Torkil Johnsen

As most of you interested people out there already know, alot of stuff has been happening since Mambo and Joomla split up not long ago. Among other things Mambo Foundation board member Martin Brampton decided to leave, and just hours after that the Foundation admitted to not yet having aquired the Mambo copyrights. After visiting mamboserver.com this morning, and after getting past the initial “we have a critical security error at line 245 in easytofindfile.php”-news bulletin, I found the following statement from Peter Lamont:

This is quoted directly and unedited from mamboserver.com:

After a great deal of discussion, Mambo Communities and Ansearch Ltd mutually agreed not to proceed with the acquisition of Mambo Communities. Both companies were surprised with the backlash from the community and it became immediately obvious that a change in ownership was not in the best interest of the Mambo community. Instead we both agreed to create a supplier relationship which allows Ansearch to provide it’s search and ad technology on Mambo Communities websites and to explore ways to work together to develop and further Open Source initiatives.

Ansearch’s goal in the acquisition was to provide it’s search and ad technologies to our Mamboserver.com and MamboXchange.com websites but some members of the community saw this as an opportunity to raise their own agendas and used their positions to inject fear and distrust to again tear apart one of the world’s most successful Open source Communities.

To some degree the original acquisition plans flushed out certain people who had ulterior motives for Mambo and helped us clean up our community by exiting themselves. One thing becomes obvious during the events of the past few months: Open Source initiatives will always attract people who will use FUD in an attempt to take control. FUD can be used as a diversionary tactic used by unscrupulous people to put forth their own agendas unnoticed, so when you see someone launching a FUD attack, take the time to question their true motives. I certainly hope this is the last we see of this sort of behaviour. I have run the Mamboserver sites for almost six years now and have seen many people try to subvert Mambo and we will certainly be much more diligent in ensuring that Mambo remains a safe and positive development community in the future.

As most people know by now, I am not running in the upcoming board elections for the Mambo Foundation. I created the foundation to protect the Mambo IP and source code so that the community who developed Mambo can have democratic input into how the code progressed. Now it is time for the community to elect it’s own representatives who will take Mambo to new heights, however I will continue my own endeavours within Mambo Communities to help promote and assist Mambo in maintaining it’s position as the world’s most popular Open Source content management system.

… and here are my comments (Yes: In a list, just the way I like it):

• Surprised at the backlash from the community when everyone found out that “mambo” was indeed being sold, not handed over to the Mambo Foundation as promised? How can you be surprised from that?
• Acquisition plan flushed out some people with ulterior motives? Seems to me like the ones with the ulterior motives stayed behind to cleanse the forums of any critics that might dare to voice their opinion, myself included.
• For those who didn’t know, here is an explenation to FUD
• And how about that statement: “I have run the mamboserver sites”? Does any contributor, translator, coder, moderator or administrator feel left out of the credits here? Jeeeeez. Saying “it’s my website, my precious” like a selfish 4-year old clinging on to one of his toys, and in the next sentence talking about the great community that “we” have to maintain and help grow.
• “Maintaining it’s position as the world’s most popular Open Source content management system”. In Norway we have laws against giving false marketing statements like these. I guess those laws don’t apply on the mamboserver sites, since they are run by Peter Lamont himself.

Conclusion: If you decided to stick with Mambo at the Joomla split, you may want to reconsider.

[tags]CMS, Mambo, Peter Lamont, Ansearch, search, content management[/tags]