Community Magazine

In the field of astronomy, when two or more celestial bodies appear close to each other, that event is called a conjunction. Astronomical conjunctions are beautiful and rare occurances in our night sky that don't last for very long. Right now a rare and relatively short-lived convergence of important milestones and activities are all taking place for our project. Right now is our Joomla! conjunction.

This version of the Joomla! Community Magazine was launched on July 1st of 2010, and so the release of this issue officially marks your JCM's first birthday!

Last month, the 2011 Joomla! draft budget was published and community feedback on it was invited. I believe this was the first time that community feedback was invited before our project's budget was formally approved.

Joomla! is a huge, worldwide community, encompassing many languages and many cultures. When we are able to work and collaborate together, we can do amazing things with incredible results. When we bring our joy into what we do, it is shared with all.

Perspective is a strange thing, probably best experienced less metaphorically, when drawing still life. The slightest head movement can change how an object looks - it's the same object in the same position, only our perception changes.

Joomla! is a volunteer community. And, within that community, people come, people go, people stay. With each new arrival or departure, there are opportunities for change. Inspiration. A new direction, or a different way of looking at things. The changes may be subtle, or a total in-your-face-whammy. You, the User/Developer/Designer, may see it, or you may not. But know this... Change is inspiration, and, like the wind, it can go in many directions.

Unless you've been stuck under a REALLY big snowdrift, hopefully you're aware that Joomla! 1.6 was released on January 10, 2011.  Over three years in development, this new version adds many important features, lays a new architectural foundation for future releases, and starts us down a new path of time based release cycles. Joomla! 1.6 marks the beginning of a new era for our project. Here is a story about how our community worked together to announce this new era to the world...

2010 has been a great year for Joomla!. As our project celebrated its fifth birthday, we also surpassed 22 million Joomla! downloads worldwide and 138 million extension downloads from the Joomla! Extensions Directory. Here is a summary list of some significant accomplishments of the Joomla! project that took place in 2010:

For many of us, today we celebrate the ability to look back on a year filled with challenges and opportunities and say to ourselves, "One more time, I've made it." It's also a time when we look forward and resolve to change those things we think we can improve and commit to working on all those great ideas there just wasn't enough time for.

When this issue is launched, I will be "hard at work" at the JoomlaDay West conference in San Jose, California. Since the JCM team is full of bright, hard working, and self starting volunteers, I had no reservations about being gone during the typically hectic days leading up to and following the launch of a new issue.

Well, maybe not 'no' reservations...