As promised, we're organizing a series of sprints to help push the drupal.org redesign closer to completion. The drupal.org redesign is a massive project, and, when implemented, will be an important milestone for our community.

The Drupal.org website was originally launched in 2001 and last redesigned in 2005; over time we've simply outgrown it. The community has made it clear that new features were needed, and the Drupal Association has made the Drupal.org redesign one of its top priorities. By improving the navigation, the design and the organization of the site, we hope to further expand Drupal's reach and to provide us better tools to communicate and collaborate.

Most of you are likely familiar with the open redesign process that has occurred in the redesign group with the help from Mark Boulton, Leisa Reichelt and many other people in our community. Now it is time for us, the community, to take these designs and to implement them.

To that end, we're organizing a number of redesign-specific sprints over the next two months, each concentrating on a specific area of the process. Even though we won't be able to completely upgrade the entire site during these sprints, we will make valuable progress and form plans that will allow us to move forward to completion. Many Drupal contributors have already agreed to participate, and a number of companies and individuals have come forward to donate time, resources and money. I've included a Chip-in widget on this page, and I encourage you to contribute as well. Read on for the details.

• Köln Hackathon, January 17 -18 -- While in Germany to attend DrupalCamp Köln, Gerhard, Robert, Gábor and I are going to sit down and prepare for the upgrade, hash out the modules to be used, plan the details of the new search feature, and make some other important design decisions. Anyone at DrupalCamp Köln is welcome to join us as we make these preliminary plans.
• Boston, Cambridge, January 26 - 30 -- The Boston sprint is dedicated to upgrading drupal.org's Drupal 5 platform to Drupal 6, in preparation for the redesign. During this week-long sprint at the OLPC offices, we plan to get a working upgrade path for the existing drupal.org databases, port the project infrastructure to Drupal 6, and implement Views, among other issues. The redesign infrastructure team group contains many posts detailing the current status of the upgrade process. Gábor Hojtsy, Derek Wright, Chad Phillips, Damien Tournoud, Neil Drumm, Dave Reid, Kevin Hankens, Susan MacPhee and myself have all committed to attend, and many others are available contingent on funding.
• Paris, February 9 - 13 -- At the Paris sprint, we'll start implementing Mark Boulton's redesign on D6. Though it will take longer than this week to do, we plan to be well on our way by week's end. Gábor Hojtsy, Gerhard Killesreiter, Damien Tournoud, Neil Drumm, Joeri Poesen, Robert Douglass and myself have committed to attend, and many others are considering it. I also called up Mark Boulton, and he is tentatively scheduled to attend the code sprint in Paris.
• Washington DC, March 4 - 7 -- While at DrupalCon DC 2009, we plan to continue to work on the upgrade. When, where and what will be worked on is still to be defined.

Though our meet-up in Köln will be essentially free, the week-long sprints in Boston and Paris are not. We need to raise around $15,000 USD to fund the sprints. The money will be used to cover flight, food and hotel costs for the sprinters. All sprinters are generously donating their time to make this happen. Any excess money will be used to add more people, or will be donated to the Drupal Association.

While the Drupal Association may be able to provide some funds, we'll only reach our goal through your generous contribution. A number of organizations, including Acquia, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), AF83, Four Kitchens, DrupalTherapy, OpenBand and Looforyoo have already come forward with donations of money and resources to help make these sprints be successful.

We'll make sure to highlight companies and individuals that make a significant donation. But more than anything else, we need people that are willing to step up and help. If you're available to attend these sprints, and if you have the time and dedication to work on the drupal.org redesign before, during and after the code sprints, join the redesign infrastructure team, let me know in the comments and we'll figure out how and when you can best participate. We certainly welcome more people, especially those who can pay (most of) their own way.

Please consider making a donation using the ChipIn widget or help us raise funds by spreading the word. Drupal.org is our home on the web, and it needs your help. Thanks!