupal 10. Tickets are $249 and get you access to all session content, summits and BoF discussions. As usual, contributions do not require a ticket and will happen all week as well, including a dedicated contribution day on Friday. Here is a sampling of all content elements discussing, planning on and even building the future of Drupal.

Last week I had the pleasure to present my open source State of Drupal 9 talk at Drupal India Conclave. It was great with very timely questions. While I keep the slides up to date, there is always some new development. Since the recording of this video, Drupal 7's community security support was extended with a year to November 2022. The session should be fully up to date otherwise as of today. Feel free to use the slides to present at your own meetup or in-company training. Thanks Drupal India Association for having me on the program!

I organized Drupal 9 Porting Day for April 28 as part of my #DrupalCares funding sub-campaign to help the Drupal Association bounce back from their financial losses due to the ongoing pandemic. It was a lot of fun with Lee Rowlands, Vladimir Roudakov, Adam Bergstein and Mike Lutz helping lead the contribution before and after my time of availability. 126 issues were worked on and 43 newly Drupal 9 compatible releases were made then.

Join the Drupal Community in this worldwide event focusing on Drupal 9 stability and adoption across contributed projects. Over 1600 projects are already Drupal 9 compatible a month before Drupal 9's release which is unprecedented. However, there are still thousands that only need very small changes and a release made.

The first Drupal 9 Porting Day was on April 28, 2020, led by Gábor Hojtsy, Lee Rowlands, Vladimir Roudakov, QED42, Srijan, Adam Bergstein and Mike Lutz. Altogether 126 issues were worked on that resulted in 89 newly Drupal 9 compatible releases on that day and the following two days. It was not only successful but we had a lot of fun too. So we are of course here to do another one this month!

When I announced the Drupal 9 module porting challenge two weeks ago, I did not fully understand what was gonna come. I offered to donate €900 to the Drupal Association #DrupalCares campaign for 100 projects newly ported to Drupal 9. Then more funders started to appear. Ron Northcutt offered another €900, Ofer Shaal put in another €450. QED42 offered to match Ron's €900. It certainly grew much bigger than I anticipated so it was time to step up the game.

So last week I announced and started organizing Drupal 9 porting day for April 28, 2020 to not let our funders keep their money. While my funds were almost gone in the first week, there was still the rest of the funds to get donated. The idea of the porting day sounded good because we raise funds for the Drupal Association, we get people together to do their first Drupal 9 releases, we help others' projects out, drive the tools to their boundaries, do Drupal 9 core quality assurance and grow the ready module pool before Drupal 9's launch all at the same time. Some people would learn how to get ready for Drupal 9 for the first time, so we would spread some know-how and confidence in the release as well. That is like a win-win-win-win-win-win.

I launched the Drupal 9 Module Porting Challenge a week ago, and wow it is going well! I pledged to donate €9 for each newly Drupal 9 compatible drupal.org project to the #DrupalCares campaign up to a total of €900. Since then Ron Northcutt joined on April 20 with another €900 and Ofer Shaal joined on April 21 with another €450, so the challenge now goes to a total of €2250! Our donation will potentially be matched by Dries and Vanessa Buytaert and then a group of organisations will match it again for a potential total of €6750 donated.