Talking Drupal #562 - Acquia Fair Trade Initiative

[00:00:00] John: This is Talking Drupal, a weekly chat about web design and development from a group of people with one thing in common. We love Drupal. This is episode 562, Acquia Fair Trade Initiative. On today's show, we're talking about supporting open source, Acquia, and the Acquia Fair Trade Initiative with our guest, James Sims.

We'll also cover Image Effects as our module of the week Welcome to Talking Drupal. Our guest today is James Sims. James is the vice president of partnership and channels at Acquia. He leads Acquia's global partner ecosystem, spanning resellers, distributors, system integrators, and technology partners, driving revenue growth and market expansion through strategic alliances and joint go-to-market programs.

Based across a go- global remit, he oversees regional partner management teams in North America and EMEA. James, welcome to the show and thanks for joining us.

[00:01:04] James: Yeah, thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

[00:01:08] John: I'm John Picozzi, solutions architect at EPAM, and today my co-hosts are, uh, Nic Laflin, founder at nLightened Development.

What's going on, Nic?

[00:01:16] Nic: Not too much. I will say, uh, for any of our listeners that manage WordPress sites, there was a, an extremely severe release last Friday at 4:55 PM-ish, uh, which is-

[00:01:28] John: Oh ...

[00:01:29] Nic: the best time Must

[00:01:29] John: have been real severe because that's not the ideal time to make a, make a release.

[00:01:34] Nic: Yeah. So I would say if you have a WordPress site that you in any way manage, look at it immediately, uh, for category foods.

For all our

[00:01:42] John: WordPress listeners.

[00:01:43] Nic: Yeah, the, a lot of our listeners do both, but they, uh, it, it's an anonymous remote code execution escalation, so it's... Well, let's just say it is very bad. Uh, so yeah, take it-

[00:01:55] John: Yeah ... check it out. That does not sound good. Hmm. Well, thanks for, thanks for dropping that little ray of sunshine.

And, uh, doing a bunch of filling in today, uh, Avi Schwab, technical product consultant at ImageX. What's going on, Avi?

[00:02:09] Avi: Hey. Not much. Nice to be here. I, uh, I, fun fact, I have never built a WordPress site, but I've pretty much always had a WordPress site that, like, somebody has told me that I have to, like, work on at some point.

Like, not for work, just, like, because somebody built it and abandoned it, so. I'm checking my local park advisory council website to make sure that it's been updated, and I think it, we have auto-updates on and I think it has.

[00:02:33] John: There you

[00:02:34] Nic: go. Uh- Yeah, as long as you're 6- 6.9.5 or 7.0.2.

[00:02:38] John: Yes.

[00:02:39] Nic: You're good.

[00:02:39] John: Fun, fun fact.

I was once asked, uh, prior to getting hired at a company if I had to work on WordPress if I would do it, and I was like, "Well, if it means losing my job and not being able to feed my family, yeah, sure. Would I love it? Hmm, probably not."

[00:02:58] Avi: I would prefer Dot too, but I would prefer getting a paycheck more.

[00:03:02] John: Yeah.

[00:03:02] Avi: Yes. That's always been my answer. So,

[00:03:04] John: so that's kinda, that's kinda where I landed with that one. Luckily I did not have to venture into the WordPress space, um, and, um, haven't, haven't encountered that, that issue since, so knock on wood, I'm- I'm still doing, doing pretty all right.

[00:03:19] James: Yeah.

[00:03:19] John: All right. I have a

[00:03:19] James: fun fact myself related to WordPress then.

Oh, go for it. I, I guess I've- You know, gotta talk a little bit about the elephant in the room. I spent 10 years at WP Engine before coming to Acquia, so, uh- Oh, really? I've had the- Ah ... proud honor of working at a, an incredible company be coming to, before going to, to Acquia itself.

[00:03:38] John: So, uh, I'm, just 'cause I'm curious, um, the Drupal ecosystem has like the Drupal Steward Program, which Acquia is part of, to protect people against security vulnerabilities like this.

Does E- WP Engine do the same sort of thing?

[00:03:54] James: Yeah. It, it, you know, actually I think that was probably one of the, the, the key pillars that made WP Engine very special outside of, you know, its support and, and, and such. But, uh, they very much take security very seriously there. Hmm. Um, and, and, uh, yeah, they, they're, they're well known for that.

[00:04:14] John: Hmm. Interesting. So- Cool.

[00:04:16] James: Yeah.

[00:04:17] John: Maybe, uh, maybe at some point we can do, like, a WP Engine show. I don't, I don't know, but maybe. We'll see.

[00:04:24] Avi: Talking WordPress.

[00:04:26] John: All right. Uh, and now to talk about our module of the week, let's turn it over to Avi Schwab. As we said, a technical product consultant at ImageX and a maintainer of a number of Drupal modules of his own.

Avi, what do you have for us this week?

[00:04:41] Avi: Well, this week, um, I have a different module than what is up on the, uh, the card.

[00:04:50] Nic: Did you change it?

[00:04:51] John: We'll pi- I don't know ... fix it in pro- post. Oh, wait, we don't have post, so just keep going. Tell us about- Yeah,

[00:04:56] Avi: cool ...

[00:04:57] John: Image

[00:04:57] Avi: Effects. Nic- Nic- Nic, uh, Nicole fixed it. Uh, yes.

So, uh, thanks, John. So have you ever gone to edit image style in Drupal and looked at the list of filters and been like, "Give me more. I want more filters." Mm-hmm. Uh, have you ever said, uh, "I would like to mirror, filter, and convolute an image in Drupal all at the same time"? Well, if so, you are in luck. Let me introduce you to our module of the week, Image Effects.

So, uh, the Image Effects module was created by the Drupal user mondrake, uh, who's in Italy, uh, in September of 2015. Uh, but it's also the successor to the Image Cache Actions module- Hmm ... uh, which cr- was created all the way back in 2018. Uh, it has a 4.0.0 version available, uh, with Drupal 10 and 11 support.

Uh, it has a recent, uh, 5.0 version that supports Drupal 11.3 and above. Uh, the module is m- mostly actively maintained. Uh, it has security coverage. Uh, it has passing test coverage. Um, it has a full README with details about the available image styles, uh, which, uh, image libraries they're supported by, uh, and a bunch of other information about how to install it.

It has 35 open issues, 3 of which are bugs against the current branch. Uh, and that said, the current branch has only been out a few months, uh, and many of the open issues, uh, against the prior branches still seem to be relevant as I kinda went through those. Uh, the module has just over 35,000 sites reporting using it.

Uh, most still on the three or four X branches. Uh, but again, I'm kinda tying this in with the, the old module ImageCache Actions. I went back to look at that. Uh, it still has 25,000 active installs, uh, and it had peaked at over, like, 100,000 at some point. So, um, it's, uh, it's pretty cool. ImageCache Actions was one of, like, the first Drupal modules I ever remember installing and playing with.

Um, so, um, getting back to the module features and usage. So, uh, the module's installed just like any other. Uh, you compose or require it and enable it via Drush or the Drupal UI. Uh, once you install it, there's a very basic settings page, uh, but it's, like, three settings that you're pretty much gonna set the first time if you need to and then never use again.

Um, the power of Image Effects comes when you go to the config media image styles and then edit image style. Uh, once Image Effects is enabled, you'll see over two dozen additional effects in that list, uh, which you can do all kinds of stuff with Um, the effects range from simple to complex. Interestingly, many of the effects were, like, really cool 15 years ago.

Uh, and a lot of them are s- are doable with CSS now. Um, I went to DrupalCon or Drupal Camp Asheville recently, uh, and saw Aubrey Sanborn do a talk on, uh, You Don't Need J- You Don't Need JS For That, which was a bunch of new, like, CSS features. Um, she also did a talk a year or two ago that was Color in CSS.

So if you're interested in image effects, I would recommend going and watching Aubrey's talks. Uh, they're gonna show you a lot of things that you might not have known about CSS that you can also do with this module. Side note there. Um, so some of the effects that are there, uh, are the basics, like I was talking about.

You can color shift, you can contrast, you can mirror, you can rotate things. Again, these are things that you could do P- uh, natively in PHP and, you know, now we have a lot of CSS that can do that as well. Um, there are also more advanced filters like sharpen, blur, and convolute, uh, which let you make more complex modifications to images.

Uh, I learned what convolution of images is while I was working on this, which is applying n-dimensional matrices to images to, like, blur and sharpen and do edge protection and all this. Uh, if you've liked Photoshopped, you've probably done sort of some of this and in the show notes, I'll link a, uh, image convolution playground, uh, that, uh, that we- you can, you can mess around with.

Uh, finally, if you wanna get even deeper into image effects, you can create advanced image styles with ImageMagig- ImageMagick arguments, so just, like, providing command line arguments that will directly modify images. Wow. Uh, you could do text overlays, um, using Drupal tokens, which is super cool. Uh, and then you can also create your own image effects and there's a whole developing.md file in the module that has really well-detailed, uh, documentation about how to develop your own, uh, image effects.

So, uh, with all that, um, I'll just close out by saying I, I tested li- this a little bit out last night. I've, like, known about it for a long time, but it was very cool kind of, like, going back and, and playing with a lot of, uh, a lot of the features here. Um, it's all a little bit rough around the edges. Um, you've gotta kinda tweak the way you work on the, um, you know, which image library you're using.

You might have to install a, a number of dependencies depending on how you configure it. Um, but it's really cool, and it's a, a really great, um, uh, really great module that shows how Drupal is engineered to kind of bring in other, like, PHP ecosystem things and, and surface them to users. So, like, ImageMagick has a ton of power that most folks would never be able to touch, but Drupal kind of brings that.

This module brings that into the UI so, you know, theoretically a- Yeah ... you know, site builder could make interesting image styles. I

[00:10:33] John: think it's- So- I think, I think it's actually super interesting 'cause this module has, like, 35,000 installs, which is, like, it, it kind of blows my mind. Clearly a lot of these, these additions are, um, very useful to a lot of folks.

I did think the text overlay, uh, option was interesting, was interesting to me. I mean, obviously, you know, for accessibility reasons, text in images is not great, but if you wanted to, like, overlay sample on, on, like, product images or something like that and not have to have people do it, like, in, in, you know, in Photoshop beforehand, um, that could be, that could be a, a, a good use case.

Um- And

[00:11:09] Avi: that's gonna tie into next week's module of the week, too.

[00:11:12] John: O- oh boy. But Martin and I are- Te- teaser.

[00:11:14] Avi: Again, Martin's been working on these, and, uh, so I- he seeded a couple of these to me.

[00:11:20] John: There, there you go. Uh, spoiler, Avi's coming back for the module of the week next week as well. Um, I also think it's interesting, um, I've never heard, uh, the term convolution, and I think, like, anytime

I was like, "Oh, well, this module seems convoluted." But no, it seems like it's a- ... it's an actual term that maybe, maybe folks, as you said, using Photoshop is com- uh, are familiar with, so.

[00:11:43] Avi: You've, you've probably done it but not known that you've done it.

[00:11:48] John: Oh, I've, I've convoluted plenty of images.

[00:11:50] Avi: Oh, that's right.

[00:11:51] John: That's, that's pretty much my whole approach to Photoshop back when I actually used Photoshop. Um- I, I

[00:11:57] Nic: will say, I will say this does seem like an interesting, one of those interesting modules that I, I think I used once 'cause I needed some custom im- ImageMagick, uh- settings for something. I just don't remember what it was.

I think I was trying to make things look a little bit better and be a little bit smaller. Um, but I, I do wanna mention Mandrake is very, very active in the core queue. He does a lot of the testing work, and he does a lot of the, uh, a lot of database stuff, too, and he's been refactoring huge swaths of Drupal core tests to make them more performant and more in line with current standards.

So he does a lot of work with Drupal, um, beyond this module.

[00:12:39] Avi: Yeah, I mean, this is very much like a ecosystem base module, right? There are, like, there are lots of different... You know, it, it adds a bunch of things that you can build off of, but then there are even more, you know, there's, there's other kind of text effects.

There's, there's stuff, um, there, there's lots of modules that kind of leverage pieces of this. Um, and the Image Magick is really cool, too, 'cause, like, I was, I was going through some of that documentation last night, just, like, looking at some examples, and, like, there's an Image Magick, like, filter for, like, Polaroid, and you can just add, like, plus Polaroid to, like, a command line, and it'll, like, you know, add a border and, like, put a little, like, add a whole little, like, Polaroid border around your, your image- Hmm

with, like, a single, like, flag. Uh, there's all kinds of, uh- Will,

[00:13:25] Nic: will it- Yeah ... will it fade in slowly over, like, 30 to 60 seconds?

[00:13:30] Avi: That you can do with

[00:13:32] Nic: CSS. Okay.

[00:13:33] John: Everybody should go listen to Taylor Swift now.

[00:13:38] Avi: Or, or Aubrey.

[00:13:40] John: Uh, shake it like a Polaroid. Wasn't that a Taylor Swift song? There you go. No?

[00:13:43] Nic: I have no idea.

[00:13:44] John: Oh, man. Somebody's got- somebody's gonna, somebody's gonna pick this up and go-

[00:13:47] Avi: Gorillas?

[00:13:48] John: No ...

[00:13:49] Avi: w- were in there beforehand possibly?

[00:13:51] John: Oh, no, maybe that's not Taylor Swift. Anyway, all right, let's, let's move on. Uh, Avi, thanks for, thanks for bringing us a great module of the week. Uh, if folks wanted to suggest a module of the week or get in touch with you, how could they go about doing that?

[00:14:04] Avi: Totally. Uh, if you wanna suggest a module of the week, uh, or just connect, you can reach out on the Talking Drupal channel in Drupal Slack. Um, if you have a module of the week, you can ping, uh, Martin Anderson-Clutz at mandclu. Uh, he's the regular host. Um, I'll be around for the rest of the show, but you can reach me on Drupal Slack as well, on LinkedIn or Mastodon, uh, and you can find ImageX at ImageX.co.

[00:14:28] John: Fabulous. All right. Let's jump into our primary topic. Uh, James, um, can you give us just an overview of what the Acquia Fair Trade Initiative is?

[00:14:39] James: Yeah, yeah. No, no problem at all. Um, i- in essence, it's really a, it's a structural commitment that, uh, we built into our, our partner program at Acquia. Um, essentially, at, at the, the f- the frame of it all, Acquia is contributing 2% of, uh, every closed partner deal, uh, to the Drupal Association.

And so, uh, we also credit that contribution in the partner's name. That was a really, really important, um, part of this entire program. We, we wanted to make it, you know, structural, um, and, uh, not a sponsorship line item by any means. We, you know, wanted this to be built to last. And, uh, it's also not an annual grant either, so these, these contributions are happening, uh, quarterly.

Um, you know, they're, they're definitely not a one-time gift or, or anything along those lines. Um, they don't require any sort of approval either. Um, so we, you know, our board's not voting on this or, or anything like that. Um, and yeah, so it's essentially a part of our process now. It's part of the deal flow.

Um, and when a partner closes business with Acquia, a contribution to Drupal happens automatically. Um, and the Drupal economy's gonna grow. Uh, the Drupal project is gonna grow right along the, uh, with that. So that, that's essentially what it is.

[00:15:57] John: S- so question on that. So is that, I'm assuming that's new business from the start of this program.

Is that accurate?

[00:16:05] James: Yeah. So, um, just based on timing, we, we did do a bit of backdating, uh, within the quarter on when it was officially launched, and so we did bring in some of those, those deals that, um, did go through. But, um, it had started essentially when we announced it.

[00:16:22] John: And do those apply to renewal deals as well?

So, like, you, you book a new piece of business and then the next year it renews, like, does that also get 2%?

[00:16:30] James: It, it does not. And, and that's, you know, one of the reasons why is just because of the partner program itself at Acquia. Sure. Renewals are not necessarily part of, um, h- how we're funding partners. Um, doesn't mean that that's not on the table for the future, but, uh, you know, anything that's a new logo or a new sort of deal or even an- Mm

expansion deal, that happens as well. So our partners are, you know, heavily involved with our account management teams, uh, working alongside them, um, and, and trying to make, you know, our mutual customers successful.

[00:17:03] Nic: Um, so you, you mentioned that the board doesn't have to weigh in. They're, like, it's just kind of an automatic thing.

I, I'm curious a little bit about- Yeah ... how this program started then. I, I assume, like, w- w- where did the idea for this come from? And, and what kind of- Yeah ... approvals did you have to go through? 'Cause I imagine they weighed in at some point along the process. The,

[00:17:26] Avi: the board always has something to say.

[00:17:28] James: Yeah, yeah.

Um, um, so i- i- it, when I had first started, I, uh, one of my, my very first intentions, uh, it was to, to get close to the Drupal Association, and so I started to make some connections there. And, um, Molly, um, was one of those very first connections that I, I made. And Molly and myself and a few of the partner managers had spent quite a bit of time just discussing challenges in the ecosystem, challenges at the DA level, challenges within Acquia.

And, you know, she was a long-term, a long-time Aquian, uh, before she did go to the, the Drup- the Drupal Association, and so she just had a ton of knowledge and s- and, you know, was a, a huge resource for somebody like myself that was coming on board. And, and so, um, through those discussions, you know, we, we had, uh, difficult conversations about, you know, how funding of, of the, the association is done and what help they needed.

And, um, you know, there, there was a moment in time where there was a bit of frustration, I think, on our end with a couple of things that were happening, and I was, you know, I was really kind of just challenging myself and saying like, "How, how can we solve some of these, these issues and really try to shine a good light into all the things that, you know, Acquia is doing and, and, and truly what our partners are doing?"

Um, and that, that was essentially the, the birth of the Fair Trade Initiative was, was, uh, on a phone call. Um, and, you know, I basically said like, "Why don't, why don't we, why don't we start contributing on behalf of our partners? And let's not touch it with Acquia's hands, essentially. Like, yes, we'll, we'll be there to help fund this, of course, but we're gonna do this in the name of the partners.

Um, and, and we wanna do this in the name of the partners that really don't have the means to contribute, whether it's code or volunteer hours or, or even monetary. Um, but they wanna be a part of something." Um, and, you know, some of those are really large GSIs in the ecosystem that we know are using, uh, Drupal, and, and some of those are really small shops.

And, um, and when we are talking to those folks, they're like, "Yeah, I do wanna be involved somehow or some way." And, and so that's, that's where it essentially came from, was, was trying to solve essentially that. Like, how do we get more of these partners involved doing good things?

[00:19:43] Nic: So, sorry, what does GSI stand for?

[00:19:46] James: Yeah. Global System Integrator.

[00:19:48] Nic: Oh, okay.

[00:19:49] James: Yeah.

[00:19:50] Nic: Um, a- and so, um- Are there other problems you were trying to solve? I mean, on its face it seems like it, it's trying to help solve, you know, the funding crisis that most nonprofits are facing right now. Is, was that one of the driving factors too, or are there other problems that you're-

[00:20:07] James: Yeah, I mean, uh, uh, yeah, absolutely.

It was, it was how do we, how do we fund open source essentially. You know, how, how do we make this a sustainable project, Drupal, uh, for the long term. Um, and how do we get more people involved in doing that. Um, and, and again, like, there's, there's a lot of red tape in companies on why maybe they can or cannot make donations, uh, to, to the Drupal Association, or put forth code, um, or, you know, even volunteering their time, right?

There's only a certain amount of hours in a day that, that, uh, individuals have, and so some of these things are just difficult to do. And, um, Acquia having an opportunity to make that a, a frictionless process for folks. And that's, you know, what also you're gonna see as part of Acquia's theme and into the future here is, you know, how do we get folks onto Acquia as fast as possible, and how do we make it as frictionless as possible as well.

Easy to do business with.

[00:21:02] Nic: Yep.

[00:21:03] Avi: Mm-hmm. Interesting. Okay. So, I, we talked a little bit about the challenges of sustaining open source and the VA. Um, I'm wondering, uh, you know, a, a lot of people may know some of the backstory and, and the challenges, some may, may not. Um, so I'm wondering, like, if you could talk a little bit more about how, why fair trade is important, um, for Acquia and the Drupal ecosystem.

Uh, and another thing, like, that I've kind of been thinking about is, like, um, I've had, I've tried to have this conversation with, with clients and stuff too, we've, we've talked about it at camps, but, like, sometimes it's hard to make the pitch for, um, people downstream, um, to, to know about, like, the benefits of contributing, right?

Mm-hmm. Somebody who's, like, a site owner might not have any knowledge about, like, w- why giving money to some random nonprofit is good for them.

[00:21:59] James: Yeah, no, I, look, I think it's a, it's a really good point. I mean, I said it earlier in the call, you know, I was previously at another open source, uh, you know, technology company and, um, even myself then being naive to what really goes into managing and, and running an open source technology, I mean, there's, there's things that folks just do not think about.

Um, and if you're not a part of the association or really part of that community in, in a tight-knit way, you don't think about the infrastructure costs. I think, you know, we take those things for granted. Um, and infrastructure's expensive. Um, and so I, I just, I, I feel like a lot of it's an awareness, uh, piece.

Um, you know, I think we all could do a much better job of just making folks aware of like, what does it really take to, to run an open source, uh, technology, uh, at its core? And I think, you know, if we could do that better, more and more people will get involved and more and more people would be open to the idea.

Um, but you know, to, to really kind of answer your question on why is Fairtrade important for Acquia and the Drupal ecosystem, I think it's because it really aligns incentives that used to sit in separate conversations. Um, you know, and, and for years, how the business is doing and how's the project doing were two different meetings.

Um, and Fairtrade really makes them the same meeting now, in my opinion. For Drupal, it creates the first revenue-linked funding mechanism the project has really ever had. Uh, money that grows as the ecosystem grows is, is powerful, right? And like, it's, it's, one is not without the other. And so, you know, for Acquia, it makes us the only commercial Drupal vendor with reinvestment hardwired into our partner economics right now.

Um, but for the whole community, it's, it's sending a signal that, you know, the health of the project is treated very serious. Um, and, and we're, we're, we're really, you know, really caring about making sure that the technology, you know, that it's running on is, is gonna be there in the long term. And so you heard me a little bit earlier saying like, you know, Acquia cares, cares about, cares about this, but you know, the idea behind this is this is not Acquia's program.

And, and I was very clear with, with, with, uh, you know, T-Tim and, and Molly and, and when we were doing this, and also internally at, at, you know, Acquia, that this is not Acquia's program. We're just the first to do it, and the door is open for anybody to do this We wanna work along with, side them in doing it

[00:24:23] Nic: Uh, so are, are you, are you in talks with any other hosting providers or agencies that are thinking about adopting a similar model already?

Or is it, is it too

[00:24:33] James: fresh? Yes. Yeah, so, um, we are aware of one other, uh, hosting provider, uh, down under that is very interested, uh, in, in, in doing something along this. I haven't had the opportunity to connect with them yet, but I, you know, I do know that, uh, the Drupal Association is talking to them, uh, about that.

And, and, um, and then yeah, we've, we've got one partner right now, um, that's also very excited about this, that's, you know, trying to run a, a separate program themselves. Um, and, um, it's, it's starting to get adoption, for sure. Um, and that's, that's the exciting piece. And I think as more and more people get on board, we're gonna start to see more and more larger players get on board.

And, um, you know, even Acquia, some of our technology partners, when we presented this at, um, Acquia Engage in Denver, we, we had some of those sponsors, you know, sitting in the crowd, and they started to raise their hand, uh, and, and say like, "How, how do we get involved in something like this to, to support Drupal?"

Um, and you know, they support other CMSs as well, but they obviously saw the need that they needed to continue to support Drupal, and I'm sure they're thinking the same thing about WordPress and some of the other technologies that are out there that are open source.

[00:25:46] Nic: Uh, and before we move on, I, I do wanna point out one thing that is a little bit unique about the Drupal Association too, 'cause yeah, a lot of these other open source projects do have, you know, a, an association or some sort of nonprofit to help manage things.

But the Drupal Association provides, um, a significant level of service, I think above and beyond what many others do, right? Mm-hmm. The, the level of testing and infrastructure that the Drupal Association supports that's just available to any community member, if you have a contrib module, is kind of unheard of in the open source space.

Um, there's a lot of GitLab minutes being burned every month.

[00:26:27] Avi: And I think it's like $3 million a year or something I've- Yeah ... I've seen, like just to keep- It's not insignificant ... like the drupal.org,

[00:26:33] Nic: and

[00:26:35] Avi: the servers, and the distribution, and the, um, the, the, the Composer packagist, all that

stuff, and the GitLab running.

[00:26:44] James: Yeah.

[00:26:44] Avi: Yeah. Yeah. It's- Um ...

[00:26:45] James: it's, it's, it's a substantial amount of money. You know? It's, it's, it's a lot of money. Um- Yeah

[00:26:52] Avi: Um, I wanna pull in a question that's, that's a little, we had a little later down, but I think, I think you touched on it. You said, um, Fair Trade isn't Acquia's program, it's the community's program.

Um, I, I'm, I'm wondering, um, like, uh, it seems like Acquia created it though, maybe in partnership with the Drupal Association. But is there a, like, Fair Trade framework or, like, some sort of open program model that you all have produced where, where somebody who comes to you and says, "I wanna do this," could take this, you know, package of the, not software, but, but, you know, um, th- governance stuff and, and be able to really easily reproduce it or pitch it to their board or, you know, whatever?

[00:27:40] James: Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, early in the discussion, you know, and we talked a little bit about, like, how did, how did this come about? Um- Told you a little bit about where the idea really actually came from. Um, and then there was a ton of hard work that had to happen behind the scenes at Acquia to get this done.

You know, number one, we had to go and look and say like, do, do we have budget to even fund something like this? Um, and, um, you know, what, what percent do we even wanna, you know, send over? Um, and so there was, you know, w- that's where the, I think a lot of the fun happened. I had a ton of internal learning as well, um, as to what that process would look like.

Um, and so again, you know, there's a ton of people that have rallied behind this internally, a ton of people that care about Drupal, care about the association, and a ton of people at, at Acquia that, um, really like this program. And so, uh, you know, there was a bit of a tiger team that, uh, worked, you know, for a few weeks on can we fund this?

What do the mechanics look like so that, you know, this is just a, a seamless process. Um, when a deal gets closed, we make the attribution like we do for partner commissions and such, and then we make sure that we're, um, sending over what that contribution would be and by which partner. And so, um, we, we, you know, we did a lot of that work, uh, in- internally and, and, um, of course we had ELT get, um, you know, or was brought into awareness around it and said this is what we're doing and this is how we're funding it.

And that was essentially the approval process for it. And so, you know, is this sort of an open source project within itself? The answer is yes. And, um, again, it's, you know, the documentation on how we did this, um, we have it and we can readily share it, and we can, you know, talk through, uh, some of the, you know, challenges that, uh, or the gotchas that you have to think about when, when doing a project like this.

But what I would say is it's a lot easier than maybe what some people are, are thinking. Um, budget's probably the biggest piece.

[00:29:38] John: I, I'm not, I'm not, uh, suggesting y- you do this, but if you wanna take this idea and run with it, a, um, Acquia DA blog series about the fair trade initiative and how you might, might start your own, um, could, could be appealing.

You know, just toss that in the, uh, marketing team's ear and see what they think. Um- I know

[00:30:01] Avi: some, some guys who already have the infrastructure all set up for that.

[00:30:04] John: Yeah.

[00:30:05] Avi: They're not doing much.

[00:30:06] John: Um, so my next question is, uh, I don't know. There's a lot here, so I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna ask it, and then I'm gonna kinda unpack it a little bit.

Sure. Um, the question here is, like, how does the program benefit agencies and freelancers? So, like, you already talked a little bit about how it benefits agencies as far as, like- Agency brings contracts to Acquia, Acquia signs contract, Acquia gives 2% of that contract to, um, Drupal Association in agency's name, right?

Right. So, like, the agency is getting, getting recognition. Um, I'm wondering is there a minimum contract price? 'Cause I imagine, like, for example, a freelancer could follow the same model, I assume. Um, maybe, maybe not. Um, but there's probably a, a minimum contract price that's like, "Eh, you gotta be above this, above this weight class for this to apply."

Is that, is that accurate?

[00:31:04] James: Yeah. I mean, actually, there, there is not a, not a minimum. Um, and, and in fact, you know, we ran into this a little bit already within the quarter. Um, there's, there's really not a cap as well. Um, you know, we- Okay ... we do have a, we do have a, a, a fairly large cap on commissions to partners, um, in, in itself, um, that's been around for, for quite a bit, few years, uh, within the Acquia Partner Program, but, um, there is not a minimum on it.

Um, no, I mean, a- any- Hmm ... any, any dollar helps is our opinion. Um, and I think the DA believes that as well.

[00:31:38] John: And okay, so that's great. Glad to hear that. And then do, do you have to be an agency? Like, could, uh, could a freelancer come in and say, "Hey, I am a partner. I sign this contract. I want, you know, I want those, the, you know, the credit for it on, you know, on my D.O profile"?

[00:31:57] James: Yeah, no. The only stipulation is that you're a partner of Acquia. Okay. So you come in, you sign up for the partner program, you click the terms of service, you're an official partner of Acquia.

[00:32:08] John: Got

[00:32:08] James: it. Uh, there are, there are no minimums even within our, our tiering, uh, either. Um, so if, you know, you start out at community, you're a partner of Acquia, uh, and, um, when you start receiving commissions, of course, you'll be eligible for the, the Fair Trade Initiative.

So whether you're a one person or you're a 500,000-person company.

[00:32:28] John: Um, okay, so last, last part of this question, um- Agency benefit. So I mean, I imagine the, the main benefit, the, the clear benefit is you're supporting the DA, you're getting contribution credits for doing that because you're supporting the DA.

Yeah. How is that ... How are, how are agencies, uh, I don't know, marketing that, popularizing that? How ... Are, are they, are they seeing any other benefits to that as far as, like, being able to win business because, because this program exists?

[00:33:03] James: Y- yeah, so, you know, I think as, as the program started to become real, uh, more and more, those sort of questions started to pop into m- up into my mind as to, you know, how, how are agencies benefiting from this?

And I, I think a lot of that's gonna be answered in how the agency wants to position themselves with, with these donations. Um- Hmm ... you know, the DA obviously is recognizing these contributions, uh, themselves. You know, as, as we were speaking to them around, um, you know, the topic of being a maker, um, and, and giving that label, I think, uh, there, there was a bit of, uh, hesitation in making, you know, these contributions, um, allowing them to be essentially eligible as a, quote-unquote, maker, uh, within the community.

And, and while I understand and, uh, you know, agree with, or, or I understand the DA's position on that specifically, I would like to see that, you know, these contributions do allow these partners to become eligible for that kind of maker tag, uh, specifically. But, you know, the benefit, um, in, in my opinion, is all in how the agency's gonna position themselves.

Um-

[00:34:13] John: Hmm ...

[00:34:13] James: it, it really depends on the contracts that they're working, uh, themselves with, with clients. If open source technology's important to those clients, then yeah, absolutely. You know, they can stand up and say, "This is a program that we're a part of. We are, you know, um, making sure that Drupal is sustainable into the future," et cetera.

Um, but yeah, you know- Yeah ... again, John, I think the answer is really in how a partner's gonna answer that.

[00:34:37] John: Is, is Acquia ... I'm assuming Acquia is reporting back to the partner and saying, "Hey, you know, on your behalf, we gave X number of dollars to the DA this-" Yeah ... "this quarter," right? So, like, in reverse, the agency could say, "Hey, we support, you know, open source with, you know, X number of dollars," right?

Is that kind of, kind of the right idea?

[00:34:59] James: Yeah. I, I, I will get to, uh ... I will, I will say that that's probably one of the best parts of, of my job at the end of the quarter is I have personally sent out a few of those emails. Um, I was, I was very excited to do that. You know, sent a couple Slacks as, as well.

But Acquia is notifying those partners that, "Hey, we're, we're doing this on your behalf." Um, I don't know quite what the communication is looking like from the, uh, DA quite yet, but I do know that, like Molly and I were talking about, you know- Hmm ... that they were gonna do something along those lines as well.

[00:35:30] John: Yeah, but I, I mean even for the agency, like knowing that and being able to share that with, you know, on their, their channels is probably a, a great, um, a great benefit to them probably. Yeah,

[00:35:41] James: absolutely. It's something to be proud of in my opinion.

[00:35:44] John: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[00:35:45] Avi: And- Yeah ... I mean, you hit on something, uh, going back there that, you know, it, it- Sorry, I'm not sure how I got there.

But, um, I d- I think the benefit is interesting because, you know, um, y- you're essentially taking 2% of Acquia's profits, right? Correct. And, and giving it away to the Drupal Association. Um, uh, Acquia, I think, is in a good position to do that with their, their size, uh, at this point, just being a kind of larger player in this space.

I think for a lot of folks, especially smaller agencies, um, or in- even individuals, um, you know, ti- times are tough and that might be really hard. And so what you were saying, kind of giving, giving folks who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to be makers, to be able to say, like, "I actually did do that.

Like, I, I had this partnership with Acquia. Acquia donated on my behalf. Like, you know, e- even though I may not have the resources right now to be able to, to contribute back." Like, there's still, there- there's still some kind of a direct path. So I think that's, that could be a powerful thing. Um-

[00:36:52] John: Y- yeah. I, I agree with that, but I also think, like, and, and we're

I, I don't know, we might have hit on it early on in the show, but, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it more directly here. Like, there are some organizations that are just not po- capable, uh, or, or limited in their ability, let's, let's use that one, right? To give funds to the DA directly, right? Yeah. They can do business with Acquia.

They like doing business with Acquia. They wanna do business with Acquia, but they can't go out and say, "Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a donation to the DA." So this, this enables them to get that maker tag and also be providing, you know, not directly, but indirectly, uh, funding to the DA for the, for the, you know, the infrastructure and the programming and the, and the people that they, um, they-

[00:37:45] James: Employ

[00:37:45] John: they use, you know? They- Yeah ... they, they're using Drupal, in theory, right? If they're on Acquia. Um, so this gives them that, that path. And I mean, I think for a lot of the larger organizations, um, that's becoming more and more prevalent because, um, you know, uh, budgets and, and cost sheets are, are kind of streamlining down to, like, well, giving money to open source software, eh, I don't know.

Right? So it seems, seems like a good, a good way to do it to me.

[00:38:20] Nic: So I- I'm curious what participating in the initiative looks like. So James, you've mentioned that once a quarter you kinda look at the new business, you make that donation on behalf of the partner. Uh, is this reported somewhere? Is there like a table I can look at to see which, uh, partners have participated in this program so far?

If, if I'm curious. Like, if I'm looking to work with an, a, a partner, is there a way for me to validate which ones have participated in this or not? Um...

[00:38:52] James: Yeah, yeah. Good, good, good question, Nic. So, um, right now on, on, on Acquia's side, we've not, uh, validated that in a public, uh, fashion by any means. Um, there's again, just discussions around how we personally are gonna, um, do that.

I mean, it- If, if you think about the nature of the program, one of the key elements was Acquia wanted to be basically the pipeline for this, but not necessarily in the s- spotlight for it either. You know, we were making these donations in the name of the partner, uh- Mm-hmm ... exclusively. Um, and so, you know, we've been very careful as to, like, you know, really kind of publishing, "Hey, this partner did X, Y, Z with us."

We've also been very careful with, you know, how much we are, are making a, a, you know, donation of, uh, just for privacy purposes and things like that. Um, but, you know, it is, it is substantial for sure and, um, you know, I wasn't shocked by any means by the first kind of check that we've, we've put out to the DA, but I was, I was like, "This is, this is very helpful for them, for sure."

Um, but yeah, we've been, again, you know, we kinda wanna be hands off onto it being about Acquia and more about the partner, uh, exclusively. S-

[00:40:09] John: so, so in that, in that vein, it seems like it's more on the partner to say, "Hey, we're, we're participating in this", or looking at their, you know, D.O profile and trying to kind of like g- guesstimate if they're involved.

Right?

[00:40:25] James: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And-

[00:40:26] John: Well- ...

[00:40:27] James: I, one of, one of the fun things that we did kinda do as well, and you'll be seeing these- Mm-hmm ... uh, more and more- That's cool ... is we did create some of these pins, you know, that we're gonna be handing out, um, to, to contributors and stuff. Um, so yeah.

[00:40:43] Nic: So I g- I guess then, uh, uh, the question I have then is if you're doing this on behalf of your partners and the DA is a non-profit, does that mean it's a, is it tax deductible for them or is it tax deductible for you?

I mean, I, obviously this isn't why you're doing it. Yeah. I'm just curious how that- Tax benefits are always why

[00:41:03] James: you're doing

[00:41:04] John: it. ... you know. We're also not tax professionals. We're, we're- Yeah, yeah ... stating that, you know.

[00:41:08] Nic: I'm just curious.

[00:41:10] James: Yeah. No, it's, it's actually a really good question. Um, I, I don't have the answer to that one.

You know, we- ... we had finance heavily involved in this obviously, and, um, there possibly is some benefits to that, but I'll be really honest, like, we didn't discuss that at all as part of, uh, as part of this initiative. Um, and again, I think that, that kinda shows the nature of the, of the program. Um-

[00:41:30] Nic: Yeah ...

[00:41:30] James: it wasn't about Acquia, uh, in, in, in this.

It was, it was more of trying to do good. Um, but- Yeah ... you know, now that you bring it up, I'm, I, you know, making donations as such is probably, uh, you know, something that, um- Well, I- ... I could potentially benefit from, or the partner. I'd have to get clarification-

[00:41:48] Nic: Yeah ... on that. Well, that, that's

[00:41:49] James: my- It's more than likely the partner.

[00:41:51] Nic: Yeah, that's why I was bringing it up, 'cause you, you mentioned you were looking for additional ways to- promote that this is a benefit for the partners, right? Right. And if it's, if it's made on their behalf, then it's probably a tax deduction or, or most likely a deduction, not a credit. And if it's a tax deduction, that's a direct benefit for them.

[00:42:08] James: For sure.

[00:42:08] Nic: Right? And so that's something that you can help promote as well. Uh-

[00:42:12] James: Yeah.

[00:42:12] Nic: Well-

[00:42:12] John: Again, you should-

[00:42:13] James: We might need- ... check

[00:42:14] John: with your tax professional.

[00:42:15] Nic: Yeah,

[00:42:15] James: yeah. Yeah, I was just about to say- Yeah ... uh, we probably wanna be careful about giving out tax advice to our partners at this point.

[00:42:21] Nic: It, it also probably depends on what jurisdiction they're in, 'cause it, um, you know, 'cause Acquia does do business globally, right?

So- Good point. Absolutely ... yeah, check, check with your local- But it, it's something for them to, to explore as well. Yeah.

[00:42:33] James: And, and it's a good clarifi- clarifying question that I'll probably need to go back and, you know, make sure that we get answered as well, 'cause partners will be evident- uh, you know, eventually asking about it potentially.

[00:42:43] Avi: Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna continue driving us away from tax advice and come back to, uh- ... the community. And so you talked a little bit about how you worked with Molly and the DA. Yeah. Uh, you talked a little bit about how you, um, you had a, a number of different internal teams, um, who, who kind of worked on, on producing this.

I'd imagine, you know, a lot of people at Acquia are involved in the community as well. Um, so how did the community, um, kind of influence the structure of this? How did, how did they play a role?

[00:43:14] James: Uh, yeah, it, it's- You know, I think number one, um, again, when I was coming on to, to this, this position and I did a ton of listening, a ton of conversations with partners.

Um, and as time was going on, these, you know, ideologies were, you know, kind of just coming together for myself and again, continued discussion with Molly and such. And so I, I think the community, by way of talking to myself and the other partner managers and just folks at Acquia, um, has, has helped shape, again, trying to solve this, this kind of elephant in the room.

Um, and then, you know, again, folks within the, the community s- got to see the Fair Trade Initiative, uh, a, a bit beforehand. They gave some feedback as to, you know, again, like we should potentially look at who we're calling a maker and why we're calling them the maker and, and, and, and such. And so, you know, there was language that we had to take out on some of the initial releases that we were trying to do because we were trying to be fair, um, and, and equitable to how, you know, the DA had positioned, uh, that topic specifically to all the folks that do contribute, um, by code and do contribute by volunteering hours and, and such.

And so, you know, I, I've learned that about the Drupal, uh, ecosystem and the community specifically. It's, it's very thoughtful and, um, uh, you know, we, we wanted to make sure that we were very tho- thoughtful as well in, in, in the program. And, you know, the program's ever-evolving and, uh, there will be, you know, influences that will change it potentially.

Um, but you know, we, we, we're very happy with the outcome of it and, and I hope everyone else is as well. It seemed to have gotten quite a bit of really good publicity, so.

[00:45:02] John: So I have a, I have a question for ... And, and James, you can, you can abstain from this one if you'd like. But for, for the, for the other, for the other hosts, because I'm, I'm just curious, right?

So it's a couple ... The ... We've mentioned makers a couple of times, right? And I think like- A lot of people assume, like, if you just donate money that you aren't necessarily a maker, 'cause you're, you're not really making anything, you're just donating money. But, like, in my opinion, like, I don't necessarily agree with that.

I- Nic or Avi, can you tell me why I'm wrong?

[00:45:39] Avi: I think, I think that, that conception is patently false. I would, I would, I would s- strongly disagree with that. Um, you know, I, I think there ... Y- you know, we've, we've spent so much time over the years trying to kind of roll back this idea that, like, only people who write code are makers.

Um, and- Oh, so

[00:45:57] John: you would agree with me that if I- I- ... if I donate cash, I am a, in fact, a maker?

[00:46:01] Avi: Absolutely, yes. I would agree with you- All right ... that if you donate cash, you're a maker. Um- Okay ... I think, you know, uh, I've ... I- I've never been on the Drupal Association board, but I've been involved in community stuff for 15 years now, and I, I can tell you very much, um, this community has a lot of code.

Uh, w- w- we ... we're, we're ... You know, we always need that, but, like, we've got a lot of people who write code really well. Um, having volunteers to do other stuff and having money to keep that code running are also incredibly important. Um, and we ... The, the code doesn't run without, without money to keep the servers on.

[00:46:41] Nic: And, and- Uh, the code- Es- especially, especially no-strings-attached type of money, right? Yeah. Because the ... You know, for example, there's been initiatives in the past where companies have come together and donated money, and yes, of course, that frees up some capital elsewhere. But there are pieces of managing the Drupal infrastructure, uh, that need funding but aren't necessarily flashy.

Like, I, I know that, um, Neil and the team did a lot of work. They're decommissioning a bunch of old stuff. They did a migration from one data center to another. Like, it had to happen. That money had to come from somewhere. It's

[00:47:21] Avi: huge amounts of work. And ...

[00:47:22] Nic: Yeah, yeah. I, I can't even imagine how much work went into that.

But it ... But having the ability, having that ability to do that frees up the Drupal Association to do other stuff that also directly benefits the, the community and the product and all that stuff. So yeah, I mean, are you-

[00:47:40] John: So- So sorry, Nic, you're in agreement as well that just donating cash makes you a maker?

I'm just trying to-

[00:47:46] Nic: I mean, maker ... I, like, you can get ... You can split hairs. It's beneficial to the community and to the association. W- would I, um- I mean, there's, there's ... I don't wanna discredit people that are volunteering time, right? Or, but providing cash to the association also helps, right? Um, I wouldn't split hairs, right?

[00:48:10] John: Okay.

[00:48:11] Nic: It, it's been-

[00:48:11] Avi: Well, and I, I think the other, I- tying this all back into Acquia and the fair trade, uh, situation, I, Nic, I think you, you hit on a good point. Like, th- there, you know, it, there's been a lot of talk about the AI initiative and how it's got tons of money to do all this cool stuff. But, like, z- z- zero dollars, as far as I understand, of the AI initiative money, like, goes towards keeping the lights on at Drupal, at the Drupal Association.

[00:48:37] Nic: Yeah.

[00:48:37] Avi: It's cool stuff, and it, it will have, like, it, I- I'm sure it will have kind of long-term, uh, implications. But, like, we need unrestricted money to keep the lights on, and that's what this is doing, right? It's, it's Acquia, um, and its partners saying like, like, "We know that these things have to happen," and like, we're not gonna say like, "2% of this money is gonna go to Acquia's initiatives to work on the thing in Drupal core that Acquia decides is important."

It's saying like, "Here's the money. Like, it's yours, you know, Drupal Association. Like you, you, you decide where it goes." Which is- That's

[00:49:17] James: right ...

[00:49:17] Avi: which is a big deal.

[00:49:18] James: Yeah. We, we, we have to trust that, that they know, you know, what's best for, for those contributions at that given time.

[00:49:26] Nic: Yep.

[00:49:26] James: Yeah.

[00:49:28] John: Okay. So I'm glad that we're all in agreement here that, uh, you know, if you're giving money, you're, you're, you're a, you're a maker.

'Cause, you know, I ... I'm with you, Nic. We're splitting hairs. Like, I feel like we need to, we need to support people, and sometimes people can't write the code, but they can buy, buy hours or pay somebody to support the code or pay somebody to fix an issue. Like, you know, I- and they should get recognized for that.

Um, all right. James, before we talk about challenges, I do want to say hi to Martin, who's apparently in Cardiff

[00:50:08] James: Hi, Martin

[00:50:08] John: Um- How's it going, Martin? Hence the reason he's not here. I feel like Cardiff's probably better than here, but hey, what do I know? And then, uh, Terrence also, uh, in the chat saying hi. Um- Just had to come in and vote

makers, takers, and money. All right.

[00:50:27] Nic: Yeah, I think, I think that's a

[00:50:28] John: good point. Um- Uh, yeah, I, I think that's what I just said, but it's way more concise when Terence says it. I

[00:50:32] Avi: think ... So yeah, there, there's, there's a, there's a g- you know, some people have time and some people have money. Yeah. And, uh-

[00:50:38] James: Every, everyone's situation is different, right?

[00:50:41] John: Yeah, for sure.

[00:50:42] James: Yeah.

[00:50:43] John: For sure. And I think, like, you know, I don't know, I wouldn't go out and, and spend cycles trying to find another term for the folks that are just giving money. I would just say like, "Yeah, you're a maker." Yeah. You're helping somebody else make things. In- in- indirectly, you are also a maker.

Um- Yeah ... so we talked kind of about how f- the Fair Trade Initiative got started. Um, we talked about the, the, you know, the great work you guys are doing with your partners to kind of enable the Drupal Association. I'm wondering what challenges you face, you know? What, what were some of those early stumbling blocks that you're like, "Well, this could have gone smoother," or- Yeah

you know, "This one was really hard, and then we worked together, we figured it out"?

[00:51:27] James: Yeah, no, i- it's, you know, I, again, I, I, I think the, the entire process, there was a ton of people that rallied behind it. Um, we, we had a ton of momentum in, in going into to getting this, this, this rolled out. Um, like anything, when, when things, uh, get across someone, uh, that's, uh, uh, on the legal team, you know, there's, there's a ton of questions that have to get asked and, and such.

But, you know, I think, look, um, the first is clarity on the money. Um, people really, you know, needed to understand that 2% comes from Acquia's margin, uh, not the partner, uh, not the customer. Uh, you know, we, we, uh, we budget every year for specific things within the partner organization. And, and so, you know, the partner, the partner organization had the, the ability to, to make this 2% donation.

Um, but, you know, as we were communicating this in the, the community, uh, a lot, you know, there was some, there was some assumptions being made that it was coming out of their pocket, um, you know, the partner's pocket specifically. Uh, you know, potentially, you know, going back to the tax piece was, you know, maybe looked at as not a gift or, or whatever may have you.

How sustainable was it gonna be? Um, and so we've been pretty disciplined about the communication around that and making sure that, you know, we're, we're very specific, uh, in that. And then again, it's just, you know, the, the language aspect of this. Um, uh, you know, things were moving, moving quite, quite well for us.

But, you know, once, once we had our legal teams look at it, we wanted to make sure that, uh, everything was very buttoned up, um, and, and, and good to go. Um, so tho- those were some of the, the challenges. Um, and then, you know, uh, I, I think, again- Some people might see this as a publicity stunt or m- maybe not, but we're, we're true to what the program is and what we're trying to accomplish and the outcomes that we're looking for.

[00:53:18] John: I, I- Well- So I heard there are challenges, lawyers and accountants, which- Yeah. ... which, which tracks for me. I mean, I-

[00:53:25] James: Yeah, they're all great people. They're, they- I love my lawyer ... they're all great people.

[00:53:28] John: Yeah, yeah. I love my lawyer, I love my accountant. They keep me, they keep me outta, outta trouble. But yeah, I g- you add them into a situation and, you know, y- it, it becomes complicated.

I wonder though- Yeah ... um, one thing you just mentioned is, like, the 2% is coming out of Acquia's profits. Acquia also provides, uh, uh, monies back to the partner as well, right?

[00:53:53] James: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:54] John: So ultimately, like, you guys are actually paying out on that profit a little bit more than the 2%, 'cause not only are you paying the DA, but you're also paying the partner, right?

[00:54:03] James: That's right. Yeah, so-

[00:54:04] John: Huh. Okay ...

[00:54:05] James: an, an example of this, let's just, let's just say you're, you know, one of Acquia's, you know, elite partners. Um, let's, you know, you might make a 25% commission on an opportunity. Um, in essence, Acquia is paying 27% on that. Right. Right. So the partner still gets 25%, uh, nothing changed there, but Acquia is paying 27.

[00:54:25] Nic: Well-

[00:54:25] John: Got it. Huh. Okay.

[00:54:27] Nic: So I'm, I'm curious how long this whole process took then. Like, when did you first come up with the idea? I think you said you were talking with the DA in, in... Was it a year, two years, three months? Like- Oh,

[00:54:37] James: no ... how long? No, yeah, it was probably three months tops, yeah.

[00:54:40] Nic: Oh, really? Yeah. That

[00:54:41] James: is

[00:54:41] Nic: so fast.

I am my mind is blown.

[00:54:45] James: Yeah.

[00:54:46] John: I mean, I, I imagine it's a pretty quick conversation when you're like, "Hey, I wanna give you 2% of a, of a, of a hefty deal." You're probably like, "Okay, let's, let's figure that out-" I- "... like ASAP," right? I,

[00:54:56] Nic: I meant on the lawyer side, the board side-

[00:54:58] Avi: Yeah, I mean, the, "I wanna take 2% off of our profits" conversation is a lot more, uh, you know, I would think would be a lot harder.

[00:55:05] John: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean- Yeah. It's good ... some- sometimes when you couch it in, "Hey, we're doing good," or, "We're doing the right thing," people kinda like to go like, "Yeah, yeah. You're right, we are." And they make it easier. I don't know. Uh, maybe I'm just being rose-colored glasses, but like-

[00:55:21] James: Yeah ...

[00:55:21] John: let's, let's live there.

[00:55:22] James: It, it, it's, it's, uh, one of those initiatives where it's, a lot of it is the, uh, it's easy to say yes, it's just the details, um, making sure that you work through the details, right? That, that's the biggest part.

[00:55:36] Nic: How do you see this shaping kind of future partnerships? Do you, do you see, um, do you think you'll see more people looking to partner with Acquia because they know that a- aside from the commission that they can make, they- they're- they'll be doing good as well? Um, is that really just a secondary effect?

How, how do you think about it from that perspective?

[00:55:55] James: I, you know, I, I, you know, I, I don't, I, I... It's tough to say. You know, I think it's one of the benefits of working with Acquia. Um, but there's a lot of reasons why people will work with Acquia or any other, you know, um, vendor out, out there specifically, and, and it's case by case.

Um, I don't think this one motion specifically is the reason why you're gonna come to Acquia and Acquia exclusively. Um, but, uh, it's, it's again, it's one of those, those, uh, initiatives that, you know, you should feel good about working with Acquia because- Yeah ... of all the things that we are trying to, to accomplish.

Um, so, uh, but, you know, have we seen a, a rise in partnerships, uh, specifically around this? Uh, not necessarily. Um, but what you have seen is some more conversations with myself or the team- Yeah ... going back to some of these partners and saying, "Hey, like, would you like to match this offer? Uh, this is something that we're doing.

Would you like to be in, in, in, you know, a part of this?" Um, and so it's opened up some of those doors. Um, and a- and again, it's a feel-good initiative internally for Acquia, but it could be a feel-good initiative for any one of our partners, uh, or, or vendors out there in the ecosystem, even if you're not a partner of Acquia, so.

[00:57:05] Nic: Well, when did, when did this, um, initiative launch?

[00:57:10] James: Uh, officially we did it at Denver Engage, which was, I believe, April, like, 25th. Like, not, you know, don't quote me quite on the, the timing of that. That's fine. Um, but yeah, we spent probably about, you know, three months working up to that, um, that point.

[00:57:26] Avi: Nice.

Um, okay, so you talked a little bit about, uh, sustainability in this. Um, I've, I, I've done, I've done a number of work, I, I, I, I've seen, I've seen a lot of initiatives and kind of good faith efforts, um, you know, come up over the years. Um, and very often, um, you know, they run into some, some roadblock and then, you know, or the person who started it just kind of goes away, uh, and then they stop.

So what, what are, what are you all kind of setting up to be able to make this sustainable so that, you know, when somebody leaves, when the next, you know, bubble bursts, like it's, it's gonna be able to keep going?

[00:58:07] James: Yeah. Um, you know, we, we don't have any necessarily bylaws within our, our, our partner program by any means, but it's written in there, uh, today as this, this is part of the program.

And so, um, and it's just been that, right? It's been set up, somebody on the, the operations side of the house closes the books with the finance team, and it is what it is at this point. It's just part of that motion. Uh, and then I suspect every year thereafter, uh, like I'd mentioned, you know, Acquia, uh, you know, sets budgets and such, and so this will just be- become part of that, um, uh, that, that motion specifically.

So the program itself is not really dependent on any one person, uh, internally, which again, is, is nice. It's, it's very structural, uh, as we had sort of said earlier on in the, in the call. Uh, and it was, it was set up that way intentionally

[00:58:57] Avi: Yes.

[00:58:58] James: Yeah.

[00:58:59] John: So if I'm listening to this and I'm, I'm not an Acquia par- partner, um, and I'm interested in participating in the Fair Trade Initiative, or let's go from both sides.

If I'm not an Acquia partner and I'm interested in, in participating, and then if I am an Acquia partner, how do, how do folks get involved?

[00:59:22] James: Yeah, good question. Well, if you're not an Acquia partner and you're interested in having some conversations about Acquia and, you know, w- what services we provide and what outcomes we're providing to our customers and our partners, like, let's have that discussion.

Um, you know, we- we're, we're accepting new partnerships every single day. Uh, we wanna work with really great companies and folks, uh, that deliver on really good outcomes, and so the door's open to that. Um, and if you are a partner of Acquia, uh, already, um, you're, you're part of the, the quote-unquote, uh, club, uh, essentially.

And to participate in it is, is basically transacting, uh, through, through Acquia. So, you know, if you have opportunities that you're aware of and you want to co-sell those opportunities with Acquia, bring them over, whatever may have you, then, uh, it'll follow, uh, the, the normal path as to, you know, winning the business together, you, you know, you as a partner getting commissions, and then Acquia, of course, making that transaction on your behalf.

So there's not really much that has to change from behaviors as such. It's just, you know, essentially doing business with Acquia. Okay

[01:00:35] Nic: Okay, so it's a really new initiative. Uh, if we look a little bit in the future- Yeah ... five years or so, w- what would you consider success for this initiative?

[01:00:46] James: Yeah. Rea- really, really good question.

Um- Well, uh, you know, look, I, I, I think a few things. Uh, first, the number, um, meaningful, compounding, predictable funding flowing into the Drupal Association year after year, um, you know, growing as the ecosystem grows without any, anyone having to fight for it in a budget meeting, uh, is gonna be really important.

You know, um, secondly, probably a more broader, generous understanding of what it means to contribute to Drupal, where the community comfortably recognizes financial reinvestment as one legitimate form of contribution alongside code, volunteering. Uh, so that agency or freelancer, you know, that, that can't spare engineering hours but funds the project through its business is understood to be participating and not really sitting on the sidelines, um, I, I think, you know, are probably some of the bigger outcomes that I do care about most.

Um, but, you know, look, I, I definitely wanna be really clear about it. Uh, success is other vendors in our community adopting the exact same concept. Yeah. Um, yes, Acquia went first. Yes, this was our idea. Um, but, you know, I, I did not, you know, intend for this to be an Acquia moat by any mean. Um, Fair Trade is meant to be adopted by everyone.

It's effectively an open, open standard for reinvesting in a project we all depend on, and I'd be thrilled to see other competitors do it, too. Uh, because a dollar into the Drupal Association's a good dollar m- no matter, you know, whose deal it came from. Um, you know, as I mentioned already, we, we know of a vendor down in, in, uh, the APAC region that's very interested in doing something along, uh, this lines as well, um, and, and wanting to run some of the, you know, the same model and, you know, I hope that they're the first of, of many, so.

[01:02:36] Nic: So w- did you take ... B- Before we close out, did you take inspiration from any other ... Like, is this a well-known funding model from other organizations that you're aware of? Or is that something you kinda came up with?

[01:02:49] James: Yeah. Uh, it's not nothing I d- d- had come up with, right, by, by any means. Um, you do see fair trade, uh, when you look back into history.

Uh, when you, when you look at the, the history of fair trade, um, I don't, I don't wanna say from the beginning. You, you, you actually get into agriculture. Uh, and, and, and, um, if you think about the farmers that are out there r- m- produce, you know, growing produce, growing XYZ, and then a company taking that produce and, um, not paying a fair, uh, trade for that produce, but marking it up substantially to sell, uh, elsewhere, um, causes, causes issues, um, downstream, of course.

And so when, when you do go and look at the history of what does actually fair trade mean, uh, it's, it's been a concept that's been around for, you know, quite a few years. Uh, is it over 100 years? No, it's a fairly new concept, but it's actually in a totally different, um- you know, ecosystem in itself. And so you've seen over time, um, fair trade pop up into different industries and get solved for.

Yeah. Um, I'm actually even familiar with, I think, a, a fair trade logo that is used, uh, in different industries specifically. And then, you know, the, the open source, uh, funding, uh, conundrum has been around for a while, you know. When you- Yeah ... when you look at kind of the, the first open source technologies out there, this, this has been a problem from day one.

And, uh, you know, again, I think this is a really easy, uh, way to potentially solve that. Um, so yeah. It's, it's- I'm, I'm definitely not the, the brainchild behind this concept. Uh, it's been around for quite some time, people trying to do good, um, out there.

[01:04:34] John: As much as I, as much as I don't wanna bring it back to WordPress, I feel like we're- WordPress, the WordPress, uh, ecosystem has, like, the five, Five for the Future program- Yeah

where, like, you know, 5%, I think, is pledged back to, to support Word set, uh, Word WordPress. Um, so I mean, there are other, other open source folks, you know, kinda doing this, but, um, yeah. I don't know. I think when you, when you tie it back to, to farmers and trade and, and, and all that stuff, it makes, it makes a lot of sense 'cause, you know, we're kinda, we're kinda in that same, same boat.

[01:05:12] James: Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and again, I think the, the key here is it's something that's built to last. Um, it's not a one-off donation or contribution. It's, it's something that's supposed to be ongoing and really kinda runs in the background, and then is celebrated by the Drupal Association, celebrated by the, the partners that are, are doing the business.

Nice.

[01:05:35] John: Great. Well, James, thank you for joining us. Uh, we appreciate your time and, uh, telling us about the Acquia Fair Trade Initiative.

[01:05:43] James: Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

[01:05:48] Nic: I still can never remember where I have to click to get this next piece. I think I need to- It's like the mute

[01:05:54] James: button.

[01:05:55] John: Okay. Every, every, every time's the first time.

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[01:06:44] John: Okay, James. If folks wanted to get ahold of you, talk about channel sales, talk about the Acquia Fair Trade Initiative, talk about becoming a partner, how could they best do that?

[01:06:54] James: Uh, just email me at [email protected].

Um, that, that'd probably be the best route is, is my email, and then we can take it from there.

[01:07:04] John: Perfect. Avi, what about you?

[01:07:06] Avi: Yeah. I'm, uh, Avi Schwab on LinkedIn. I'm FroBoy on the Drupal Slack. Um, I'm on Mastodon, too. Uh, yeah, you can reach, reach out to me in all the community places, and, uh, you can get in touch with ImageX at imagex.co.

[01:07:23] John: And we'll, uh, see you next week filling in for the globe-trotting Martin Anderson-Clutz right here- That's right ... on Talking Drupal, right? Perfect. Uh, Nic, what about you?

[01:07:33] Nic: You can find me pretty much everywhere, @nicxvan, N-I-C-X-V-A-N.

[01:07:37] John: And I'm John Picozzi. You can find me personally at picozzi.com, on social media and drupal.org, @johnpicozzi, and, uh, you can find out about EPAM at epam.com.

[01:07:49] Nic: And if you've enjoyed listening, we've enjoyed talking. See you next week, guys.

[01:07:54] John: Thanks everyone