5 Years Later: The Phases of Liberating Joomla!
Photo courtesy of Joomla! Founder Arno Zijlstra's lovely wife.
Five years ago, today, on August 19, 2005, the brave and incredibly naive core team of the Mambo CMS made a monumental and important announcement, and thus began the process of liberating Joomla!. From all over the world, people who believed in the power of people came and worked hard, thus forming the Joomla! community.
Thanks to Andrew Eddie, Emir Sakic, Andy Miller, Rey Gigataras, Mitch Pirtle, Tim Broeker, Alex Kempkens, Arno Zijlstra, Jean-Marie Simonet, Levis Bisson, Andy Stewart, Peter Russell, Brad Baker, Brian Teeman, Michelle Bisson, Trijnie Wanders, Rey Gigataras, Shayne Bartlett, Nick Annies, and Johan Janssens.
On November 5th of 2005, I joined the Joomla! forums and began my involvement. It's not always been easy. But Freedom is never easy. It's something you have to be committed to defend and willing to work for. Freedom isn't instantaneous, either, it comes in stages. The August 19th fork was merely the first step, the birth of this project.
During the first period of freedom, everyone was excited as leaders like Rey and JM and Brad and Brian worked in the public eye greeting community and helping everyone get started, sharing information, and projecting a welcoming message. It wasn't until much later that I learned behind the scenes, the core team was working very hard and extremely stressed. The drama was quite intense as the realities of forming a project under the weight of a growing International community super sized all problems.
The second major liberation of Joomla! was the adoption of the GPL for extensions.Those who lived through that era might remember me as a not very nice, fierce defender of the Castle, pushing down the townspeople as they advanced. How dare they protest such an enormous change in the clear agreement they had with this project? I continue to believe the change was good. I finally see that the way it was done was very damaging to our community.
The third period of liberating Joomla! is the community engagement period. By far, this has been the most enjoyable part of my experience with Joomla!. The friendships, the learning, the code, the innovation, the renewed passion within the community have been great. Those rewards came from the efforts of many, many, many inside and outside of the project. The Bug Squad, ATAAW, JandBeyond, People, JoomlaForward, the nooku community, the individuals who selected the OSM Board, and of course, the new OSM Board, the Joomla! Community Magazine, Twitter, and even blogs, like Brian's and Torkil's, are tools we find useful to strengthen and engage our community.
If I could make a wish and blow out Joomla!'s five-year birthday candles, I would wish that our fourth period of liberating Joomla! will be a long period of innovation, where lots of value comes from fun, cohesive, self-forming and self-directed teams each working hard to improve Joomla!. I hope it's a period of opinionated, spirited discussions, and lots of teasing and laughter and relative peace. It's time to renovate the castle into office space, open a few windows to let the fresh air in, and use our torches as lamps for late night coding sessions.
It's also time for the old timers, people like me, to learn to shut up and listen, stop *gossiping about one another*, work on changing ourselves and not anyone else, and step aside for fresh, new emerging leaders. People like Hils and Nicholas, Klas and Alice, Robert and Jen4Web, Paul and Christina, Matt and Sandra, Stian and Diane, Marco and Tess, Kyle and Andy (to name only a few), can help guide our next phase with the full support of a sincere community manager, Steve Burge, and the entire community-focused OSM board.
Ian - I appreciate your heartfelt note. I don't know the answer, either, but I do know that the first step is for each of us to admit, "I am a big part of what is fundamentally wrong with Joomla. I am willing to try to change and help bring improvements. I am proud of Joomla! and what we have accomplished.
Thanks for Joomla! to our founders, which includes the first 17 who chatted on IRC in the picture Arno's wife took as Andrew published the Letter to the Community, and every one of us who put our hearts and time into keeping her free and moving forward.
We can work together to move Joomla! Forward. There are no lost friendships. If we want to, we can find the good in one another. Even those where others might have said, that's never going to happen.it can. I'll take that beer, Brian. Thanks for your major contributions to Joomla!. I am proud to call you friend.
Views: 8
Tags: joomla
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Comment by Arno Zijlstra on August 19, 2010 at 4:54pm -
Aaaah a cold beer,and a dance on JAB11 Amy ;-)
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Comment by JoeJoomla on August 19, 2010 at 6:03pm -
I don't think stepping aside is necessarily progress. Working on changing ourselves, as you say, is good advice.
I finally see that the way it was done was very damaging to our community.
So what did we learn? This week someone said to me 'it's all about the code' but we have to remember that people code therefore it's not all about the code. It's about how people can work together to accomplish great things.
It has indeed been a roller-coaster ride but if we learn from the past, commit to working together for the future, then everyone will be able to celebrate in 5 more years an even greater milestone. I for one really hope we do.
Tonight I would like to salute all who are still here battle scars and all. I really do admire you. Heaven knows I've learn a lot during this Joomla! journey.
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Comment by Wilco Jansen on August 19, 2010 at 7:33pm -
Nice summary, missed the beer...
There is also a screenshot of Google on that day where you only had 4 search results...might share that also on this post ;-)
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Comment by Cristina Solana on August 20, 2010 at 6:37am -
Amy, it is not so much about people like you stepping aside. It is more about people like you making space for us newcomers. I've always felt that you have always done that. And I can sincerely say that I am grateful you are around because you encouraged me to volunteer through your dedication and welcoming ways.
If there is anything I've learned in the past three months, it is that there is no shortage of work. There is plenty of space for everyone to get in where they fit in, from design to coding to management.
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Comment by Arno Zijlstra on August 20, 2010 at 8:16am
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Found it again: Ever wondered what the first Google search for "joomla" looked like 5 years ago? http://twitter.com/me_arno/status/21650322033
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Comment by Brian "Sully" Sullivan on August 20, 2010 at 8:55am -
I'm proud to call you a friend, Amy.
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Comment by Troy Thomas Hall on August 20, 2010 at 10:28am -
will be nice to see the cohesiveness return. Everyone take a deep breathe and lets see everyday what I saw between 0500 and 0700 today in IRC
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Comment by Arno Zijlstra on August 20, 2010 at 12:56pm
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Yeah yeah, thanks Brian! (I recovered the stuff he lost from my disc in return)
Sounds like Joomla! Founding Stuff in the cloud ;-)
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Comment by Amy Stephen on August 20, 2010 at 5:53pm
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Do we have the song yet?
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@Troy - I don't mean to suggest we are going back. We are not able to go back. Ian's right. It's not safe and they don't know what to do.
© 2012 Created by Amy Stephen.
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