Something is keeping me wake at night. It is not the Corona virus and what that means for the world, it’s not that I am worried about my kids. It’s because of the current state of Joomla: a open source project that I hold dearly and that has been with me through ups and downs in my life.
I feel Joomla is going through a difficult time at the moment: the flagship product Joomla 3.9 has gone into retirement.
And that is not a bad thing: just like in nature, the old needs to die to make room for the new.
But what is the issue then?
The issue (at least for me) is that the ‘new’ is not going to automatically be Joomla.
Sure we will someday have Joomla 4, but let’s be honest: what is new about joomla 4? What is it that Joomla 4 can do that Joomla 3 can’t? What is it that makes extension developers, agencies and end users invest their time and money in Joomla 4? What makes Joomla 4 worthwhile the investment?
That is the question that keeps me awake at night.
Because the answer for me and for other extension developers I have talked to is: not enough.
Sure there are some new Joomla 4 features that were cool to have at the time they where first discussed, but lets face it: that was already years ago and these features do not add direct value to the end users in the current moment: the web-world has moved on.
Joomla 4 misses the ‘Wow I want that’ features for end users, and for me as a developer, Joomla 4 misses the ‘Wow I want to be part of that vision and energy’ that it had years ago.
So basically Joomla 4, although it isn’t born yet, is already ready for retirement.
What is keeping me wake at night is that although when I talk to people they agree, but nobody speaks their mind: speaking your mind is like throwing away your old shoes when you are not fully comfortable with your new ones (Dutch saying). And because nobody asks (leadership) questions like ‘What is the reason why Joomla 4 isn’t getting the traction it needs? Why are people standing on the side line asking when it is ready but not doing any actual work to get it ready?’
So let me ask you
Asume that Joomla 3 is still actively developed: it is getting regular updates and new features. Assume that Joomla gets forked and that Joomla 4 is the fork.
What would it take for you to join forces with the new Joomla 4 fork?
Reacties (10)
Hervé
HI,
I sleep well at night but I think more and more often of Joomla. I have been waiting for a year for the new functionalities linked to the custom fields joomla (in particular the more powerful repeater) as well as 2 or 3 other functionalities.
The urgent thing is to quickly release Joomla 4 to stimulate developers.
I hope that the new elected officials and global dynamics will allow to structure a new faster cycle (but realistic by paying people) for the next Joomla 5 version by consulting further than the developers with a global survey.
What to do?
As a non-developer webmaster, I can't do much, especially with poor English.
I think that the developers of extensions can take part in the last debug so that Joomla 4 leaves very quickly.
If the developers participate, it seems logical to me that it be heard (a little more).
Maybe you have to rely on the developers who have the most positive reviews like akeeba, rsform, acymailing ... to make a collective request, but don't forget to consult the users. Thank you and good luck
Regards
Ruud van Lent Auteur
Hi HDcms,
thanks for your comment.
In my early Joomla years I remember I filed a bug for an issue I was facing on one of my sites. It was one of the core developers at that time that replied to the report "thank you for filing the bug report, where is the code to fix it?"
At that time it challenged me to dive even further into Joomla and (Joomla) development: the start of a new 'hobby'.
But looking back now at that moment, I see that (going a little black and white here) things get fixed or added by the people who 'suffer' the consequences of the bug, or who benefit of the value when the new feature is implemented.
Although this natural behavior has brought Joomla very far, i feel that it will not bring us further: there needs to be a shared vision for Joomla that will give purpose to everybody involved. It is fulfilling that purpose that will drive us forward instead of the current 'what is in it for me' mentality.
And i agree that there are great developers out there that could contribute.
When looking at myself as a developer: I have tried and sometimes successful, most of the time not. It is very demotivating when your change is ignored, gets bashed, or when you are put of.
A lot of developers (like top rated Akeeba and Acymailing) are shifting their attention already: they are now also building for WordPress, I even see highly rated developers step into the Magento market.
I think that is 'a sign' on how these developers see the future of Joomla.
For me, Joomla and everybody involved should start asking questions: why am I doing what i am doing? What is holding me back? What do I need to get involved again? What is needed to make Joomla great again? What role can I play?
Facebook Comment Gast
I'm quite happy to use 3.x if new features are added. (and even if they aren't) If it were forked and the focus was on skilled users sign me up. J IMO has wasted too many years chasing the be everything to everyone and it seems to want to keep chasing that tail.
Ruud van Lent Auteur
I agree, asking the fork question hopefully triggers people to make the (subconscious) choice they made explicit. Now the developers I know don't mind... All is okay... Whatever... If it succeeds: ok, if not: a well no problem. For me it is that indifference that 'kills' the project / drains energy. When I ask these developers if they would jump on board when forked, they all say: no, there is no route / vision.... Sometimes you need to step back as a project and ask the 'obvious' questions to which nobody likes the answers. A reality check... But hey, that is difficult because 9 out of 10 people who have stocks only regularly check them when the markets are positive for them....
Facebook Comment Gast
When I was in Spain I saw so much chase the tail of making our powerful CMS into something for every no skill person. THAT IS ALREADY OUT THERE and has financial backing. Why not embrace our middle space between the dead easy and Drupal. Work like hell on developing quality training tools and encouraging the move to J for business for the professional sector looking for our baked in extensibility and security.
Hervé
Hi,
I understand the disappointment of not having his proposal taken into account. Those who do this are not mean. Often a volunteer, they do their best.
That raises a problem of governance and that can be discussed with the members of OSM !?
Many developers will look elsewhere. I understand them, I too have to make wp sites.
For "well known" developers, I think it is a mistake to believe in its developments for wp.
There are now many great wp plugins. New entrants (even great Joomla developer) will waste a lot of time and money (in general).
I do not believe today in a fork of Joomla as in a new miraculous operating system. The best 3 cms (or SE) in the world exist. There are dozens of other cms in the world.
End users will only buy for the top 3!
I continue to believe and want a better future for Joomla.
It is necessary to release Joomla 4 quickly, then take the time to better integrate collectively the challenge of a super Joomla 5.
Unite in this vision there!
Regards
Ruud van Lent Auteur
Hi,
As a Joomla developer I think it is relatively easy to 'port' your extension to WP: it is not like starting from scratch. So the investment is minimal.
I do not want to fork either, the fork question is in the blog to trigger people. When there is a fork, it forces you to make a decision: do I stay with the old or do I get aboard of the new (fork). Making that decision requires information: what is this fork about, what problem does it solve, why is this better. All leading to the decision: Am I willing to invest (time and money) in this fork.
Currently these questions are not asked but what is not good, is when they were asked, there would be no answers: in my opinion it all starts with a vision and a mission.
What is it that you want to achieve, what is your purpose. That is what mobilizes people.
Joomla currently completely lacks a vision or a mission.
You can compare it best with a elevator pitch: let's say you step into an elevator with a potential client. You want to sell your product to this client and you have 1 minute to do so. The client asks: "what is it you sell and how will I benefit?', and you saying: 'uhmm.... I don't know'
If a vision and mission is missing, it will become part of the vision and mission of somebody else. That will lead to politics, energy loss, inefficient working. Have a look at the discussion about the new proposed admin template, I think that sums it all up.
Ruud van Lent Auteur
> When I was in Spain I saw so much chase the tail of making our powerful CMS into something for every no skill person. THAT IS ALREADY OUT THERE and has financial backing. Why not embrace our middle space between the dead easy and Drupal. Work like hell on developing quality training tools and encouraging the move to J for business for the professional sector looking for our baked in extensibility and security.
That sounds like a plan, a plan that I could work with. Somebody once told me to always have plan because if you don't you'll end-up in the plan of somebody else...
And by plan I mean vision and mission: the lack off will not entice developers / testers / document writers (everybody 'building Joomla') to step in. What that will do is that people will look at Joomla and only chip in when it is beneficial for their plans...
As quoted in another blog i wrote on this topic: "The only thing worse then being blind is having sight but no vision".
T-J Gast
I've been around with Joomla since the beginning, deploying Joomla sites and translating to finnish but last few years just looked around with Joomla evolve better on the longer run. I would say I agree with the lack of vision and a mission. It is great that 4.0 embraces Accessibility but other than that, all seems to be just an upgrade to functionalities that Joomla currenly has.
Joomla has been in the middle of Wordpress and Drupal, and I have always preferred Joomla for the better flexibility than Wordpress and much more user friendliness than Drupal, but these changes coming with 4.0 seems to be much more to developers and still not enough. Seem to be that vision has been stuck in the long process, but that's how it goes, when open source development is done voluntarily instead of adding business perspective to the development.
Many developers here in finland have moved to wordpress development for good since there is much easier to make business with cms deliveries. Joomla should have a reason why devs would come back and would deliver Joomla CMS to their customers. At the moment there seems to be very little reason to choose Joomla over Wordpress and 4.0 isn't showing any signs that would change easily.
Ruud van Lent Auteur
Hi T-J, thanks for your reaction. I think a lot of people that are currently (and for a long time) working with Joomla see it the same way. The 'business' perspective is missing you say, I would say that 'any' joint and agreed perspective is missing. What happens then is that people involved act based on their own perspective.
Last week I opened one of the department reports and was astonished by the number of team leaders that where mentioned in there: for me it feels that we have more 'overhead' in these functions then there are developers who do the actual work.
Due to a missing joint vision it is everybody for their own.
I have tried to get some people into a free leadership webinar addressing leadership in opensource like organizations and the importance of joint accountability: nobody showed up from the Joomla community and when I tried to find the post i made for it, it turned out that it was deleted without notice or explanation.
That is also a way to ensure that things do not change out of your control.
Anyway, I think that Joomla 4 will be a fantastic release for the people involved and currently working on it...
https://onlinecommunityhub.nl/community-management/what-is-missing-in-joomla-4-to-make-it-a-success