PHP-CSS-DIV-CMS Joomla-Java Info

Norwegian Community Sponsors Joomla! Localisation Efforts

13.12.09

The Joomla! User Association Norway (Foreningen Joomla! i Norge) and the Joomla! Project are delighted to announce a sponsorship of 10,000 kr (about $1500) for development work toward a system for easily transferring wiki help content to a joomla instance. There a specific interface will make it easy for Translation Teams to provide localised help. This will provide vital support the project's vision of "people around the world using their preferred languages" and "People publishing and collaborating in their communities and around the world."

Rune Rasmussen from the JUA Norway Board said "Norwegian is as important for the Norwegian community as English for the US or the UK community or French for the French speaking community. But since Norway is a country with few people (4 mill.) our challenge is to have enough resources to do the work." This project will improve the efficiency of translating help materials for language communities around the world.

As Ole Ottosen, Translation Coordination Team, put it "This task will need a custom coding effort. The support from Norwegian community now has made it possible to free up some coding hours and provide a solution in the interest of the greater international community." The project should have a solid start with this sponsorship, and we hope other communities will also provide financial support to help Joomla! achieve its internationalisation and localisation goals.

Ryan Ozimek, who chairs the OSM Capital Committee, said "There are four great ways for people to support the project: development (code), community contributions, third party ecosystem creations, and direct financial support.  Financial support to the project is integral to our community's success because that ensures the infrastructure support that can't strategically be upkept without financial support. Your funding goes directly to paying for our robust servers, protection of the community's well built brands and copyrights, and supporting our wonderful JoomlaDay events worldwide." Potential sponsors for this or other projects should contact Ryan.

I have recently been working with an Education School - The Upper Valley Educator Institute - to migrate their internal email systems to Google Apps Education Edition.

Their email was stored on a traditional server and everyone was using a different email client (no-one had backups!). Google Apps would provide some clear advantages in efficiency and management.

Join us at the 2nd annual Joomla Day in Vermont - June 5, 2010, 9 AM - 5 PM at Marlboro College, Marlboro, Vermont, USA. Joomla Day's are a great way of meeting peers and learning about this award winning CMS. This will be the second year of Joomla Day New England, last year's event was highly successful with the limited places filled up in just a couple of weeks! Just 20 minutes west of Brattleboro, there are still a few places left for this year's conference - but register now - http://newengland.joomladayusa.org/!

Most people are aware that Joomla is an international community and consists of much more than the English-only Joomla.org family of sites.  Many non-English countries have their own language-specific resources such as localized websites, documentation and forums.  So how do we bring internationalization to the main Joomla.org sites?

How can non-English community members find local Joomla resources?
Currently, by using a (local) search engine.

How does the current Joomla.org family of sites engage international non-English community members?
The only current option for the main information on the Joomla.org family of sites is to utilize an online translation tool such as Google Translate.  However, there are language-specific forums on forum.joomla.org

Possible Improvement - Local Language Information Pages
In June of 2010 I participated in the JoomStew radio show along with fellow guests Sander Potjer and Radek Suski titled “Measuring Community”, a discussion around a chapter in Jono Bacon’s book, The Art of Community.

During this interesting show, I was able to discuss localization with Sander.  Sander is very active in the Dutch community (joomlacommunity.eu) and pointed out that the connection between the joomla.org sites and the local non-English community sites needs improvement.  When I asked what he thought would be a way to accomplish that, he referred me to another international website that displays a small notice based on the language detected in your browser settings pointing you to information in your own language.

The Joomla.org sites have always been unintentionally English-centric.  To increase discovery of the many non-English Joomla communities, we started an initiative to compile international information pages which would provide a gateway to these local communities and some translated “About Joomla” information.  To accomplish that we compiled a short English page with the most important resources and put it on the docs.joomla.org website.  After a call for volunteers to start developing these pages, the response was amazing - the main document has already been translated to nearly 30 different languages/countries!  Thanks to everyone who contributed so far!

For the next phase, it’s now time to make the international pages available on the Joomla.org site.  We hope to have more information on this phase soon.

Meanwhile, if the information in your language has not been translated yet at http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_info_page and you are willing to help out, please contact Peter Martin via the forum: pe7er. Don't forget to include the ISO tags for your language/country (en-GB for British English). Thanks!

In the last week, Joomla's PLT, CLT, and OSM have posted information about their goals for 2012. Please go read these and comment on them, as their goals impact your business. Proposed PLT 2012 Goals | Discussion Proposed 2012 CLT Goals | Discussion Community feedback requested on OSM's top 2012 goal ideas | Discussion Google Doc describing the planning process

(This post is in reply to one that Dries Buytaert wrote on OStatic.com)

I agree with Dries that Open Source CMS' are putting more power into the hands of people who may not know or want to learn code, and that as their learning curves get less steep we will see more people jumping into creating and growing their websites themselves; depending on the type of website they want to have.

We've of course seen the *huge* acceptance of wordpress for simple content publishing (read: 'blogging') amongst all sorts of people ranging from tech pros to near-luddites.  As people use more websites that have richer feature sets everyday they'll no doubt want to see the functionality of those sites in their own; for a while yet, though it may not require custom coding, I think the role of 'web master' or 'web developer' or whatever-you-want-to-call-them will be around for quite some time.

That role will continue to exist but may change to focus on conceptualizing the end result and making it happen with the right combination (and configuration) of 3rd party modules/extensions; whether through just hand-holding/teaching people wanting to develop their own sites or actually putting the pieces together themselves.

I'm really excited for Mark Boulton's redesign of Drupal 7; right now a major hindrance to non-technical people using Drupal is its stratified admin interface, which often leads to developers custom-creating UX per-project to suit each client's administrative needs.

To help people jump-start their web projects we've taken a hard look at another Open Source CMS called Joomla for example, and come up with a packaged solution called Seedling (http://www.plantseedling.com).

Seedling's distribution of Joomla is cool because it comes pre-configured and loaded with a suite of extensions and easily changeable theme; so people can develop their web projects a lot quicker and with more power under the hood.  Plus, it comes with optional email/ticket support - so new adopters of Joomla can get help when they need it.

Until core installs of Open Source CMS' are a lot more user friendly I think solutions like Seedling will really help bridge the gap for those folks who want to learn via DIY and/or can't afford the services of web developers.

The Joomla project is requesting comment and feedback for a proposed new site that is planned to be deployed in 2009.  The working name for the site is the "Joomla Services Directory".  This site is to be a directory along similar lines to the Joomla Extensions Directory but with the purpose of connecting people or companies that provide Joomla related services, whether they be free or commercial, to people who need those services.  It has been identified that providing a centralised directory will have a significant positive impact on Joomla user and business community.  The scope of the site is yet to be decided but it is envisaged it may include services such as consulting, free-lancing, training, professional advice, legal advice (pertaining to Open Source or operating a software business), Joomla-ready hosting, and so on.

If you've never attended a Joomla Day event, you are missing out on great fun! Joomla Days are the Joomla community's regional events, spreading the word about Joomla and showing how it works. Each Joomla Day is a unique experience, happening in a variety of environments, with different tracks and themes. One thing they all hold in common, though, is terrific networking, making new friends and catching up with old ones, putting faces to those social networking names, and beer.

Last week the Joomla Project team released Joomla 1.5.12, codename "Wojmamni Ama Woi." No explanation for the Swahili meaning was given, but this version's various security and bug fixes are easily explained by checking out the project's 1.5.12 release.

 

The notes on Joomla.org[...]

Coming on October 12th is the 3rd Joomla Day to be located in the US in 2009 in New York City.

This is the first time there have been so many Joomla events in the US, along with three Joomla Days, they'll be two CMS Expo's and countless Joomla training classes across the country. Its great sign that Joomla is making the move from Europe and Australia and establishing a firm foothold in the States.

What's in Joomla Day NYC?

This full day program should prove to be extremely va[...]

 

We have finished most parts of the Development Coordinator Summit over the last few days. We have had some pretty intense days of discussing our agenda, that covered the following topics:

1. Development Vision
2. Healthy Development Team
3. Operational and Organisational Structure
4. Roadmap

This mail is a summary of the outcome of these topics. When you read it is important to understand that we only covered the highlights and have set direction and focus for Joomla development. It will take time, and considerable effort from everyone involved in the project to achieve our goals, but we are excited. It's impossible to share every detail but the following presents a summary of each major topic.

There's a really simple new approach to defining what a site's default homepage is now with Joomla 1.5: All you have to do is go to Menus>mainmenuand, select the menu item you'd like to be the homepage and hit the new 'Default' button - you'll see a star appear in the table row for that item.  Now, whenever people land at your site they'll see that page/view/component!

At the Joint Leadership Summit (JLS) held in San Jose, California from July 29-31, 2011, one subject which received a lot of attention was our project’s leadership structure. It was widely felt that making some changes to our project’s leadership structure can strengthen communication and collaboration between teams, as well as improve oversight and accountability for all contributors and teams. The proposed changes aim to improve productivity and community engagement throughout all areas of the project.

Joomlashack is having a great sale until midnight Friday June 3rd! Get 20% of the Joomlashack Developer club or Joomlashack University and 10-15% off templates and extensions.

Seems like its going to be one of those rant days...

/rant on

I just found Yet Another Post About Wordpress SEO (YAPAWS) that is saying its better than Joomla's.

This is simply not true!!!!!

Last year I tested Wordpress and Joomla SEO, and guess what? There was no real difference, if anything, Joomla was better!

If anyone can show me with objective scientific evidence that Wordpress is better for SEO than Joomla I will give you a free Joomlashack Develop [...]

 

About Joomla! and the GPL

The Joomla Project is a GPL community, which means not just that a particular Free and Open Source license is used for Joomla software, but also that we believe in the mission and values behind that license. These include collaboration, community, and freedom. The GPL license embodies these values.

The Joomla Extensions Directory  and the GPL

The Joomla Extensions Directory (JED) is important for many reasons: it makes it easier for users to find extensions, and it helps support the development of a vibrant and healthy commercial and non-commercial development community around Joomla. However, it may also be unintentionally undermining our support of the GPL by including extensions and other applications that run counter to it.

After careful thought and reflection, the Joomla Project has determined that the Joomla! Extensions Directory should be a community resource that fully embodies the project's values.

What Change Are We Making?

Starting on 1 March 2009 only Joomla! extensions licensed under the GNU GPL will be accepted into the JED.  After another three months, from 1 July 2009, such extensions will no longer be listed in the JED.  Under the same schedule, all encrypted or encoded extensions, whether or not they are GPL licensed, will also be excluded. Third party developers are a valued part of our community and in order to make this transition as easy as possible for them we selected a long notification period. This change is designed to strengthen the project's active commitment to its core mission, vision and values as articulated in September 2008.

Timeline

• June 15th 2007: Joomla! confirmed that both Joomla! 1.0 and Joomla! 1.5 are released under the pure GNU GPL.
• March 1st 2009: Only Joomla! extensions licensed under the GNU GPL will be accepted into the JED.
• July 1st: 2009: Only Joomla! extensions licensed under the GNU GPL will be listed in the JED.

Why Wait Six Months?

We understand this will be a difficult process for some developers, and we feel a responsibility to give ample notice. We want to make sure our developers have enough time to make adjustments to their product marketing and business structure, if necessary, in order to maintain their listing in the directory.

The GPL and Commercial Developers

Does this mean there will be no more commercial extensions in the JED? No.

Prohibiting commercial distribution would violate the GNU GPL and the Joomla community values of equality and freedom. Commercial extensions with the GNU GPL license and that are not encrypted are welcomed and encouraged in the JED. Today 17% of the extensions in the JED (22% of 1.5 Native extensions) are commercial, and many of those are already licensed using the GNU GPL. Among 1.5 native commercial extensions 35% are licensed using GNU GPL.

The JED Supports Developers

The Joomla team is strongly committed to supporting both commercial and non-commercial Joomla developers. We have implemented some policy changes to enhance our support for developers. We think that the best place to get an extension is from the original developer of that extension.  Therefore we will not link to collections of GPL extensions that are not submitted by the original developer. These are not requirements of the GPL license but rather fall in line with our "forking" guidelines that no direct copies or minor-changed copies of JED-listed projects will be listed.  We support the original project developer whenever possible to maintain the integrity of the listings and support developers who are building and innovating on the Joomla platform.

To have a forked project listed in the JED it must meet our requirements:

• Significant change

  Forked project must represent a significant code improvement, either in features or security and structure.

• Intent to develop and support

  Forked project must exhibit an intent to develop and support the new product.

• Unique name

  We do not allow forked projects by new developers to build on the name of the original developer without permission.

• Unique version structure

  Version numbering must clearly indicate a new project.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Options Do Developers Have?

The project supports developers who are building and innovating on the Joomla platform. We are committed to providing the information and help that developers need in order to relicense (or to license for the first time, if there is no current license). The JED editors and members of the Core Team and Open Source Matters board are ready to advise or assist any developer who would like this help.If you have any questions about licensing or want help, then you can contact OSM with the following email address license@opensourcematters.org or the JED editors at team@extensions.joomla.org. Developers not currently using the GNU GPL may choose to switch from their current licensing to the GNU GPL or to no longer participate in the JED.

What if I have some GPL and some non-GPL extensions?

This policy refers only to those extensions listed in the JED. Your GPL extensions are permitted to be listed on the JED but your non-GPL extensions are not.

Where can I get information about how to license my product using the GNU GPL?

Every copy of Joomla includes a copy of the GNU GPL with instructions for licensing in the license.php file. Instructions are also available from the Free Software Foundation.

All you need to do is add two elements to each source file of your program: a copyright notice (such as “Copyright 1999 Terry Jones”), and a statement of copying permission, saying that the program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. (Free Software Foundation)

Can I use GPL v3 to license my extension?

Yes. In particular, you may need to use GPLv3 if you rely on certain third party libraries or APIs for your extension.

What GPL version is Joomla! licensed under?

Joomla! is licensed under GPL version 2 or later.

What does this mean for enforcement of the Joomla! license more generally?

Enforcement of the Joomla! license is a separate issue from the policies of the JED.

Isn't the JED itself built on a non-GPL extension?

The current version of the JED built on Joomla 1.5 uses a GNU GPL extension, Mosets Tree for Joomla! 1.5.

What if I think my extension doesn't violate the Joomla! license?

This is a policy in favor of software freedom and the mission, vision and values of the Joomla! Project, not one about technical issues in licensing.

Can I use a GPL compatible license?

The JED will only list extensions licensed using the GNU GPL.

Why are only GNU GPL licensed extensions being listed?

The simple answer is, making the JED a GPL only resource is the easiest and most practical solution. It frees the JED team from having to investigate or worry about licensing issues. It frees OSM from having to create and maintain a list of one or more acceptable licenses. When you break it down, other licenses were created because they opposed one or more parts of the GPL. The only license that truly embodies the spirit of the GPL is the GPL. Throughout the Open Source world, there is plenty of disagreement over what that spirit is and there is even more disagreement over what licenses are compatible and incompatible. In the end, our list of compatible licenses might be very different from yours. Our list of licenses that share the spirit of the GPL will most certainly be different than yours. So, we could waste months of time researching a list and debating which licenses should be included and excluded or we can make it simple and easy to understand for the community, the developers, and the JED team so that we can use those precious months to focus on the real point of this project: making great software.

Can I use libraries in my GPL extension that are GPL compatible?

Yes.

___

Update 29-Dec-08 22:00 CET - We have added 2 new questions to the FAQ and simplified the answer for "Can I use a GPL compatible license?", this since we follow up this answer with new questions.

 

Source