Lessons from Building Europe’s Largest Public Sector Drupal Platform at DrupalCon Chicago 2026

Over a decade ago, the European Commission began consolidating hundreds of websites onto Drupal, making a bold commitment to open source at institutional scale. What followed was a long journey that revealed how much distance can exist between adopting open source technology and truly working in the open.

That challenge has not disappeared. With growing attention on digital sovereignty and the influence artificial intelligence is beginning to have on how software is developed and shared, the question of how organisations participate in open source ecosystems is becoming even more relevant.

I have been part of that journey as an architect consultant on the platform since its early days, and the lessons we learned remain relevant for organisations making similar choices today.

Why attend this session

My talk, Using Drupal Doesn't Make You Open Source, examines how that gap was gradually closed. The session will explore the European Commission’s open source strategy, which provided the institutional foundation for this work, alongside the OpenEuropa Library initiative and its ecosystem of reusable modules and libraries. It will also discuss the Drupal Community of Practice that connects teams across the European public sector.

The session will examine how features are now designed with contribution in mind from the start, and what it takes for a large organisation to justify and sustain investment in shared open source components.

Key takeaways

• How one of the world’s largest Drupal platforms evolved from adoption to active contribution
• Practical approaches for building solutions that can be reused beyond a single project
• Ways to make contribution a natural outcome of project delivery rather than a separate cost
• Governance patterns for managing shared components across multiple teams

Looking ahead to DrupalCon Chicago

This will be my first visit to the United States and my first time speaking at DrupalCon North America. I am particularly looking forward to meeting colleagues and collaborators from across the Atlantic whom I have worked with for many years. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to share the lessons from this journey with the Drupal community.

The session is scheduled for 25 March 2026 from 15:00 to 15:50 CDT in Salon A-2 (LL) under the Leadership, Management & Business track at DrupalCon Chicago 2026. More information about the talk is available on the official session page. The conference will take place from 23 March to 26 March 2026 at the Hilton Chicago. Full programme details are available on the DrupalCon Chicago event website.