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Apr
21
2009
CMS Expo Attracts a Core Joomla Developer Again
Joomla Meetings
Written by Steve Burge   
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Joomla CMS ExpoCongratulations to the CMSExpo and the Joomla core team: they're getting together again. Wilco Jansen will be the keynote speaker at next week's event in Evanston, north of Chicago. Anthony Ferrara from the core was at the last event in Denver. It's good to see so many people who understand that the community and commercial sides of Joomla are compatible.

Stand Back For a Moment ...

... look at the list of other Open Source projects at the Expo ... and appreciate just how far Joomla has come.

Right now it powers around 1% of the web. Consider also how well Joomla is doing despite how few resources it has, compared to other projects with which it's bracketed at the Expo:

It's pretty clear that the Open Source ecosystem is professionalising rapidly and Joomla is increasingly left alone as an entirely community-supported project. Only Plone has a similar development model and that project is years behind Joomla. Joomla shouldn't and won't ever accept V.C. funding but I wonder if it's possible that we've reached a watershed. We're getting for professional-grade work and hours from unpaid volunteers. I wonder if we're at the point when it makes sense to blend the community and commercial further. Does it make sense for the community to support core developers going full-time? I don't know the right answer, but would appreciate your thoughts ...

 

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#1 Rick Blalock 2009-04-20 20:51
good blurb Steve. Didn't know that about Drupal! WOW.

See you soon.
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#2 Ryan Ozimek 2009-04-21 00:42
Steve,

You're asking the right questions at the right time, particularly during this terrific opportunity for the community and the project to continue to grow. This is an extremely interesting time in Joomla's life, and I would suspect that much like its past, Joomla will trailblaze a new path forward.

One area I'd really like to continue to hear of new ideas is how small businesses can support Joomla's development. Understanding that the key developer leadership in our community essentially provides all their labor for free is something that this massive community is beginning to realize is a tremendous gift.

It makes sense to me that these developers need to feed their families, while at the same time the community could certainly use their talent to help us build the future of Joomla.

If you have ideas as to how Joomla can yet again trailblaze forward, I'm always open to suggestions! Drop me a line at sponsors {at-sign} opensourcematte rs.org.

Thanks for the great posting Steve!

Best,
Ryan
Secretary, Open Source Matters
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#3 Amy Stephen 2009-04-21 06:48
Steve, as a point of clarification - Wilco is an Open Source Matters board member, rather than core.

Don't forget, Angie Byron, the developer leading Drupal 7.0 is from Lullabot, not Acquia. There are easily ten very strong companies in Drupal, in addition to Acquia and Lullabot, who help fund development through salaries to their own employees. Drupal is still very much a community driven project -- they simply have a more mature ecosystem.

Joomla's ecosystem is starting to strengthen. This next year or two, I expect we will see several strong development companies emerge offering Joomla! support and services. Those companies will help fund development through salaries to their employees and time allowances for contributing code as part of their job responsibilitie s. These companies will choose to contribute because there is benefit to do so.

I agree with your point on the importance of supporting the ecosystem. Towards that end, I would like to see the Joomla! project focus efforts on helping small businesses thrive. Andrew Eddie's proposal calling for a Services Directory is a good initiative for that purpose. Continuing to open the project for broader community involvement is also good.

I would be very concerned to see the Joomla! project, itself, pay developers. Not only would that dampen community engagement, but it would also impact the growth of the ecosystem around the project. I believe the project itself should keep moving towards engaging and empowering the community -- in doing so, the community will take care of the commercializati on in a free market.

I think we are heading in good directions. I think it's working. It just takes time.
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#4 Steve Burge 2009-04-22 05:40
Thanks Amy and Ryan for the feedback. Sounds like you too are talking on similar lines ... getting companies more involved in supporting the project.

I really don't know what the answer is, but its certainly striking to look at the frontpage of the CMSExpo site and see the disparity in resources available to the projects.
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#5 Joomla Web Development 2009-05-04 06:39
Good News for Open source community.
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#6 Terp 2009-05-26 15:37
"... but its certainly striking to look at the frontpage of the CMSExpo site and see the disparity in resources available to the projects."

Having 'wasted' a few years of my asp.net life and using DotNetNuke, I think a strong case could be made, which was sort of presented already, that there isn't a strong tie between funding and community growth/performance/improvement. :-)

Give Shaun Walker a few more million and perhaps he'll get his own core forum module working that has been broke and a work-in-progress for two years now; less than ironically, I have been using Joomla for two years now, leaving the DNN prject after the last release SNAFU. ;-)
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#7 Paul McCann 2009-11-20 10:34
Steve,

Nice article :-) Im with you on this and dont see a problem with more commercial funding of core talent, providing the project listens to the community and not 'the company'.

By the way your link in the first line to cmsexpo goes to a joomla 404 page ;-)

Paul
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