After beta testing their latest version over the past few months, it looks like we will finally see Drupal 7 publicly unveiled to the masses early next year.
In order to celebrate Drupal 7 entrance into the world, the community is asking fans to throw a party in order to help raise awareness of the platform.
To celebrate the release of Drupal 7! On January 7, 2011 the Drupal and open source communities will be having world wide local release parties for Drupal 7. Host or attend a party with your local groups! Everybody who is a fan of making the Web better should attend.
Welcome new users and fans of open source! Releasing Drupal 7 is a huge accomplishment and we are happy to be celebrating this milestone in our history, so let’s just take some time to have fun and reflect on everything we have accomplished. With a refined and more intuitive user interface, and hundreds of enhancements under the hood, Drupal has never been more powerful. A new release of Drupal is the perfect excuse to meet up, spread the word, plan our next move and, of course, party down. (Official Drupal Blog)
The Drupal community is planning on raising awareness to the public through not only parties but apparently via fancy animation on the side of a corporate buildings as well.
While Drupal’s approach to celebrating their release may seem eccentric to some, the community is probably trying to thwart the rise of WordPress as the latter defeated Drupal as the preferred CMS platform amongst users (despite the fact that WordPress is designed more as a blog than a general website).
It will be interesting to see whether Drupal 7’s release will increase user adoption amongst the masses, although with the community rolling out competitive services (like Drupal Gardens and Acquia Hosting), 2011 could be the year that Drupal finally gets its groove back.
