Mambo Split

Quote from: jlarson at Aug 19, 2005, 06:05 PM

Hmm. Is a Mambo split/fork a fiasco? Was the Modx-Etomite split a fiasco? Certainly in the awkward way Modx was kicked out, and there’s the point that the open source world has its talent spread on far to many project. But splits and forks also bring new ideas, and content management is far from a mature technology. There are many more avenues to explore. So it seems likely that if Modx continues to grow in popularity, one day differences will arise within this community that result in a fork. I certainly hope that if and when that day comes the community is gracious enough to bless it and learn from it.

You definitely have a point there. And I agree wholeheartedly. However, what I meant by refering to the Mambo situation as a fiasco is that Miro themselves could have avoided the problem by mearly consulting with the developers first before making any final announcements. Plus, in all honestly, I don’t know if I’d ever like to see MODx turn into some sort of foundation under a corporate-type entity. That’s sort of what is going on with Mambo. Sure, I’m ok with the idea of a group of developers deciding to fork an existing project...that’s quite ok when it comes to a GPL licensed product. But I’m definitely not ok with a group that pulls the rug under their developers. I think that’s just wrong.

It’s been talked about a bit before on this forum...but being as it appears to be happening with Mambo, might as well bring it up again. One of the nice things I like about MODx is that there are no egos with the development team. We listen to what everyone has to say, developers and users alike, and MODx itself thrives and grows as a result. That’s one thing that I wouldn’t change for the world with MODx.

Nuff said!

Great comments regarding the vision. The roadmap and intricacies involved in creating and coding are probably best decided at a higher level than the community at large. We will never ship a core product that does all things for all people out of the box. However we will ship a core that will allow people to create a solution to fit their needs. There are a multitude of architectural and security issues to keep in mind that most users will never even need to appreciate. Voting could be a great tool when prioritizing development on things however.

The community here is also very new. Over time you’ll see more and more structure come into place and so on. The ultimate end decisions will be handled by the Foundation Team, after much deliberation and feedback from the community and the development teams. However, some things will just be pleasant surprises, like ... well you’ll just have to wait for one of those! lol

Our mission is to provide a simple and elegant solution for building custom web applications. It just so happens to be wrapped in the guise of a great CMS that is only getting better. In the end, I think you’ll find the project will be run more as a benevolent dictatorship with one heck of an advisory board in the dev team, much like Linux. We may make some decisions that go contrary to requests, but we will always consider them and clearly explain why the decisions are made.

Hope this helps explain what’s going here... we definitely are trying to set up a great community that lasts for a long, long time.

Thanks for that clarification, Ryan.  A benevolent dictatorship is probably the best way to do this sort of thing, and is certainly how Etomite and Modx got to where they are.  The key of course word is benevolent, because as many like Alex have experienced, their benevolence ends up getting walked over by demanding, complaining users.  At least one person needs to be behind it who really sees giving away his or her time and talent as a mission.  Kasper Skårhøj (Typo3) sees his work as a personal mission from God, a part of living out his Christian faith.  His personal intro page (http://typo3.org/community/people/kaspers-corner/) is fascinating, with statements like this:

The Bible clearly tells us that we can expect a lot of selfishness from this world, but we are told to turn the other cheek!

This is not to say that only Christians can be such benevolent dictators--Linus Torvalds professes atheism.  But one at least has to have the commitment to hang in there put up with the junk.

Interesting link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_Dictator_for_Life.  Perhaps one day soon Raymond and Ryan can join this list. :)