What Really Happened with Mambo?

Anonymous Coward writes "What Happened with Mambo? There is a good article about the recent events that resulted in a changing of the guard at Mambo. Jem Matzan does his best to objectively debunk what happened. It looks like much research was conducted to produce this article and it is very informative. Check it out!" In the interest of full disclosure as well, our corporate parent also hosts Joomlaforge.

correction

[molnarcs]

If you're using Mambo currently, do you need to switch to Joomla? The answer is no, as far as my research for this article shows.

Hmmm... You don't have to do much research to see that the future lies with Joomla. Basically the entire development team - the same team that made mambo great - left and they are working on Joomla now. How safe is to stay with a product that has "we are looking for developers" on their website for months? Especially since joomla! offers a clear migration path... Basically the first release is latest mambo with trademarks stripped out, so the sooner one switches the better...

If we compare the "roadmap" of the two projects, joomla has a clearer vision of the future, so yeah, I don't think mambo is a safe bet from what I've seen.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I just tried to come up with a good way to pitch either of these projects to a corporate decision making panel. I couldn't get past the names. I realize names shouldn't have an effect on a product, but appearance shouldn't have an effect on our first impressions of people either. Pitch that to your local HR weenie and see how it bounces.

The people coming up with these names really have to step back and see how they sound in a boardroom.

Good luck though!

Anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. Why is Shawn Carey, who posts news items to the official Mambo website [mamboserver.com] labelled as Anonymous Coward when submitting this story? Hover over the link, that's his email address. A bit suspicious that an interested party is submitting stories as Anonymous Coward, don't you think?

Totally bogus

[augustz]

Basically, the actual developers who developed Mambo all left.

And for some pretty good reasons. The bylaws of the non-profit foundation were the craziest I've seen (and I used to review bylaws). Clearly designed to lock in control at the top for Miro.

I've been around a long time, and some of the mambo and mambo foundation stunts are huge red-flags for a nonprofit.

I bet when we dig below the surface of the article, we'll find that the submitter (who is [e-mail]) has a vested interest in this?

Also, tend to beleive the code talks and talk walks. Curious to know how many core developers stayed with Mambo.

And to be honest I like the feel of the Joomla community a bit better, from ducking into both sets of forums. Don't run either package however.

Re:Anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because it couldn't possibly be someone else. Don't you think it's even more suspicious that someone write their name as Anonymous Coward and then enter an easily identifiable email address - especially as you don't need to fill in any email to submit news to Slashdot?

Nah, what am I thinking. You've obviosuly uncovered a great conspiracy. =)

What does this mean for open source projects?

[pieterh]

The analysis is interesting, and raises some good points about keeping open source projects stable. While forking projects is certainly good for competition, it is probably less efficient than simply focussing on a single well-run project. So, to avoid this kind of circus, my advice to open source teams working with corporate sponsors would be:

1. The copyright does not matter as much as you think, so long as the software is released under a foss license. This is, really, the whole point of the license.

2. Any revenue from services will go to the people who know the software, so ultimately it's better to be working on the code than to be paying for the project, if revenue is your long-term goal.

3. The economics of a sponsored open source project should be discussed early and be clear. No-one can work uneconomically. Settle the money aspects well beforehand, and avoid disputes. IMO, ideally, the corporate sponsor should get an immediate benefit from the technology, while the development team should get the "product" as their baby.

4. In today's world, owning copyright is actually becoming a bad thing - it can lead to software patent lawsuits. There are good arguments for FOSS sponsors to pass the copyrights to non-profit foundations, which can be sued but with little benefit and much bad publicity.

5. If you're going to argue, don't do it publically. It's too easy to overreact, say things that one regrets afterwards.

That's it. It's nice to see corporate sponsorship of FOSS work, since it can be such a natural and mutually beneficial way of working. But watch out for the money! It turns even the best friendships into bitter disputes unless the rules are well-agreed beforehand.

Ego

[saterdaies]

The whole situation can be sumarized as:

Miro started Mambo. They did the original work, they got the ball rolling and so they believed that they were entitled to be in charge.

Some of the Mambo community developers did a lot of work on Mambo and, arguably, Mambo wouldn't be here today without them. While they didn't start it, they saw their contributions are paramount and they thought they were entitled to be in charge.

Mostly, it's a battle of ego. Anyone who reads the Joomla! website can see that it's a battle of ego. They tried to claim that it was a renaming, that they were the real Mambo, that they were better than Mambo, etc. Frankly, which one is the "real" Mambo is a philosophical question that I think is stupid, but it's easy to see that this is an ego fight between two camps who both have legitimate claims to leadership of the project.