Joomla! Community Magazine™

Within the Joomla organization, quite a number of teams are working on all sorts of projects. We at the Joomla Community Magazine are really curious about what each team is doing, who’s in it, how they work together, what the people are like and how all of us can help them. What better way than asking them? And since there are so many teams, we thought we’d make a series out of this, starting with our own team: the JCM. So if you’re as curious as us: pleased to meet you!

In a community-led Project, it's crucial to collect feedback, comments and proposals from all the volunteers and shape the strategy and the direction accordingly. And if this is really easy for what concerns the "software" being completely Open Source and available to anybody who wants to submit a Pull Request or propose a Request for Comments, the same it's not so immediate when it comes to the organization, the teams and the leadership.

Joomla is an open-source content management system with a living community (his heart) and an enormous ecosystem. The sheer number of available extensions and templates (most free) benefits developers, webmasters and everyday users alike. But like any other ecosystem, Joomla is also fragile and needs to be protected if we want to keep it alive.

Back in 2017, Open Source Matters, Inc. changed completely its governance structure, after a long transition phase and merging the "three-heads" that governed the project in the past. 

So many people in the Joomla community have hidden talents. They have the skills, software or resources that someone else needs to get something done, but they may not want to go steady and join a team or commit to lots of hours. Likewise, people need a little help but don’t know who to turn to finish a task for Joomla. So how can we bring the talent and the need together?  Here is how you can be part of Help4Joomla. 

When you hover around in the Joomla Sphere long enough, you’ll see that, like every community, it comes with its own personality types. In this article, you’ll meet a few of them. And if you recognise yourself in one (or more) of these Joomlers, we also advise you on what role you could play in the Joomniverse. Have fun finding your personality type!

There are two circles. One represents all the things that I care about. The other represents all the things over which I have control. The circle of things that I care about tends to be quite a bit larger than the one that I have control over. This is true of almost everyone.

Working together as a global community can be fun. It can be rewarding. It can make you feel part of something bigger than yourself. And at times it can be frustrating, tiresome and infuriating because in every community there can be disagreement, misunderstanding and lack of comprehension. The question is: how do you deal with that? Or, better, how do you solve it before it turns into conflict, and keep the fun in working together?

We all know that 2021 will be the year of Joomla 4, that is now approaching the Release Candidate phase and will be released during the year. But while the Production Department and many volunteers are working hard to get the release done, other members and teams of the Community are working towards other goals and achievements. In this article, we had the chance to collect some of the goals defined by teams within the Operations and the Programs Departments.

Unlike other open-source CMS projects, Joomla is fully volunteer-driven. This means there’s no large company behind it and no corporate interests to take into account. We have a genuinely non-profit organisation, Open Source Matters, facilitating the project by providing financial, legal and organisational support. Every penny Joomla gets from partnerships and sponsors goes directly into the project, and no one contributing to Joomla gets paid. So why do we do it?