Community Magazine

I am often asked for support on different problems appearing in projects people work on. As I am a very curious person, I always ask how this problem came up and why. And, for sure, the answer is: "Because my client asked for it, but the system I use doesn't have the features to do so."

On the 1st of September five years ago Joomla! was unveiled to the world for the first time. It is time now for world wide celebrations in the Joomla! community, one of the most diverse communities in the Open Source world. With the least entry barriers, here anyone can take leadership and make change happen. It is a marvelous community of users, developers, designers, documentation creators, bug reporters and fixers, evangelists and every single person in-between who has touched and been touched by this software.

As he serves his country, Michael Babker finds time to serve the Joomla! project. In January 2010 he downloaded his first copy of 1.5, and hasn't looked back. He jumped into the forums and started tracking bugs. His contribution to 1.6 code is significant, and his fellow devs highly value his team work. On September 21st, the Joomla! community got a chance to show their appreciation...

The annual Open Source Awards are here again. You can nominate and vote for your favourite CMS and other Open Source projects in the Hall of Fame CMS category.

The third evolution of the Joomla! Community Magazine has taken on a life much different than its ancestors. The approach that has been taken with the new JCM team has provided the community with a resource that is already becoming invaluable. We wanted to take a moment to sit down with Paul Orwig, the lead editor, to find out where this approach came from and what's in store for the future.

“I looked up that Joomla! CMS that you said you were using for my project. I saw that I can download it for free. How can you charge me $XXXX? Joomla! is free, right? I just want you to install Joomla! and make it look good for me.”

Our Joomla! community spans the globe. We are people who are resourceful, entrepreneurial, geeky, ingenious, artistic, and generous. We like to learn, and we like to instruct. We come in every color humanly possible. The sun never sets on Joomla!, or on the people who create, develop and think up new ideas, every day, in dozens of different languages.

Robert Deutz, founder of Robert Deutz Business Solutions, a software and web development company in Germany specializing in Joomla!, serves as Events Team Leader for Open Source Matters. The following interview explores his approach to organizing global gatherings in the Joomla! community that inspire passion and participation.

With the recent launch of people.joomla.org the community has seen a shift in the way it communicates. The new site, branded as the J!People Portal, launched as a “beta” version on 12 May 2010 and was quietly introduced in a simple blog post. Now, after just over two weeks, the new community networking site boasts involvement of over 2500 community members. We decided to sit down with the two site administrators, Philippe Tassin and Sandra Warren, so we could find out the inside scoop and more!