How does Sun work with Drupal?

There are too many ways in which Sun works with Drupal to list them all here, but some of the highlights are:

• In 2005 Sun donated a server to drupal.org when scaling and performance problems were hampering growth
• Then in 2007 Sun donated another server to further propel the scale up of d.o
• Sun has used Drupal in building several important online communities.
  • TED Prize winner Architecture for Humanity’s Open Architecture Network
  • Freshbrain – a technology exploration platform for youth
  • the Open Office extensions site
• the Sun Learning eXchange
• Plus many organizations run Drupal on Sun technology
• Employees at Sun have been using Drupal internally for lots of things, including:
  • as representative AMP stack environment and workload for lots of benchmarking and performance testing
• to demonstrate certain technologies, both in Sun internal training, and with Sun’s customers, e.g., using the Webstack pre-built bundle of AMP and other open source packages for OpenSolaris, Virtualization with Solaris zones, MySQL installation and tuning, and PHP code analysis with DTrace.
• Sun has created a NetBeans plugin wizard for developing Drupal modules
• Sun is currently investigating system appliances for data archive and CMS that would bundle Drupal
• Of course, Sun is a large contributor to some of Drupal’s most critical underlying open source technologies:
  • MySQL AB is a Sun company
  • many PostgreSQL core contributors are employed at Sun
  • many PHP core contributors are employed at Sun
• Sun has contributed more FLOSS code than any other single institution (Though, we think Solaris is technically a great choice for Drupal.)

• and let’s not forget that Sun VP and inventor of Java, James Gosling, defended Drupal inventor Dries Buytart in his PhD examination at Ghent.

Clearly, Sun is deeply connected to the Drupal community in many ways.

How did Sun first get involved in Drupal development?

It’s hard to know for sure, in an organization of more than 30,000 employees and a huge installed base, but hobbyists and engineers involved with nonprofits and online communities have been using it for years.

What are you most looking forward to at DrupalCon DC?

DC is the fourth DrupalCon to be sponsored by Sun. I’ve been to all four of those, plus a bunch of DrupalCamps and meetups. I’m always amazed at how much interesting work and innovation is happening in Drupal. I look forward to meeting all the new contributors in this community. They inspire me to do more with Drupal and find ways for Sun to contribute to this important community.