You just can’t travel the open-source CMS circuit without hearing one word: Joomla. This system is easily one of the most talked about software packages on the open-source market or anywhere for that matter, always being praised for its ease of use and plethora of beneficial uses. Let’s walk through a little history to find out how the mighty Joomla CMS came about.
How it Began
The Joomla project began as a fork of the original Mambo content management system, as reflected in the traits embedded in version 1.0. At this time, the name Mambo was trademarked by Miro International Pty Ltd., which established a non-profit foundation with the purpose to fund the project and keep it protected against lawsuits. The original development team made the claim that several provisions of the foundation’s structure contradicted previous agreements set forth by the elected Mambo Steering Committee. These provisions where said to lack the necessary consultation with key stake holders and violate the project’s core open-source values.
And the Controversy Pot Stirs
Members of the Mambo development team started a website called OpenSourceMatters with the sole purpose of distributing information to the community of developers, web designers and end-users. Andrew Eddie, better known as the “Master Chief”, addressed the community with a statement that touched on the controversy at hand. Roughly one thousand people joined the OpenSourceMatters website within a single day, most of them posting words of encouragement and openly supporting the development team. The website received a jolt of notoriety, resulting in news articles regarding the turmoil being posted by sources such as News Forge, eWeek and ZDNet.com.
The ordeal sparked deeply held feelings in the free software community about what shall qualify as open-source. From there, the forums of many other open-source projects became active, seeing postings from communities for and against the both sides of the argument. Over the next two week’s following the initial Eddie statement, announcement teams were re-organized and the eventual Joomla community continued to expand. With the aid of the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center), Eben Moglen was instrumental in the core Joomla team be formed in August of 2005, indicated by his blog entry and a related announcement. To the current day, the SFLC still provides legal guidance for those involved in the Joomla project.
It’s Official
Joomla was officially announced on September 1, 2005. One September 7, 2005, the core development team called out for logo submissions from the community, encouraging members to vote on the logos they preferred. Joomla 1.0 was officially announced on September 16, 2005, being released as a re-branded version of Mambo 4.5.2.3 equipped with bug and minor security fixes. With their full attention on the new project, the developers stepped away from Mambo completely in favor of the Joomla’s rapid popularity.
The CMS won numerous awards throughout 2006 and 2007, paving the way for Joomla 1.5 on January 22, 2008. Although Mambo is still supported and available, the Joomla project has since surpassed it and most of the competition on the market, making it the fastest growing open-source CMS in existence.
