We had an action packed Atlanta Drupal User Group (ADUG) meetup last week with two awesome demonstrations of emerging Drupal distributions - Open Publish, which was created by our friends at Phase2 Technology and Drupal Gardens from our partner, Acquia. We had a last minute change of plans since Phase2, who was originally going to co-present with Kent Lester, was neck deep in the Snowmageddon taking place in Washington D.C. However, it happened to work out well, and we allocated the extra time to Chuck D’Antonio, Director of Professional Services at Acquia, who was in Atlanta.
Incidentally, if you are a meetup organizer I would highly recommend presentations around Drupal distros like Open Publish, Open Atrium, Drupal Gardens, etc. – we had our highest turnout ever! It’s a gain-gain scenario as well since the original developers are oftentimes craving extra sets of eyes to provide feedback on how they can improve the product in-between fast release cycles.
If you are a newbie, and want more information on what exactly Drupal distributions are check out Angie Byron’s excellent blog entry and Dries’s thoughts. Finally, my apologies for not knowing the maintainer, but I recently discovered Drupal Distribution Watch as well, which is a helpful resource.