No software solution (proprietary or commercial) will ever meet 100% of the current, let alone future, needs of it's largest users; in addition to customizing the look and feel to reflect their unique brand and needs, most organizations implement new and enhance existing functionality.

Many organizations are doing amazing things with the Drupal framework and innovating by breaking through prior limitations. However, there is limited knowledge sharing and discussion happening among the biggest Drupal users. Similar problems are often solved multiple times independently, and in incompatible ways. And since few of these large companies are vocal and active in the community, the expertise gained from solving these problems isn't making its way back into the software that all Drupal users rely on. To help solve these issues, Acquia created and launched an innovative strategic alliance, "Large Scale Drupal".

Large Scale Drupal is a consortium of Drupal users who meet regularly to discuss and collaborate on common problems. We provide a forum for these large organizations, listen to their needs, prioritize them as a group, and then figure out a proper way to address those needs through knowledge sharing, white papers, training and development. The intent is not to keep the outcome of these efforts within the group. We want to share what we learn with the specific intent of it becoming a contributed back to Drupal and the community.

The goal of these projects is to foster knowledge sharing and collaboration among members of the group and the community. The Large Scale Drupal members get the benefits of sharing their development costs with other members. They also get significantly better software through the input of a diverse range of participants, built by some of the most talented people in the community, which will last longer and provide longer-term value as a shared solution that will continue to be enhanced by the partnership and community. The community benefits by gaining new contributions to Drupal, and an influx of expert talent into the Drupal contributor pool. Both the contributions of these companies, and the expertise that they bring to the table will help Drupal remain a long-term viable project.

In this talk, I’ll give a high level overview of the Large Scale Drupal Strategic Alliance, the types of problems we are solving, how we do our work through partners (vendors and services companies that are active contributors in the community) funneling money back into the community, and present a business case for collaborative development. I’ll talk briefly about existing projects and goals and the success we’ve seen to date, as well as future initiatives and plans, and take questions from the audience at the end of the presentation.