Open Source Matters: February 2011 Report

It's still early enough in the year to make some predictions about 2011: dedicated people continue to affirm their willingness to give back to the project, and the project leadership is collaborating in new ways to keep Joomla moving forward!

Congratulations and a big Thank You to Ryan Ozimek and James Vasile on the extension of their OSM Board terms! Their willingness to continue contributing energy and expertise to OSM is much appreciated: Ryan in the role of President, and James by helping to interpret legal matters. Thanks guys! Read more about it here: http://opensourcematters.org/news/175-board-terms-extended.html

In recent weeks the combined project leadership: CLT (Community Leadership Team), PLT (Production Leadership Team), and OSM, have been working together creating new committees.

These new committees include:

Budget Committee: Under the initiative of Paul Orwig, OSM Treasurer, Wendy Robinson (CLT), Matt Lipscomb (CLT), Chris Davenport (PLT), and Phil Locke (OSM), are drafting guidelines to establish how this committee will function. They will review the projected budgets from each team, and then submit an overall budget for OSM approval. In addition, they will be in charge of budget reviews throughout the year to monitor actuals, and to consider unbudgeted expenses.

Communications Committee: This team is just getting off the ground with input from Wendy Robinson of the CLT, Ron Severdia from PLT, and myself. Our planning includes defining the primary purposes of this team, the roles of each leadership team and how communication will be done. Our goal is to create an entity that will both increase the timeliness, quality and quantity of communication between the leadership teams, as well as between the project leadership and the greater Joomla community.

Joint Summit Committee: The Joomla Project leadership is made up of dedicated and hard-working people. But our geographical distances, busy schedules and infrastructure don't facilitate exchange amongst each other. The last full leadership summit for the project was in 2008. A few weeks back, Wendy Robinson from the CLT and Mark Dexter from the PLT, joined Robert Deutz and myself from OSM to think about bringing us all together again. We have polled our respective teams and are close to finalizing the dates, location and agenda for the summit. There is nothing like meeting face to face to increase understanding and collaboration. I know it will be a lot of work and a lot of fun!

It's been inspiring to me to see so many from all across the leadership stepping up to renew and take on additional roles to the ones they already have, helping us all move forward together. Thanks everyone!