Drupal is a free and open source CMS written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal stems from a project by a Dutch university student, Dries Buytaert. The goal of the project was to provide a mechanism for Buytaert and his friends to share news and events.
Buytaert turned Drupal into an open source project in 2001, and the community readily embraced the concept and has expanded on its humble beginnings, creating what is now one of the most powerful and featurerich CMS platforms on the web.