Joomla! Community Magazine™

So you’ve decided to join the Joomla Community, and maybe even dedicate some of your talent, skills to Joomla. Great! But now what? Where is everyone? Where do all these cool people meet? How to find a team that suits you, and how to join them? We’ve got you covered! Read all about the steps you can take to get settled in, and know: every step of the way, there’s someone who can help you.

Joomla's Operations Department Coordinator is responsible for the day to day operation of all the Joomla.org websites, such as the Joomla Extensions Directory, the one and only Joomla Community Magazine and the Volunteers Portal. Since a few weeks, Operations has a new coordinator: Carlos Cámara. Carlos has been volunteering for quite a while, so he's not exactly a new face in the Joomla Crowd. Find out why he stepped up for this particular board position!

If your software is free for everyone to use, does that mean it isn’t worth anything? Surely not! Three researchers from Harvard Business School and the University of Toronto have found a way to estimate the value of Open Source Software. Spoiler alert: it’s nowhere near nothing.

Imagine a super large open source developer's conference, with thousands of attendees and over sixty conference rooms. Joomla's president Crystal Dionysopoulos was there, and for a very good reason: together with Drupal, WordPress and Typo3 we launched the Open Website Alliance.

Where can I find other people working with Joomla? How can I learn more about Joomla? Who can I discuss issues with? The answer to these questions: a Joomla User Group! We have JUGs all over the world, and virtual ones, and everyone can join. There’s a Joomla Team dedicated to JUGs: coordinating, encouraging, supporting and helping JUGs. In January 2024, the second international Joomla User Group meeting took place. Laura Gordon tells us what happened there and what’s going to happen next.

Remember when we wrote about the EU preparing its Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), a European law about hardware and software? We were really concerned about the way it would affect Joomla and other open source software. Well… there's news.

Last month we asked you to share the links to your favorite articles from the Joomla Community Magazine in 2023. And you did! Turns out you really love tutorials, and a lot of you also like the articles about leadership and communication. From the articles you submitted, we've managed to make a top 20. Let's dive into the most valued articles of 2023!

Elections are coming up again! This time, four board positions will be open for election. If you've always wanted to be in Joomla's leadership, this is your chance to help shape the future of Joomla. Read more and discover how you can become a candidate for Joomla's Board of Directors, and which positions are up for election!

At the end of the year, magazines like the Joomla Community Magazine often publish lists with the highlights of the year. This year, we’d like to do it differently: you’re in charge! Share links to your favorite JCM articles with us, and tell us why you chose those particular articles!

One of the big challenges in Joomla is we don’t have enough volunteers to do the work. Or rather: the volunteers we have are often overloaded with work, and no one is available to help new people find their way, so they don’t know what’s expected from them and just start working nevertheless. This is a vicious cycle we can’t seem to break out of. As a result, not every contribution gets the friendly reception it deserves. To put it mildly.