This document provides an overview of the Drupal 8 roadmap and initiatives from the Office of the CTO (OCTO). It introduces the OCTO team and their roles in accelerating Drupal 8 initiatives like the 8.5 release. It outlines 8 major goals for D8.5 including stabilizing the migration path, improving the media and API functionality, and introducing new features like layouts, workflows and an improved front-end experience. It notes uncertainties in the D8 release process but provides ways for people to stay updated on the progress.

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D8 Roadmap and Initiatives
An OCTO briefing
Angie @webchick Byron
Office of the CTO

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Agenda
– Who is OCTO?
– The Drupal 8.5 roadmap
– Status of initiatives
– Ways to keep up to date
– How to better communicate going forward

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Who is OCTO?

4. RCM
4
Mark
Intimidating
Boss Man
ASH
Creator of
Beautiful Things
Leah
Coordinator of
ALL the Things
Dries
Wearer of
Many Hats
Scalers of Dries
Preston
Roadmappin’
Renegade
Labs
Chris
Count of
Cutting Edge
Angie
Product
Management
UX
Emilie
Unicorn of UX
Tim
Layout Czar
Gábor
Initiative
Coordinator
Coordinator
Decoupled
Wim
REST Wrangler
Matt
JavaScript
Ninja Esquire
Ted
Firehose of
Code
Alex
Butler of
Consensus
Jess
All Your
Releases R
Belong to xjm

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– D8 Initiative Acceleration:
– Development
– Guidance/oversight
– Planning/coordination
– Sprints/Funding
– Ensuring releases go out on time
& without breaking things (much)
–“Next gen” R&D with augmented
reality, conversational interfaces,
beacons
Our “core” missions:
Services we provide

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Services we provide
– D8 Initiative Acceleration:
– Development
– Guidance/oversight
– Planning/coordination
– Sprints/Funding
– Ensuring releases go out on time
& without breaking things (much)
–“Next gen” R&D with augmented
reality, conversational interfaces,
beacons
– Assisting with Acquia issues
through diving in / connecting
with right people in community
– Driesnote/Engage visuals
– Community Development
– Thought Leadership
– Technical Leadership
– Keeping Drupal secure
– Contribution mentorship
Our “core” missions: At no extra charge:

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Drupal Community Roles
Core committers
Core subsystem maintainers
Security Team
… and 70+ others.
… and 40+ others.

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4,234 contributors. 12 of
whom are in OCTO. :)

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Overview of Drupal 8.5 product goals
https://www.drupal.org/core/roadmap

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Migrate Media Layout API-First Workflow
Outside-In Out-of-the-Box JavaScript
Framework
Automated
Updates

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#1: Migrate

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#1: Migrate
–Drupal 8 no longer provides
upgrade path between major
versions.
–Now, to move from D6/7 to D8,
need to do site migration instead.
–Migration path still not stable as
of 8.4; represents a large D8
adoption blocker for existing
sites.
– Stabilize the migration
path. (Currently “beta”)
– Stabilize the migration UI.
(Currently “alpha”)
– Fill in missing functionality
in UI. (rollback/incremental
migrations)
Why does it matter? 8.5 Goals
OCTO’s Role: Funding

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#2: Media

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#2: Media
– #1 request in State of
Drupal survey, 2016.
– Contrib solutions exist, but
difficult to configure (similar
to multilingual in D7)
– Step 0 = Stable Media API
in core in 8.4; now contrib
needs to leverage it.
– Port Media contrib modules
to use core API.
– Parity with File/Image
modules in core
– Fix usability so we can show
the module to end users
– oEmbed support (e.g.
YouTube videos)
Why does it matter? 8.5 Goals
OCTO’s Role: Funding

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#3: API-First

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#3: API-First
– Decoupled builds taking off
for our customers; big growth
opportunity for Drupal/Acquia.
– Drupal 8 shipped with REST
API since 8.0.0, but lots of
holes.
– Best practices in REST also
different now than in 2013.
– Fill in API gaps (files, config
entities, translation support…)
– Greatly expand test
coverage (97.4% complete!)
– Better validation/permissions
– Improved performance
– JSON API in core (stretch
goal)
Why does it matter? 8.5 Goals
OCTO’s Role:
Development

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#4: Layouts

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#4: Layouts
– Dynamic layouts are expected
functionality in CMSes today
– Competing solutions in
contrib; difficult to configure.
– Design for layouts in core
comes from “real-world”
projects (Scotts, Pokémon)
and is product differentiator.
– Custom Landing Pages
(experimental)
– Apply sections-based UI
to Field Layout
(experimental)
Why does it matter? 8.5 Goals
OCTO’s Role:
Development

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#5: Workflow

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#5: Workflow
– “Save as Draft” is basic
functionality in CMSes today
– Workspaces offers product-
differentiating ability to create
“collections” of content and
stage to multiple environments
– Pfizer using in “real world” and
donating multiple full-time
engineers to getting into core
– Stabilize Content
Moderation
– Introduce content staging
via Workspaces
(experimental)
– Allow more revisionable
entities to be staged (terms,
menu links, etc.)
Why does it matter? 8.5 Goals
OCTO’s Role:
Guidance/Oversight

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#6: Outside-In

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#6: Outside-In
– Mental model of most
users = “change this from
the front-end of my site”
– Yet, Drupal requires
thorough understanding of
IA to make changes to e.g.
the site name, block
placement
– Stabilize Settings Tray
– Introduce generic Tray
component (done!)
– Re-introduce ability to
place blocks on front-end
as part of Block module
Why does it matter? 8.5 Goals
OCTO’s Role:
Development

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#7: Out-of-the-Box Experience

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#7: Out-of-the-Box
– Drupal does very poor job of
“selling itself”—out of the box
just an empty site that says
“you have no content”
– Solution: New install profile
with sample content +
gorgeous theme to help
evaluators understand
Drupal’s capabilities.
– Create designs (done!)
– New “Example” install profile
with sample content
showcasing e.g. entity
references, views…
(experimental)
– New theme, stylized to
example content (experimental)
Why does it matter? 8.5 Goals
OCTO’s Role:
Guidance/Oversight

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#8: JavaScript Framework

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#8: JavaScript
– Expected behavior of web
interfaces is dynamic, immediate
feedback; not server round-trip.
– Core ships with substandard
tools: jQuery, Backbone, difficult
to attract JS developers
– Unless core becomes
opinionated, contrib can’t easily
utilize modern JS best practices.
– Decide on JS Framework—
React (done!)
–Prototype simple UI (DB
Log) + complex UI (Layout
Builder)
– Address holes in theme
system, REST API to allow
framework usage.
Why does it matter? 8.5 Goals
OCTO’s Role:
Development

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#8: Automatic Updates

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#8: Auto Updates
– Updates—especially core
updates—are cumbersome,
manual processes that require
developer involvement.
– This makes running Drupal
sites expensive, costing us
customers, and preventing
sites from being on latest
security releases.
– Develop plan for
automated security
updates (at first)
– Figure out how to
leverage Composer while
not abandoning the UI
Why does it matter? 8.5 Goals
OCTO’s Role: TBD

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So, your burning question…
What of that’s gonna ship in 8.5.0?

30. 30

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Core’s Uncertainty Principle
– Backwards compatibility + upgrade paths (for stable code)
– High risk of making changes (200K+ sites) + shorter release cycles
== higher QA requirement
– Peer-review + maintainer sign-off required
– Committer availability
– Strong consensus-based culture
– Largely volunteer ecosystem
– Holidays coming up, contributors have “families” and stuff, what!? ;)
Factors impacting “shippability” of code:

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Places to stay informed

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#1: Know the release schedule.
https://www.drupal.org/core/release-cycle-overview

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8.5 Supported releaseDevelopment
Alp
ha
Be
ta
R
C
r May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
2018
Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep
8.4 Supported releaseDevelopment
Alp
ha
Be
ta
R
C
8.6 Supported
release
Development
Alp
ha
Be
ta
R
C
Oct Nov Dec

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#2: Keep abreast of forthcoming changes:
https://www.drupal.org/list-changes/drupal

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#2: Keep abreast of forthcoming changes:
https://groups.drupal.org/core

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#2: Keep abreast of forthcoming changes:
“8.5.0 release notes” and “8.5.0 highlights” issue tags

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#3: Understand what backwards-compatibility means.
https://www.drupal.org/core/d8-bc-policy

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#4: Read the release notes for “gotchas.”
e.g. https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/releases/8.4.0

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