The truth about Mambo and Joomla

[jonmacgregor]

This thread discusses the Content article: The truth about Mambo and Joomla

No truth in this article at all. It smells.

In fact it's so contrite, I won't bother to correct the factual mistakes/omissions you have in here.

How about telling the readers about your previous relationship with one of the major sponsors of Joomla! Or did you forget to mention that.

As for Mambo being more popular than Joomla, Alexa is providing a trend snapshot into the future.

Or did you miss that fact too.

[Valour]

I don't recall having any "previous relationship" with anyone involved with Joomla. I exchanged a couple of emails with Emir Sakic over the Connolly thing, but that's pretty much it. So please enlighten me as to my bias so that I can more easily deny it. :laugh:

I had two of my most important sites on Joomla until this morning. They were having problems with runaway PHP processes, and I switched over to a backup Mambo installation to see if it was software-related. I don't know if I'll switch it back or not.

I'm going to give you one warning -- this one -- on trolling. If you want to dispute facts, then present evidence. If you want to say that something is untrue, then prove it. But if you're here to catagorically deny this or that, or to sling insults or assault my credibility, then I will delete or edit your posts and/or ban your account. If that does not stop you, I'll call your ISP and complain and/or block your IP range from the server.

You are held to a higher standard here.

-Jem

[jonmacgregor]

"I don't recall having any "previous relationship" with anyone involved with Joomla."

Does one of Joomla's sponsors, VA Software ring any bells. In this context, it would be fair if you revealed what that relationship was and the reason why you finished working with them.

I guess it's an omission but it would be nice to have had it upfront.

[Valour]

jonmacgregor wrote:

"I don't recall having any "previous relationship" with anyone involved with Joomla."

Does one of Joomla's sponsors, VA Software ring any bells. In this context, it would be fair if you revealed what that relationship was and the reason why you finished working with them.

I guess it's an omission but it would be nice to have had it upfront.

VA Software doesn't sponsor Joomla as far as I can tell. I guess it depends on your definition of "sponsor."

I worked for OSTG, which is a division of VA Software. Sourceforge EE is another division. I don't know anyone who worked for the SourceForge division. I met some sales and marketing people once at a company dinner, that was about it. I don't hold any grudges against OSTG in general.

VA "donated" a SFEE installation to Joomla. This is probably because they want to improve their installed base statistics, since they have so few actual customers. I don't see how this makes them anything other than another company that donates something. Does VA have any control over Joomla, Open Source Matters, or JamboWorks? What about Miro International? Are any of them even business partners? If not, then there is no breach of journalistic integrity -- not even via wishful thinking. By that reasoning, VA Software "sponsors" the staggering majority of free software projects by offering a free home on Sourceforge.net.

I think it's ironic that the Joomla crew, who claimed to be so gung ho about the GPL and open source software, are using the proprietary, not-open-source SFEE for their development. If someone can tell me why SFEE is a necessity in any setting, especially considering the wide availability of free and open source collaboration and groupware solutions with similar feature sets, I would be surprised.

Lastly, even if I wanted to harm OSTG by association (which is a stretch to begin with, and which I wouldn't anyway), how would this article possibly do that? What part of the article assaults VA Software, SFEE, or anything remotely relating to either one (the link to the Slashdot story notwithstanding) in any way, shape, or form?

-Jem

Post edited by: Valour, at: 2005/12/30 18:24

[jonmacgregor]

Did I say "harm"? You did.

All i was doing was calling the relationship to attention as you'd neglected to declare it. Thanks for clearing that up.

Then call me a "Troll" whatever that is? :laugh:

What's VA Software got to do with Open Source? Well what's IBM got to do with Open Source? What's Apple got to do with Open Source? What's Google got to do with Open Source.

They all sponsor projects, don't they.

The only fortresses around left are Microsoft-style IT business models. You could, if you dug deep enough, speak to the current Mambo development team and find out about Fortress Mambo.

But you can see it for yourself anyway.

1. No public CVS
2. Team members being told "they can't work on Mambo and Joomla". Just Mambo.
3. An stacked foundation board with a holding company called Mambo Communities (owned by guess who).

The Mambo or Foundation people who supplied you with information have an agenda. I'm assuming you approached Joomla but got no response because I guess they've had enough of the Mambo smears.

Anyway, all I was doing was providing an opportunity for readers to see the attention to detail you've provided. So far we've discovered one non-declared interest and a failure to basic duty of care when checking ranking trends.

I think I'm done here.

Thanks,
Jon.

[Valour]

Your question about why I left OSTG suggests that I would want to harm them. My assumption to that effect was not unreasonable. You are using purile sophistry, circular arguments, and passive aggressive behavior to try to fool me into revealing something about the article. There is nothing to reveal; you will be unsuccessful no matter what you do. Or perhaps you are trying to annoy or inconvenience me as retaliation for an article that you do not agree with. That is the definition of a troll.

Alexa's site rankings are not respected by anyone anymore (if they ever were), as far as I can tell. The statistics there seem to indicate future growth based on initial startup inertia -- that is plain stupid. All sites grow exponentially at first, then level out. Only time will tell if Joomla will continue growth beyond its jumpstart. Personally I think it will become a niche CMS, but it will never replace Mambo.

Lastly, since you are talking mostly about me and not about the article, I assume that you generally agree with the facts presented -- especially since you failed to successfully dispute any of them. So unless you have something of substance to say instead of more self-indulgent exercises in circular thinking, I would agree -- you're done here.

-Jem

[yanosz]

Hello,

I read your article as well, and although don't agree with jonmacgregor I have to admit, that your article is strange - and not might as true as I expected.

You call your article "The truth about Mambo and Joomla".Imho this is at least astonishing. Although I don't have as much information and knowledge here as you do, I think that the Mambo and the Joomla crew actually do have different views of the past and the truth is actually somewhere in between. Thus, and considering the privte aspect (mails, phone calls, etc) it is actually very hard, or even impossible to tell the whole, objective truth.
Of course, it is possible to tell the background, to write about IT-gossip, but demanding to tell the truth means beeing omniscent there, what is astonishing - at least.

In your report you try to figure out what was going on by trying to tell the history by yourself and confirming it with various quotes - but you do this insufficiently. Not every aspect of your story is proved with quotes, links, etc. - I guess for reading purposes . At the end it is impossible to tell, whether you find the correct course of action and what actually is the correct course of action. Considering, that your course of action is true by (your) definition, this is some kind of strange.
I guess, interviewing both parts and wrting some dispute / interview stylish article would have been a better choice.

Keep smiling
yanosz

[Valour]

All of the information in the article comes from sources involved with the situation. I don't know anything outside of what they told me. The only exception is at the end of the piece where I relate my experience migrating from Mambo to Joomla.

-Jem

[Stu]

Thanks for this article. For one, I was very confused. I was initially of the understanding that Joomla was the new place to be, and as I'd only JUST started working in Mambo, I pushed straight across to Joomla.

Your article however, gave a better insight into what has happened, and that Mambo ain't dead.

Thanks. Much appreciated.

[Valour]

I thought the same thing at first. After I did all of the research for the article, I realized that it was okay to stick with Mambo, which is a relief because migration is no fun. There are already code differences that cause problems.

-Jem