The Joomla Project – signs of maturity and leadership

A couple of days ago, Joomla announced “an important shift in the organisation and governance of the Joomla Project”. This post is an easy-to-read summary of what the original post talks about.

The change is focused on…

“…making it easier to fulfill our mission, achieve our vision and remain true to our values”

The change will help ensure…

“…that we remain focused on our mission to provide a flexible platform for digital publishing and collaboration”

Lets see what this really means: Not only does it look like the transparency has improved, but three project keywords are explained in the announcement: simplifying, changing and shifting – each one clarified and summarized below.

SIMPLIFYING current working group structure

The aim seems to be to make the structure simpler and more clear.

The problem has been that due to the Joomla Project being organised into a number of separate working groups, unnecessary barriers to collaboration were created. The organisation will now consist of two larger working groups – Production and Community.

Production working group

This group is focused on everything going into the final product – code, documentation, internationalisation and localisation efforts etc. Follow the Joomla Production Working Group Leadership Team on their public mailing list here

Community working group

This group will facilitate communication between users and the Production Working Group, provide the structures and community management, nurture and support online communities of users and provide support and information. Follow the Joomla Community Working Group Leadership Team on their public mailing list here

CHANGING leadership and management

The aim is to change the leadership and management of the project in a way that provides a more open and flexible structure.

The old Core Team will cease to exist and instead the combined leadership teams from the two working groups mentioned above will form the new Joomla Leadership Team. The new team will be much more fluid in its composition and so more able to meet the demands of the rapidly changing environment. This is a much less formal arrangement than the old Core Team, which should also make it much quicker and simpler for people to be recruited to the Leadership Team. Follow the Joomla Leadership Team on their public mailing list here

SHIFTING governance of the project

The aim is to shift to a model that reflects the increased maturity of the organisation and provides a solid foundation for sustainable growth.

Open Source Matters (OSM) will remain the entity charged with caring for the legal, financial and other organisational needs of the Joomla project that fall outside of the two working groups. OSM holds the copyright for Joomla, trademarks related to the Joomla name and logo, as well as other project assets (such as the domains and hardware). Open Source Matters was up until now overseen by the Community Oversight Committee (whose members were also the members of the Core Team). However, the Community Oversight Committee may be disbanded for Open Source Matters to become a fully self-governing body (still under discussion).

Confused and need a visual?



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