The other night, the DC Web Content Mavens(isn’t that a great name?) presented on “Drupal and WordPress as CMS”. I was invited to co-present with Andrew Nacin and Joel Sackett. It was great to get the chance to talk about the GPL, and how both products leverage it and use it to improve and endow the USER with rights that plenty of other software don’t have. We compared the Philosophies (include release philosophies) that set the two projects along.

Nacin and I prepared a joint presentation that went over many of the features and philosophies that set WordPress apart from Drupal. The two biggest points we made (outside of the GPL), are the philosophy points that “Deadlines are not arbitrary” and the creator of products should “Make decisions, not options”. These two points are really what sets WordPress apart. It’s released often (and pretty damn close to on time for an open source software project) and since there aren’t a million options, it’s easy to find the ones you actually care about. We also spoke of how when you adopt WordPress, you are joining a community that is great and is constantly looking to improve and educate each other.

I hope that the audience walked out both more educated and a bit entertained. The questions they asked were great and I hope I get a chance to attend another Web Content mavens meetup soon.