Slashdot Mirror
Miro Replies to Mambo Allegations
Rico! writes "Miro aka The Mambo Foundation has finally provided answers to some thorny questions and also fired back at the Rebel Developer Alliance." Here is the Slashdot story covering the original split where the developers all jumped ship.
Correct link, since the link in the story is to the main page.
Now, the real question is: is this good for the community?
As long as it is under a reasonable open source license, it doesn't matter: the non-corporate version will continue to be developed and enhanced as long as users want it.
Remember: open source is the free market answer to corporate inefficiencies; it is succeeding because it is more efficient than proprietary software development.
Just my $0.02.
You are not the customer.
Wikipedia entry
"Webportal" is not a registered trademark.
> Now, the real question is: is this good for the community?
Main purpose of the business is to generate profit. But "generate profit" should be read as "take money from somebody else". Take money from Mambo CMS users in this case.
All the steps were heading to benefit the community in the past. Now all the steps will lead to benefit an investor on the first place and the remaining benefits will be granted to the community. Satisfy community as much (and not more) to don't let community members "defect".
Mambo CMS community will benefit because the earnings of the investor is dependant on the Mambo CMS community happiness. But Mambo CMS community will not benefit as much as it would without an investor.
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
> We are seeing a very socialist-corporate trend developing in the open source world. Projects that were developed by the community for the shared, collective benefit of the community are now getting involved with corporate shenanigans.
Would you mind explaining why the word "socialist" appears in that sentence?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Perhaps we'd get further if you explained why exactly you fail to understand its use in that sentence.
Put simply, we are seeing a combining of a form of socialism (as displayed by many open source projects) with the practices and philosophies of the corporate world. Hence the term "socialist-corporate". Not very difficult to comprehend, my friend.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I really have to ask for some clarification on what exactly you think you're talking about? You've referred to three situations that share almost no commonality and then throw some random thought at the end about IP. And where does socialist angle possibly fit into this at all? The thing that bothers me more than your post is the fact that someone modded you up. So in the spirit of being properly informed, allow me to sum up these issues for you.
Mozilla Corporation - Mozilla has a historically commercial background and their more corporate approach to open source should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with their history. The formation of Mozilla Corp should in no way change the direction of the project, and it's not that uncommon of an approach for a non-profit to take.
Linux Trademark - Linux is trademarked to prevent the FUD campaigns under the Linux name, which is unfortunately a growing problem. The costs for licensing are small (from $200 to a max of $5000 for multi-million dollar corps) and only exist to support the maintenance and defense of the trademark.
Mambo - Seems like a straight split because of developer differences. It's a GPL'd project so they can fork and have at it.
In all of these cases the status of the code has not been changed from open source. In fact, the terms of the licenses for all the projects prohibit them from ever trying to "retract" the released source.
In the future please perform a little research and analysis to avoid spreading this type of misinformation.
You are Margaret Thatcher and I claim my five cartons of free school milk.
and Linus' trademark licensing of Linux, we are seeing a very real trend developing.
Linus's trademark licensing of Linux is merely a protection to counter offensive marketing by other 'non-OSS friendly' corporations. Its' like some music artists that copyright their songs, but make them available free for anyone to perform or use, just with permission. The main purpose of the copyright is not to make money, but to ensure that the lyrics are used in the context the writer chose. This is no different, the trademark is not to 'cash in' on its popularity at all, but to control the way the brand name is used.
Your methodology of posting is very interesting, taking unconnected events of minor consequence, trying to push some relevancy through to a reference to IP, which is yet another issue entirely. From the article itself, the Mambo Foundation has been granted an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free licence, thus negating any issues with IP.
"Joy is not in things; it is in us." Richard Wagner
As an entrepeneur who uses Mambo commercially, I find it odd, to say the least, that Miro have been acting dumb on their websites. Of course, one should not needlessly frighten one's customers, but if your top developers run away, at least some assurance that business will continue as usual would have been nice.
Now they are pretending that nothing has happened. Does the emperor really expect us not to notice his lack of clothes?
It would have been better if Miro had responded directly, rather than via 3rd parties.
The best thing Miro could do now is an all-out backpedal with appologies to the core developers of Mambo, a redo of their fondation rules and a free beer for all core participants at the next Mambo convention.
Right now _everybody_ is looking at this and it is ultra-evident that Miro did a big screw up. The interview emphasises this once again.
The way this whole foundation was built is just plain silly. The conditions for joinging are simular to SCO licences and that tells a lot.
Unless the core team really screws up with their successor, this can only turn out bad for Miro. If they don't admit a mistake and see the utter insult their foundation rules are to core developers they will disappear into insignificance in less than a year.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I hereby hand over to henchmen on Miro payroll (aka "Foundation Administrators") the exclusive total and unrevocable ownage of my ass - and everything attached to it.
I am aware of the fact that this blessing costs me an anual fee of mere 1000$ (US). Which is so totally a once-in-a-lifetime super-bargain, since now above mentioned henchmen will give me an acknowledging nod and a pat on the head whenever I make an improvement suggestion for Mambo.
signed
Stupid Me
(currently residing in Dads basement)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So I read the 20 questions and answers. I'm also slightly involved with Mambo -- not as a developer, but as a contractor who gets paid to deploy Mambo for companies. So I've seen the community at work, and I think I have a handle on it (though admittedly from an outsider's perspective).
All I can say is, wow. If Miro thought the publication of those answers would paint them as reasonable, they've really lost it. They start out sounding cool & collected, but quickly veer into crazy-town. For example, question #8 asks why no developers are on the Board. Their answer is OK at the start, basically "hey, Andrew and Brian from the dev team were going to be on board." If that's all you read, they sound fine. But they go on to admit that they later decided -- for the developers, without input -- that the Board was too much for them. Solution? They decided to have no devs on the board.
And just like that, their answer has gone from cool & collected to an admission of stupidity. They're not stupid to think that being on the Board is tough, mind you. It probably is, and it probably does mean that any developer on the Board would have little time left to BE a developer. But they are stupid to think that they would determine what is "too much" on their own, without allowing the developers to decide their own fate, and doubly stupid to think that the only solution is to choose one or the other. There must be dozens of possible ways to compromise or collaborate.
What else? Let's see. Although they don't explicitly list the names of people who it will apply to, they do state that core team developers must also be members. And guess what? Members can be penalized financially if they break Miro's rules. Isn't that a whopper of a chilling effect on development? I sure as hell won't volunteer my time on a project that will bill me if I'm deemed to be "too rude" on the forum, or whatever their rules are.
It's bizarre to me to think that anyone could expect something like this would go over well with the volunteers. It's no surprise to see nearly every major code contributor walking away from Miro. Anyone who stays has to be wealthy, out of it, or completely passive and compliant.
Miro, from one "project leader" to another, all I can say is that I'm happy -- thrilled -- when someone contributes code to my projects. I can't imagine erecting all these hurdles. I can't imagine treating volunteers like 5-year-olds, who need "consequences" for their naughty behavior. If bad behavior is a problem, the correct course of action is to cut ties with that developer. Grow up.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Not that there was much doubt as to this happening, but this issue has officially devolved into a "did not, did too, he said, she said" issue.
All the users of Mambo can really do now is sit back and see which group delivers a better product.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
from both sides see:
s p
Mambo Executives, Developers Fight for Project Control
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1850298,00.a
Steven