fidzu : web

Today we are talking about World Cancer Day, how they use Drupal, and why Drupal was the right choice with our guests Charles Andrew Revkin & Diego Costa. We'll also cover PDFa11y as our module of the week.

For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/544

Topics

• What Is World Cancer Day
• Why UICC Uses Drupal
• Diego Joins the Project
• Multilingual Strategy at Scale
• Drupal Architecture and AI Tools
• Vetting AI Moderation and Summaries
• AI Disclosure and Review
• Traffic Spikes and Scaling
• Drupal Stack and React Apps
• Campaign Theme United by Unique
• Yearly Content and Three Year Cycle
• Drupal Community and Open Access
• Custom AI Modules and Azure
• Future Improvements and AI Tagging
• Story Submission Formats
• Prevention PSA and Wrap Up

Resources

• World Cancer Day
• Union for International Cancer Control

Guests

Diego Costa - 1xinternet.com diegofcosta Charles Andrew Revkin - worldcancerday.org revkin

Hosts

Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Steve Wirt - civicactions.com Swirt

MOTW Correspondent

Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu

• Brief description:
  • Have you ever wanted to check PDF files for accessibility, as they're uploaded to your Drupal site? There's a module for that.
• Module name/project name:
  • PDFa11y
• Brief history
  • How old: created in Feb 2026 by Joshua Mitchell (joshuami), a friend of this podcast
  • Versions available: 1.0.1, which works with Drupal 10.2 and 11
• Maintainership
  • Actively maintained
  • Security coverage in process
  • Test coverage
  • Number of open issues: none
• Usage stats:
  • 0 sites
• Module features and usage
  • With the PDFa11y module installed, you can set its configuration, including whether to enable or disable automatic checking on upload, whether to block uploads that fail checks or just show warnings, a minimum PDF version requirement, and which accessibility checks to run
  • The module also sets creates three new permissions, Administer PDF accessibility settings, Run PDF accessibility checks, and View PDF accessibility report
  • Each PDF media item has an "Accessibility" tab where anyone with the necessary permissions can view the check results
  • Under the hood PDFa11y uses the smalot/pdfparser library to extract data from PDF files
  • Many sites rely on PDFs to make available content that they aren't able to migrate directly into Drupal content, so making sure that doesn't introduce its own accessibility regressions is an important step

16 Mar 2026 6:00pm GMT

The modern web runs on Open Source. The software itself remains freely available, but the infrastructure that sustains the ecosystem operates under fragile funding models. In a recent blog post, Drupal founder Dries Buytaert draws attention to a structural imbalance familiar across many open-source projects: the registries, repositories, CI systems, and update services developers rely on are widely treated as public goods, yet their costs are rarely shared proportionally by the organisations that depend on them.

In Drupal's case, maintaining the ecosystem's infrastructure costs roughly $3 million each year, covering servers, bandwidth, content delivery networks, software systems, and operational staff. When distributed across the installed base, that amounts to roughly $10 per active Drupal site annually. The Drupal Association currently operates with about $7.50 per site, leaving a modest but persistent gap. The shortfall does not immediately break systems, but it accumulates as technical debt: upgrades are postponed, legacy infrastructure remains in service longer than intended, and improvements move more slowly than the community might expect.

The deeper issue is structural rather than financial. Hundreds of thousands of sites rely on Drupal.org services, yet the cost of operating those systems remains largely disconnected from the organisations that benefit from them. Much of Drupal's infrastructure is sustained through a combination of event revenue, sponsorship, corporate memberships, and generous in-kind contributions from partners such as AWS, the Oregon State University Open Source Lab, and Tag1. These contributions are invaluable, but they also illustrate how much the ecosystem depends on goodwill rather than predictable funding mechanisms.

Dries suggests that the next stage of maturity for open-source ecosystems may involve exploring models that better connect infrastructure usage with long-term sustainability. The software itself remains open and freely accessible, but the systems that support development, distribution, and updates must remain reliable as the ecosystem continues to grow. Raising the question now allows the Drupal community to discuss potential approaches calmly, before infrastructure pressures turn the conversation into an urgent problem.

The following stories highlight notable developments from across the Drupal ecosystem during the past week.

DISCOVER DRUPAL

• Drupal 12 to Remove Migrate Drupal and Migrate Drupal UI Modules from Core
• FlowDrop UI Agents Alpha Introduces Visual Workflow Builder for Drupal AI Agents
• Drupal Core Sets Navigation as Default Admin Experience in Place of Toolbar
• Drupal AI 1.3.0 Introduces Guardrails, Editorial Workflows, and Observability
• drupalorg-cli 0.8.0 Adds Native GitLab Workflow Commands

EVENT

• Lessons from Building Europe's Largest Public Sector Drupal Platform at DrupalCon Chicago 2026
• Beyond the Commits: Join the Drupal Coffee Exchange at DrupalCon Chicago 2026
• Kushal Agrawal to Share Career Story in "Power of Participation" Session at DrupalCamp Delhi 2026
• Peter Wolanin to Present Session on Drupal Plugin API at DrupalCamp NJ 2026
• Editoria11y 3.x to Receive First Public Tour at DrupalCamp NJ 2026
• DrupalSouth 2026 Splash Awards Open Applications for Judges
• Ship Faster, Catch Bugs Earlier: How Georgia Rebuilt QA and UAT for 80+ Drupal Sites
• Drupal 25th Anniversary Gala Ticket Sales Close 18 March
• Making Governance Visible: Embedding Content Rules Directly Into Drupal

ORGANIZATION NEWS

• The DropTimes to Convene March Townhall on 18 March

DRUPAL COMMUNITY

• Drupal Scotland Names New Committee and Office Holders

Additional developments from across the Drupal ecosystem were published during the week. Readers may follow The DropTimes on LinkedIn, Twitter, Bluesky, and Facebook for continuing updates. The publication also maintains a presence on Drupal Slack in the #thedroptimes channel.

Thank you.

Alka Elizabeth
Sub-editor
The DropTimes

16 Mar 2026 3:57pm GMT

Years ago, in the early Drupal days, you would see a mantra everywhere: "Don't hack core".

It showed up in issue queues, conference talks, support channels, stickers, and even on T-shirts. It was short and memorable, and it solved a real problem: too many people were modifying Drupal Core instead of extending it properly.

Over time the mantra worked. The ecosystem matured. Not just the software itself, but also the habits and expectations around it. Today you rarely hear people say "Don't hack core".

With AI changing how code gets written, we may need a new mantra.

In Open Source, all code needs to be understood and reviewed before it can be merged. That responsibility belongs to both contributors and maintainers. AI is changing how code gets written, but it does not change that responsibility. In fact, it may make it easier to forget.

Code you don't understand becomes someone else's problem. In Open Source, that someone is often the maintainer reviewing your patch.

Offloading bad code onto maintainers slows down reviews for everyone. Plus, you miss the chance to learn from the code and grow as a developer.

It shouldn't matter what tools you use. But if you submit code, you should be able to explain what it does, why it works, and how it interacts with the rest of the code.

Everyone starts somewhere. Even today's top contributors submitted imperfect patches early on. You are welcome here, with or without AI tools. Perfection isn't required, but understanding your code is. Own your code.

Maybe it's time for some new stickers and T-shirts.

Never submit code you don't understand.

Thanks to Natalie Cainaru, Jeremy Andrews and Gábor Hojtsy for reviewing my draft.

16 Mar 2026 3:37pm GMT

In this blog post, W3C CEO Seth Dobbs celebrates the importance of the web and calls out key initiatives from W3C's strategic objectives.

12 Mar 2026 11:09am GMT

This post gives a summary of the results of the 2025 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Membership Survey.

29 Jan 2026 9:38am GMT

Sylvia Cadena, W3C Chief Development Officer, reports on coordinating the TPAC 2025 inclusion fund and W3C Invited Expert fund, aimed to reduce barriers for participants who are contributing to W3C's work, and that are part of W3C's effort to strengthen our Community Engagement program.

20 Jan 2026 3:06pm GMT

On January 14, 2006, John Resig introduced a JavaScript library called jQuery at BarCamp in New York City. Now, 20 years later, the jQuery team is happy to announce the final release of jQuery 4.0.0. After a long development cycle and several pre-releases, jQuery 4.0.0 brings many improvements and modernizations. It is the first major … Continue reading →

18 Jan 2026 12:29am GMT

It's here! Almost. jQuery 4.0.0-rc.1 is now available. It's our way of saying, "we think this is ready; now poke it with many sticks". If nothing is found that requires a second release candidate, jQuery 4.0.0 final will follow. Please try out this release and let us know if you encounter any issues. A 4.0 … Continue reading →

11 Aug 2025 5:35pm GMT

Last February, we released the first beta of jQuery 4.0.0. We're now ready to release a second, and we expect a release candidate to come soon™. This release comes with a major rewrite to jQuery's testing infrastructure, which removed all deprecated or under-supported dependencies. But the main change that warranted a second beta was a … Continue reading →

17 Jul 2024 2:03pm GMT

When it comes to crafting an article, the headline is crucial for grabbing the reader's attention and enticing them to read further. In this post, I'll explore the 7 types of article headlines and provide examples for each using the subjects of product management, user experience design, and search engine optimization. 1. The Know-it-All The […]

The post 7 Types of Article Headlines: Craft the Perfect Title Every Time first appeared on Smiley Cat.

29 May 2023 10:20pm GMT

Product management is one of the most exciting and rewarding careers in the tech world. But it's also one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented. There are many myths and misconceptions that cloud the reality of what product managers do, how they do it, and what skills they need to succeed. In this blog post, […]

The post 5 Product Management Myths You Need to Stop Believing first appeared on Smiley Cat.

09 Apr 2023 5:28pm GMT

The role of a product manager is crucial to the success of any product. They are responsible for managing the entire product life cycle, from conceptualization to launch and beyond. A product manager must possess a unique blend of skills and qualities to be effective in their role. Strong strategic thinking A product manager must […]

The post The Key Strengths of the Best Product Managers first appeared on Smiley Cat.

11 Dec 2022 4:43pm GMT