Why fork Drupal?

The philosophy behind Backdrop CMS

Drop the dragon lounging

The free and Open Source CMS
that helps you build websites.

For business, non-profit, & education.

backdropcms.org

Backdrop CMS

The Drupal fork

Backdrop CMS

Another tool for web developers

Backdrop CMS Co-founders

Jen

Backdrop Project Lead

@jenlampton

Nate

Backdrop Technical Lead

@quicksketch

Backdrop was founded by

Drupal Website Builders

  • Habitat for Humanity
  • The Grammys
  • Oxfam International
  • Harvard
  • Bay Area Rapid Transit
  • Tesla Motors

Backdrop was founded by

Drupal Trainers

  • Taught over 1,500 students
  • Featured in online training videos
  • Created materials for in-person training classes
  • Nate: Lullabot trainer since 2005
  • Jen: Director of training at Chapter Three, 2010-2012
  • Nate: Co-author of the first O'Reilly book "Using Drupal"

Backdrop was founded by

Drupal Core Developers

Nate
  • AJAX Framework & drag-and-drop
    systems in Drupal 6
  • File & Image modules
    in Drupal 7
  • Dialog system & CKEditor
    in Drupal 8
Jen
  • First core patch included
    in Drupal 7.14
  • Drupal core usability team
    member, D7 & D8
  • Twig core initiative lead
    Drupal 8 (2011 - 2013)

Backdrop was founded by

Drupal Community Advocates

  • Spoken @ 155+ Drupal events
  • Organizer, DrupalCon San Francisco 2010
  • Organizer, Bay Area Drupal Camp 2007 onward

Backdrop CMS was founded by

People who Drupal

The Project Management Committee

A leadership model proven successful by many Apache projects.

https://backdropcms.org/leadership

PMC Members

Tim Erickson
small agency constituent

Olaf Grabienski multilingual constituent
Andy Shillingford hobbiest constituent
Gregory Netsas site-builder constituent

Jen Lampton
UX priority constituent

The PMC's Responsibilities

  • Handle conflict resolution.
  • Set the overall direction of the project.
  • Ensure each change follows the project's philosophy.
  • Change the project philosophy (if necessary).

The PMC's Decisions

  • What's best for the project?
  • Based on different experiences of PMC members.
  • Weigh options agains the project philosophy.

In order to guide the project, the philosophy must be defined.

Backdrop CMS Principles

  1. Easier updates: Backwards compatibility is important.
  2. Simplicity: Write code that the majority can understand.
  3. Focus: Only include features that benefit the majority.
  4. Extensibility: Ensure Backdrop can be customized.
  5. Security: Keep sites and people safe.
  6. Performance: Meet low system requirements.
  7. Release on-time: Plan and schedule releases.
  8. Freedom: Remain both Free and Open Source.

https://backdropcms.org/philosophy

Backdrop Mission

Backdrop CMS enables people to build highly customized websites, affordably, through collaboration and open source software.

https://backdropcms.org/philosophy

How do we make web development more affordable?

  1. Increase the out-of-box functionality.
  2. Improve the user experience.
  3. Improve the developer experience.
  4. Decrease server & resource usage.
  5. Make updates take less effort (automatic).
  6. Make upgrades both faster and easier.
  7. More!

Release Schedule

January 15th
May 15th
September 15th

Backdrop has seen

25 on-time releases

since Jan 15, 2015

Next release

Backdrop 1.25 - May 15, 2023

1.25 release milestone  |  roadmap

What about Security?

We work with the Drupal Security Team.

  • We collaborate on security issues.
  • We coordinate security releases.

(this goes for both core + contrib)

We have our own Security Team, too.

  • We have a process for handling security issues.
  • We have a private security issue queue.
  • We issue CVEs, and release on wednesdays.
  • We are becoming a CVE Numbering Authority.

We also help our maintainers (more).

  • We watch the Drupal security releases.
  • We notify Backdrop maintainers of updates.
  • We can assist maintainers with changes + releases.
  • We have authority to make releases for all projects.

Backdrop Add-Ons

Modules. Themes. Layouts.

Top 100 Drupal 7 modules

  • Ctools
  • Views
  • Token
  • Libraries API
  • Entity API
  • Pathauto
  • Jquery Update
  • Date
  • Admin Menu
  • Webform
  • CKeditor
  • IMCE
  • Module Filter
  • Link
  • Metatag
  • Google Analytics
  • Entity Reference
  • Transliteration
  • Field Group
  • Rules
  • Views Bulk Ops
  • CAPTCHA
  • Wysiwyg
  • Features
  • XML Sitemap
  • Colorbox
  • Variable
  • File Entity
  • Media
  • Backup & Migrate
  • Menu Block
  • Redirect
  • Localization update
  • i18n
  • Field collection
  • Views Slideshow
  • Panels
  • Global Redirect
  • Context
  • Devel
  • Strongarm
  • Email Field
  • Mail System
  • Block Class
  • Menu Attributes
  • ReCAPTCHA
  • Display Suite
  • SMTP
  • IMCE Wysiwyg Br
  • Job Scheduler
  • Admin Views
  • Views Data Export
  • Adressfield
  • Honeypot
  • UUID
  • Special Menu Items
  • Better Exp Filters
  • Calendar
  • Feeds
  • Superfish
  • Multiupload File widget
  • Flexslider
  • MimeMail
  • Node Clone
  • References
  • Multiupload Image widget
  • Plupload integration
  • ImageCache Actions
  • Views PHP
  • Filefield Sources
  • Field Permissions
  • Diff
  • Site Map
  • Search API
  • Inline Entity Form
  • Media: Youtube
  • Adminimal...Menu
  • EU cookie compliance
  • Pathologic
  • Facet API
  • Module Missing...Fixer
  • Quicktabs
  • Video embed field
  • Taxonomy Menu
  • CKEditor Link
  • Title
  • Masquerade
  • IMCE Mkdir
  • Voting API
  • Conditional Fields
  • Lightbox 2
  • Insert
  • Advanced Help
  • Image URL Formatter
  • Scheduler
  • Linkit
  • Feeds Tamper
  • Content Access
  • Views Bootstrap
  • DraggableViews
  • Included In core: 19
    Ready In contrib: 58
  • Underway in core: 3
    Underway in contrib: 3
  • Alternative in core: 16
    Nolognger necessary: 3
  • Not started: 4

75+ modules included in Backdrop core

  • Admin menu
  • Admin views
  • Auto Menu*
  • Block class
  • Blockify*
  • Boolean formatter
  • Btester...Block Content*
  • Caption Filter
  • CKeditor*
  • CKEditor Link
  • CKEditor Media Browser*
  • CKEditor Upload
  • Comment Closer
  • Comment Hide Subject
  • Contact Block*
  • Date*
  • Date popup authored
  • Default config
  • Direct Upload*
  • Elements
  • Email
  • Email Registration
  • Entity API*
  • Entity Cache
  • Entity Reference
  • Entity view mode
  • Extra Columns*
  • Field as Block
  • Field formatter settings
  • File entity*
  • Float filter
  • HTML5 Tools
  • Image Mobile Camera*
  • IMCE Wysiwyg bridge*
  • Insert*
  • Instant Filter
  • jQuery Update*
  • Link
  • Live preview*
  • Media*
  • Menu block
  • Menu translation (i18n)
  • Nodeblock
  • Options Element
  • Panels*
  • Panels Everywhere*
  • Pathauto
  • Placeholder
  • Project Browser
  • Rabbit Hole
  • Radix Layouts*
  • Redirect
  • Role Assign
  • Role Help
  • Scheduler*
  • Smartmenus
  • Token
  • Transliteration
  • UUID*
  • Variable*
  • Vertical Tabs Responsive
  • Views
  • Views Bulk Operations
  • Views Responsive Grid*

* Some features may not be included in Backdrop core.

Contributed Add-Ons

last updated Jan 9, 2023

Backdrop community

People

last updated Jan 9, 2023

Support providers

last updated Jan 9, 2023

Adoption

last updated Jan 9, 2023

Where to find us

Backdrop events

  • Drupal Camps like this one!
  • Backdrop MiniCamps Next: Oct 2 - Berkeley, CA
  • Virtual User Groups 1st Tues ea month
  • Weekly video meetings Thurs 1pm PT

Where to find the community

Code: github.com/backdrop/backdrop
Chat: backdrop.zulipchat.com
Forum: forum.backdropcms.org
Site: backdropcms.org
Docs: docs.docsbackdropcms.org
Tweets: @backdropcms
video meetings - Thurs 1pm PT

Questions?

Drop the dragon pointing

The free and Open Source CMS
that helps you build websites.

For business, non-profit, & education.

backdropcms.org

Image Credits

SquareSpace: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Squarespace_Logo.png
Wordpress: https://wordpress.org/about/logos
Backdrop: https://backdropcms.org/about/logo
Drupal: https://www.drupal.org/node/9068