Drupal.org is in need of some makeup, and we know this quite well. It runs on the old and stable Drupal 5 codebase, while Drupal 6 is out for almost one year (and is just as stable but way more useful especially with all the new contributed modules). Drupal.org also sports a design which was last refreshed in 2005. So it does not really give justice to the software it helps to flourish. Therefore the Drupal Association hired Mark Boulton to help with a community based redesign of the site, and the results are outstanding. Now people from the community need to get together and actually implement it.
We are set out to make progress quickly, so Dries Buytaert decided to organize a series of developer sprints where people get together and plan and execute on the redesign. First we need to upgrade drupal.org to Drupal 6, so that we can work with up-to-date APIs to implement the new features. Then we can move on to actually implementing the redesign.
Thanks to Acquia letting me put some of my time on this job and my scheduling over the holidays and some free time put on these tasks, I've contributed work (to upgrading the existing theme, eliminate modules, help upgrade some other modules, etc) and had quite a few overviews, blog posts and call for actions. Now, these code sprints will actually get the real people together, so for example, two lead maintainers to the project module suite will be in the same room to implement, discuss and review updates to Drupal 6. We expect to make good progress this way.
However, your help is still needed! While some exceptional companies help fund and plan this sprint already, we need more funding for some of the people and also other members of the community who are willing to join and do the work. Sprints will happen in Cologne, Boston and Paris over the next few weeks (exact timing and more details in the drupal.org front page post); and we expect we will continue working on it while in Washington DC for Drupalcon and onwards. We found these places with people to help in mind, not so that we can travel around the globe (there is little overlap between the North-American and European sprints in terms of people, but some overlap is required for consistency in setting goals and planning). I've already contributed to the chipin and encourage you to do so!
If you are more into help doing the work, and you're available to attend one of these sprints, and if you have the time and dedication to work on the drupal.org redesign before, during and after the code sprints, join the redesign infrastructure team and let Dries know in the comments of the drupal.org post, and we'll figure out how and when you can best participate.