Fourteen talented students and a legion of Drupal mentors have had a busy and exciting summer. The Google Summer of Code 2006 program is nearly finished, and Drupal has a wealth of new modules and tools to enjoy. Check them out and help test the goodies. You can also help out by Digging the story - these coders derserve all the attention they can get.

Here is a list of ten important issues and what they do. Anybody who wants to make a difference in how well Drupal 4.8/5.0 performs will take the time to review and test these patches, easing the work of Dries, Steven and Neil in getting them into core.

• Split up the cache table. This would be a major performance win because invalidating the cache would be less expensive and would lead to fewer cache rebuilds.
• File-based caching. This is now possible as an extension of the pluggable caching system that has already been committed. The benefits of file-based caching are obvious; if your site's bottleneck is the database server, move the load to the disk drives instead.

A great quote that sums up why people tend to side with the little guy in the RIAA's fight against piracy:

Today's youth internationally are not like anything we've seen before. Their view of the world is skewed by the media and new realities. When they see all these restrictions, they see them done on behalf of fat guys who are flying around in private jets with a cabin full of high-class hookers while lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills. They see rappers in limos wearing diamonds and having their teeth removed and replaced with gold for no apparent reason other than to spend the suckers' money. They see mega-yachts and homes that are the size of a small college all bought and sold on the backs of the kids buying music. Indeed, they are seeing a different world than most of us did when we were growing up. It's nuts. It looks unfair or, worse, exploitative.