State of the Joomla Project: July 2010

Written by Jeremy Wilken 12 Jul2010

At the start of the year many people were making predictions for 2010, but I made a list of things that needed to happen in 2010 for the Joomla project. I thought it would be appropriate to stop and look back at the midpoint of the year and see how we are doing. I shall try to make regular 6-month State of the Project posts to see the progress over time.

I'd like to start by going over the four items that I posted in January of 2010. Then I have a few other items I think should be added to the list for things that need to occur in the next 6 months. Lastly I'll wrap up with a few conclusions on the state of the project.

Progress since January 2010

Joomla! 1.6 needs to be released

Joomla! 1.6 has been in the works for some time. We are currently in a beta cycle, which will be followed with an RC cycle, to an ultimate stable 1.6 release. All indications are that it will certainly be released this year, but the emphasis should be on getting it stable.

Joomla! release cycles need to shorten

I haven't heard much about this recently, as focus has been on getting 1.6 ready. As far as I know the plan is to shorten the development cycles to about 6 months, by using a stable trunk approach. This means that the trunk (the main development version of Joomla) should almost always be stable enough to install, and new features will be added only after they are confirmed to be stable in a branch (secondary development environment). This might be better, but at least it will ensure more ongoing development.

Joomla! needs more developer resources

The developer website has been undergoing an update, but has not been launched. Several months ago it was stated that it would be coming out soon, but I suspect until 1.6 is out it will continue to be out of date. However, lots of great resources have been created lately, in the documentation and in various other places. Several developers have been making video tutorials, I've seen more blogging about developer tips, and so on. There have also been a lot of resources created related to the Bug Squad, and I believe a way to better organize all of the information will be a priority after 1.6.

Joomla! Leadership, and the community need to pull together

This one is hard to assess. I went to J and Beyond 2010, and having met with Ryan Ozimek (OSM President) and seeing the community in action, its clear that there are a lot of good things happening. New board members have been designated for certain roles such as community and events managers. I think the overall trend has been positive. I would also say that it appears more work is to be done, and I think it mostly boils down to setting clear processes for both the leadership and the community to follow.

Where do we need to go now?

I have a generally positive feeling about the items above. Certainly, I wish that 1.6 could have been released by now, that 1.7 would be in development, that the leadership and community would jive perfectly, and developer resources were available for everything, but progress has been made in those areas.

Other things have come to my attention in the past 6 months, and I'd like to share a new set of things that need to happen (or begin) in 2010.

Joomla! needs a clear roadmap.

Let's face it, right now nobody knows what Joomla 2.0 (or even 1.7) will look like. I think this is a mistake, and others agree too. Does a roadmap have to include every conceivable feature or be set in stone? No, obviously it will be flexible. However, not knowing what direction we are heading is about the same as gambling. Should someone continue to work with Joomla? A major factor in their decision might be the lack of a planned roadmap causing them to doubt the future.

The development process needs refining

This has come up numerous times recently in the Bug Squad, because the tools and the approaches used are sometimes frustrating or mediocre. There are great development tools available, and making a switch is certainly a pain, but the process for contributing and the tools used needs to be clearly defined and improved with more modern tools. I also think this should happen after 1.6 is ready, so there is the most time to get the new setup ready before 1.7.

Joomla! has to begin planning for 2.0

Similar to the roadmap, we need to start considering what a 2.0 release will be. In reality this could be the very first 'real' Joomla release. So far Joomla has been built from Mambo and is littered yet with legacy or old code. Sure it works, but we need to begin thinking how a CMS should be coded by today's standards, and what features it should have, such as how do we provide semantic content, scalable sites, etc. I would go so far as to say 1.7 and so on are meaningless if we don't start a process for 2.0.

State of the Project July 2010

In short, the project is approaching a major crossroad. The release of 1.6 will be a huge indicator for the project. I know that we will all celebrate the release, but just as an athlete may celebrate a goal during the game, they need to quickly get back into the game. I think the desire and the motivation is there, many of the components to make Joomla better are in place or could be found. The way we handle the post 1.6 release as a project and community will determine the future of Joomla.

I believe the outlook is positive so long as we continue to push Joomla. That means you and I both need to be part of that process.