Collaborative discussions

[counterpoint]

The following is an open letter sent to Andrew Eddie, leader of the Joomla development team:

Hi Andrew

Thanks again for your kind comments about our new team. We are very happy to agree to your suggestion on sharing information about security issues that are liable to affect both projects. There are other issues of common interest to our respective communities. I hope you will not take it unkindly, but because of the recent history, the Mambo team seeks to avoid misunderstandings, and therefore this is an open letter that will also be published in the Mambo and Joomla forums. Naturally security matters would be treated differently!

One particular matter arises as we prepare for our first new Mambo release and observe the work you have done in making Joomla releases. We are thinking about changes in the interfaces used by third party developers. We see the numerous developers (not just those involved with the well known products) as important stakeholders in the Mambo project.

It is evident that there are already small interface changes in the Joomla releases. So even at this early stage, we are considering how best to steer our own release to be in the best interests of all concerned. The issues are small, because major changes have not yet happened.

Going forwards, we expect to make much more profound changes as we seek to make the developer interface simpler, yet also increase its power. No doubt you are planning significant changes too. At the same time, we will be looking at ways to help developers to move with us easily and efficiently.

Partly because it is in the best interests of our stakeholders and partly because we believe in the value of open standards, we are interested in discussing any possibilities for commonality with other organisations. There is at least a possibility in principle that standards could be agreed for PHP based plugins to content management systems.

Since Joomla is clearly the closest comparable system to Mambo at this stage, I am writing to ask whether you and your team would like to discuss with us, aiming to agree some standards for the main interfaces that are used by third party developers. This could require collaborative work of substantial duration.

We believe that if agreement could be reached without compromising the potential we see for innovation in developer services, it would be a benefit to the stakeholders in both Mambo or Joomla. I should be grateful if you could let me know your view on this question.

Best regards, Martin

Martin N Brampton "Counterpoint"
Team Leader
Mambo Foundation Core Team

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