Join DICTU’s Drupal Developers Day on December 9th in Assen

DICTU, part of the Dutch Government, is organizing a Drupal Developers Day on December 9^th at their office in Assen, the Netherlands. The event is open to all and free of charge.

Software used by or developed for the Dutch government needs to be open source unless specific requirements prevent this. This rule is referred to as the Dutch government's ‘Open unless’ declaration. This year, the Dutch government explicitly stated that this rule does not only mean governments need to use open-source software but also calls for contributing code to open-source projects. Software built for the government needs to publish code as much as possible within the governmental framework and regulations.

DICTU is the largest Drupal agency in the Netherlands

The DICTU1 department ‘Web and App Services’ builds advanced web applications using Drupal. With around 90 employees, it is the largest Drupal agency in the Netherlands and has built an astounding amount of expertise and experience. When it comes to building and maintaining safe, stable web applications that tick all the boxes for Dutch governmental regulations, DICTU is the department to turn to.

In the past year, the people of ‘Web and App Services’ have looked into ways to share this knowledge with other developers working on governmental projects. With high ambitions, the team navigates patiently through the governmental structures to be able to publish by default. Small steps have been made by becoming a partner of the Dutch Drupal Association,2 sponsoring DrupalJam in 2024,3 and publishing the back-end distribution GovNL on Drupal.org.4 This December, DICTU takes another big step by organizing its first Drupal Developers Day. 5

Program

On Drupal Developers Day, developers can contribute to the Drupal Core, Drupal CMS, modules, and patches. Working on the Drupal CMS is incredibly inspiring and worthwhile. This new variant of the Drupal CMS is expected to launch in January 2025.6 It will feature various standard out-of-the-box functionalities, like the Content Types Basic Page, Event, News article, Blog, Project, Case study, and, of course, a Person profile. For developers who want to contribute to Drupal for the first time, there will be an English "First Contrib Workshop" that day. Mentors will assist you with code and applications.

Apply for Drupal Developers Day

More information and registration are available via Drupal.org. Registration is open until November 25 using this registration form.7 The day begins at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 5:00 p.m. Lunch is included. The location is the Hearing Room, Schepersmaat 2, Assen.8 The standard procedure to enter this building requires you to show an ID. 

Please note that DICTU expects many registrations, so be sure to sign up in time. For more information about DICTU, visit: www.dictu.nl/diensten/web-services.