Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief

In terms of Internet time, one can consider Joomla! as a young adult who is trying to figure out what he/she wants to do with the rest of their life and is having an identity crisis in the process.  The Joomla project on one hand wants to remain true to its Mission, Vision & Values.  On the other, it is currently engaging a professional PR Firm to increase it’s brand recognition. 

What Joomla! does not have that a number of other OSS projects do have is one or more commercial entities that provide them with “free” marketing and PR services.  Acquia, Automattic, redhat, Canonical (Ubuntu), Oracle (OpenOffice) come to mind here.

Now that I’ve stated the above, some of you will proceed directly to the comments form and delineate the many evils of commercial entities and the OSS projects that are “conspiring” with them.  Some will suffer from “Twitter Deprivation” and move on.  Others, thinking “What the hell is this idiot talking about?” will read on out of pure curiosity.  And some will simply read on with no malice aforethought!

Top ten reasons why Drupal and Joomla! suck:

1. They are way too easy to install and configure.
2. They are excellent at managing content.
3. One does not have to give anyone their credit card information to download them.
4. They have way too many 3rd party extensions, especially Joomla.
5. They have communities that are way too large and, on the whole, much too friendly and helpful.
6. They are easy to write templates/theme for (although some may give Joomla! the edge here).
7. They have forums where users can ask and answer questions.
8. They have semi-decent documentation
9. They have created a service industry around them, e.g., selling templates, themes and extensions, building web sites, providing ongoing operations and maintenance support, etc.
10. They have provided shining examples of the benefits of open source software development.

I found this today on the Joomla! Forum and thought it was worth passing on...

A comparison of the capabilities and features of the latest releases (as of September 2008) of Joomla 1.5, Drupal 6, and Wordpress 2 with respect to 1) functionality -- multi-user publishing, layout and design, search engine optimization (SEO), mobile device support, and internationalization/localization; 2) extensibility -- the general climate and quality of third-party extension development for each platform; 3) support; 4) specific kinds of websites -- media/publishing sites, community/social sites, eCommerce sites. This is a helpful breakdown when it comes to deciding which platform is the best fit for a specific purpose.

You can view or download a PDF version of the comparison at NewLocalMedia.org.

The Joomla! CMS Project recently announced a change in the policy for listing 3rd-party extensions on their popular JED site.  The new policy requires that all 3rd-party extensions must use the GPL license in order to be listed on the directory.  Furthermore, they will no longer accept extensions that contain encrypted code, which some open source software developers use to discourage individuals and warez sites from redistributing their software.

This came as no big surprise to me, as  Joomla's overall policy on extension licensing, which was announced about 18 months ago, is that extensions to Joomla!, which is GPL, are, by definition, GPL since they are considered "derivative works."

While I personally have no problem with this new policy (other than wondering why GPL-compatible licenses are not allowed), I wondered if anyone had really thought about what the long term effect of a GPL-only policy would be on one of Joomla's often stated future goals.  That being the desire to have the Joomla! CMS spawn a companion "application framework" upon which a number of diverse applications could be built.   

One thought that crossed my mind while burning a minimal amount of brain cells thinking about this was: