Summary: Making Views part of Drupal "core" will make its future more secure, but will take substantial resources. Therefore, please donate 1/1,000th of your annual income ($50 if you make $50,000/year, for example) using this widget.

Now, the why.

Few Drupal sites could exist without Views, which lets site builders easily combine and display data. For example, let's say your site includes employees and store locations: Views lets you produce a list of employees, a map of what stores they work at, and a schedule of when they're working.

These are typical requirements, but without Views you'd have to know PHP and MySQL to make them happen. With Views, an intermediate-level site builder without programming experience -- like me -- can make truly professional sites.

Views is one of Drupal's strongest competitive advantages, and why I created a video training series about it. I've never heard of a working site built without Views.

So Views is important. But why should it be in core?

Maintainer Earl Miles' original post gives the details. In short:

• It'll become better integrated with Drupal's core systems.
• Site builders won't have to install (and maintain) extra bits for Views' functionality.
• Responsibility for maintaining it can be better spread over a larger developer base.
• Developers can do more, knowing that all site builders have Views installed.
• We can simplify Drupal by getting rid of obsolete modules such as Poll and Blog.

There's a (reasonable) argument that Views would bloat a Drupal core that should remain small. I disagree. For discussion, see this thread on Drupal.org.

O.K., O.K.! But why should I pay?

Simply put, it's the simplest way to contribute. As Earl wrote, the project will also put other resources to good use, and (as always) your help actually working on the project would be greatly appreciated.

But money is liquid. You can give any amount, at any time, without any other requirements. It's convertible to plane tickets, catering, hosting, and other things that project maintainers need. (Note that the money generally doesn't go to pay developers: They're either volunteering their valuable time, or being sponsored by companies such as Acquia.) I propose that you donate 1/1,000th of your annual income because if you work with Drupal, Views has probably earned you at least ten times that much.

From earlier initiatives, Earl and his team have proven that they use such money well. So do it: You'll feel better every time you work on your (Views-enabled) site.

Blog category: Drupal Planet