We sit down with long time contributor, all around nice guy and Joomla 4.2 release lead, Roland Dalmulder, to hear what he gives and receives from the Joomla community. You can check out Roland's Joomla extensions on https://rolandd.com/ which he was too nice to promote himself in his answers.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to get to know you, Roland! Could you tell us a little about yourself?

My name is Roland Dalmulder and I live in Rotterdam, The Netherlands with my wife and daughter. My original background is tourism, but I have been a programmer for so long now, I guess tourism no longer counts. Running long distance is my hobby as computers is primary work nowadays.

How did you get involved with Joomla and the J! Community?

After having used Mambo, I also moved with the flow to Joomla, originally building an e-commerce site that never took off and has been long buried. As I was living in Indonesia at the time there was no JUG or JoomlaDay around, as soon as I came back to The Netherlands I visited JoomlaDay Netherlands and there I met people from Rotterdam and the rest is history they say.

What do you do for a day job, and if this includes Joomla, how?

My day job is primarily building my extensions for Joomla along with building custom solutions for customers. This is mostly Joomla but not only Joomla because as long as it is PHP I will find my way.

Do you use Joomla in other ways?

Well I use Joomla for my own commercial website but other than that I do not use Joomla in another way.

Are you involved in the Joomla community, apart from in your official position?

Over the lifetime of Joomla I have been involved in a lot of areas, at the moment I am the release lead for Joomla 4.2, and I maintain the Joomla Identity Portal.

How did Joomla change your life?

Joomla has made it possible for me to build a business and provide me with an income. This works both ways of course, I still have to work hard to make it happen, but Joomla is the vehicle that has given me the opportunity to do just that. There is not a day that goes by, where I do not work with or on Joomla.

What did you learn and / or gain personally from being a J! Volunteer?

The most I have gained from being a Joomla volunteer is the experience of meeting so many new people from all over the world. This ties in nicely with my tourism background, a kind of travelling behind the keyboard.

Do you have a memorable Joomla-moment?

There are a lot of memorable Joomla moments, good ones and bad ones. Running the Joomla Bug Squad was a lot of fun, we did a lot of Pizza, Bug and Fun events here in The Netherlands, and we saw a constant flow of issues decreasing. Most conferences are memorable due to all the people from all over the world coming together.