Mambo Foundation News with the Lone Mamber

Lone Mamber Moves to Joomla!

2005-09-26T02:03:00.000-07:00

Well pilgrims, my time on this here blogger service is comin' to an end.

No, I aint hangin' up me firin' iron. No siree-bob, I'm takin' up residence on my very own Joomla! site.

The new digs are runnin' on Joomla 1.0.1 and now can be searched easily, there's a new main street for ya'll to get yer word out, and all the reports here have been given proper multi-page layouts. Surely it's a sight to behlod.

I'd like to thank the pilgrims that made movin' this ol' mess of a blog to the new site, altho I reckon they'd prefer to remain un-named. So, I'll thank all of ya'll for followin' the reports I been makin' from the open source badlands.

Mosey on over to the new home of the Lone Mamber, hey I even got me one of them .com things! Yee-ha!

Thankye kindly for readin',

The Lone Mamber

Secret Mambo core team exposed!

2005-09-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

That's right pilgrims, the secretive membership of the core Mambo gang has been revealed today. Well, not officially it seems but if ya'll pop over to the ol' ranch forum groups list it's plain to see.

After settin' such a scene for the new team, quite likely the first ever case of an open source project havin' secret membership, little wonder people have been wonderin' why this is so. Why keep their names a secret?

Well, if you fall for the spin of the forked tongue PR of Miro and Co, that would be due to all the hate mail they're afraid of recievin'. Which is downright laughable considerin' at this point the community formerly dedicated to Mambo is more than likely to feel sorry for 'em varmits than anythin' else.

So, maybe there's another reason for keepin' those names quiet. Oh yeah, wouldn't put it past them to have ulterior motives for such an action. Well, if yer thinkin' along those lines you'd be right.

Just for starters that purveyor of so-called journalism in the name of Miro's Foundation, Mr. Shreves, is one of the new core Mambo "Advocacy and PR" members. Now remember the teams were "announced", without bein' named, almost two weeks ago and Mr Shreves posted the most Miro slanted article he's written yet just a few days ago...

Yup, claimin' to be puttin' the word out on his perspective in the name of journalism and truth, this varmit was secretly a core team member. That about says all that needs to be said about that, now don't it.

Movin' on to the more important members of the team, the new core developers...

Well, what can I say about such a small posse? Not much, but here goes.

Now, before Miro took over and made this mess here, the way a pilgrim would make it into the core was thru provin' themselves as a 3PD. Ok, creatin' some useful add-ons and showin' that they had the time and inclination to really be able to add to the project. From that tried and tested method the Joomla! camp now has more than a dozen serious developers workin' away on 1.1.

Mambo has four, and these guys don't even seem to have any proven experience...

First up, who do we have in the core team but the guy who runs MamboHub.com. That's right, the Thai site that was first to hear about MamboLove.com and get those campy buttons. The conspirator of love, "ninekrit" (Akarawuth Tamrareang), who had a face to face meetin' with Lamont last month at a "conference" planned before the split. Who can say how long this move by Lamont's gang has been bein' planned for...

From what this ol' cowboy can tell with a few quick searches, seems like this guy is the only one with any real experience in Mambo development. Sure the guy has contributed much to the Thai Mambo community and good on 'im for that. Seems like his codin' experience can be summed up to doin' some translation of existin' add-ons tho.

Then we have "csouza", Carlos Souza, who I hear knows as much about developin' Mambo as Mergers & Aquisitions specialist Jim Begley. Which aint much, they sure is desperate over there. Anyway, this guy has done nothin' to encourage confidence in transparency lately, after makin' a fool of himself defendin' Miro's right to keep the new team a secret. He was postin' away as if he was just another member of the community, same time as he was I guess attemptin' to learn to code with Mambo...

Chad Auld, blogger at OpenSourcePenguin.net, has also joined the posse. He posted about the split on the 29th August and he was quite neighbourly about it as well. Seems like a nice enough guy from his blog there, altho who knows when he learned he was goin' to be joinin' the core team. Aint seein' any evidence of any Mambo dev experience here either.

Tho googlin' finds he has MySQL certification, and has worked on two other open source projects. One bein' "Customer Touch CRM". Well sugar, if that aint convenient.

Finally we get to Travis Fraser, Miro employee and head forum moderator "MamboMod". I expect this guy has some experience with Mambo, or at least the failure of a branch of the old 4.0 Mambo that was the Miro commercial version now known as Jango. Given the fact he's the only one that probably has proper knowledge of the system I guess that would make him the lead developer.

Miro employee, lead developer, ah no conflictin' interests there at all.

Seems like Miro have put together this team in little time and, well, no offence to those involved but are these the best devs they could find? Quite likely serious devs wouldn't touch the project core with a ten foot pole after the way them Miro varmits have behaved.

But wait, there's more! The Miro gang have gathered quite a listin' of all the members of their new teams, tho most of 'em seem to be servin' more than one role.

Not countin' the forum moderators' group, which even I can tell still contains people who aint happy with Miro's actions, or the SoC group which really have nothin' to do with Miro, the other groups which I've copied straight from the forum groups list are:

3PD Standards & Guidelines Team: csouza, dshah, mamboswiss.

Now, by it's name you'd reckon the "3PD Standards & Guidelines Team" would be made up of third party developers. Two of these guys are in the new core dev team tho, dunno who the other varmit is. Wait, he's a forum moderator as well, one of the new ones that is, not the old ones still listed...

Advocacy, PR and Membership: jbegley, lang3, mambogal, mambolot, mambotron, ninekrit, ricoflan, tallinn.

The PR team, now also the membership team whatever that means. The forked tongue journalist Ric Shreves is in there, along with Mr. Begley who has done nothin' for Mambo as far as positive PR so far.

Who else, all the mambo names are miro employess I reckon, ninekrit is the spearhead of the MamboLovers and a core dev, and lang3 is the chinese translation guy. Messy, aint it?

Mambo Development Team: cauld, csouza, eliasan, lang3, mambomod, mamboswiss, ninekrit.

Alright, covered these ones already, the others seem to have been thrown in to make it appear that there is a bigger core dev team. Lang3 the translator, eliasan the greek translator, and mamboswiss who's actual role is in the 3PD guidelines team. Tangled web it is.

Mambo Documentation Team: cauld, dshah, eliasan, mamboswiss.

So, same names over and over becomin' quite obvious aint it...

Mambo Foundation, Inc.: jbegley, mambogal, mambolot, mambomod, plamont, thechad66.

Hey, some honesty from the Miro posse, of a sort. But are these the Foundation Board members? If so, why weren't Foundation members informed? Hell, maybe they were, altho I reckon you could probably count the community members of the foundation on yer fingers and toes even after gettin' stranded in the desert for a week and havin' vultures chew 'em off.

Mambo Translation Team: almambo, AMU, csouza, eliasan, ferruccio, lang3, mamboswiss, quiquedcode, tallinn.

So this here would be the most accurate group, the translators. So that's what tallin's actual role is, tho I expect these guys will have their hands full already with all the other roles they're playin'.

Miro International Pty Ltd: catc, mambotron.

Uh, what's this? There's probably another five Miro employees and a CEO not listed right there. Unless Mr. Lamont and his cronies are takin' up full time positions under the Foundation dollar, I reckon this here group makes the whole shebang look suss as a preacher in Miss Philly's House of Ladies...

QA and Release Team: mambomod, mambotron.

QA and Release Team? Seems like they can't even write proper english for their group title, never mind that their main action in this group is probably to not release answers to questions. Hey, maybe these was the simpletons who got database abstraction mixed up with database extraction. Why, even this ol' cowboy can understand the difference.

Super Moderators: hazman, mambomod, seal_ho.

Finally the varmits responsible for runnin' the ol' forums into the mud, the super moderators. Hazman the fuzzy haired one and two miro employees, one with the misfortune of being called a Ho. I mean, Ms. Ho.

Shucks, I'm right tuckered out after goin' thru that list, hey if they was honest about the new team it woulda taken a half the time. Out of 44 members listed, there are only 23 individuals. Now that aint no way to run a township now is it?

Tho I guess not much more can be expected from a ghost town with the curse of broken open source ideals over it.

Looks like them varmits aint got far to go now before they can call it a day and sell the mess to some unsuspectin' venture capitalist or some such, and I'll keep right on reportin' it how I see it till the fat lamont sings.

Thankye kindly for readin',

The Lone Mamber

Joomla! 1.0, new J-Forge, released!

2005-09-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

That's right pilgrims, the first release of the new Joomla! project has been released, along with a shiny new project site - J-Forge.

Well, right now the project site seems to be called "Joomla! Developer" and the page title still says "Sourceforge - Welcome", but I reckon J-Forge sounds much sweeter. "Sourceforge?", I hear you askin', well it sure is pardner. The new Joomla developer projects home is runnin' on Sourceforge Enterprise Edition, not that ol' shoddy G-Forge software that Mamboforge was usin'.

Nope, the new J-Forge is powered by the top of the range Sourceforge system, and right spanky it is too, I might add.

Coincidin' with the launch of J-Forge is the release of Joomla! 1.0. Seems like the team are plannin' to take the road to "4.5.3" more sedately and sanely than Miro have chosen to, with this 1.0 bein' primarily what would have been 4.5.2.4, or some such. Those ol' Mambo versions just confuse this ol' cowboy.

Anyways, so this is mostly a rebrandin', bug fixin', security hole pluggin' release. Good thing too, I hear word that Miro's Mambo has a mighty nasty issue in the code that could cause serious problems for unfortunate users of their software.

In fact, lookin' at the release note just now, seems like quite a few serious problems have been fixed with security. Issues that Miro/Mambo haven't even made a move to correct at this point, that could leave any Mambo site wide open to attack.

I'll add here that these are also issues documented by the team and were a part of the release they'd planned before the split. Miro has this info, likely their one remaining developer is somewhat overloaded currently.

Head honcho over at the Joomla! ranch, Andrew Eddie, commented on the release. “Baby Joomla! has cut its first tooth with the release of Joomla! v1.0,” he said. “This will be the first milestone in the Joomla! story … everyone knows how important this day is, so everyone should celebrate the freedom.”

So enough writin' and readin', let's go Joomla!

Thankye kindly,

The Lone Mamber

Time for Joomla!

2005-09-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well, almost time for Joomla! It's just been announced that the final votin' for the new Joomla! logo has commenced. That's right, pilgrims, the team have spent a couple of days siftin' thru the community logos and picked a top five for ya'll to vote on.

Excitin' times surely, I quite like this one as I reckon it suits this whole swahili "all together" thing real well:

That's right purty.

Other news comin' to hand on the frontier is that the new "Forge" should be up and runnin' anytime soon now, which surely will be a boon for all the devs out there. Surely the ol' mamboforge has fallen from grace, here's hopin' the J-Forge will provide some wide open spaces for new growth, I'm sure it will.

With the launch of the J-Forge it's quite likely we'll also see the release of Joomla! 1.0, I reckon, due to the Forge bein' the best way to submit bug notes and the like. I'd quite like to move this humble blog to Joomla! when it's launched, if any of ya'll can help this ol' cowboy with that I'd be much obliged.

Here's a chuckle or two for ya'll, a pilgrim over on the forums posted that he'd added a "lone mamber ad" to the official Miro Mambo demo site. Funny stuff, and not a bad ad banner to boot. Nice one, pardner.

That serious young man that I chatted to recently about his coffee session with Mr. Lamont has been stickin' to his guns and perserverin' in his efforts to expose Miro for the varmits they is. Yesterday he posted a diagram showin' the structure of the Miro gang, quite detailed and put down from memory would ya believe. Impressive stuff and worth a look folks.

Why, this here blog is turnin' into a news update. I reckon I'll go get some shut-eye until somethin' more solid comes to light.

Thankye kindly for readin',

The Lone Mamber

Trouble at ranch. News at 11.

2005-09-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

Pull up next to the fire, pilgrims, for I've got quite a yarn to spin here today...

Came to my notice a few days back, that there'd been an intruigin' visitor to the new #joomla channel. Known only as "exmirostaffer" the weary pilgrim said as much that he'd had enough of his days in the Miro gang and was lookin' to tell the township of what he'd seen.

Surely, this ol' cowboy was somewhat skeptical about this circumstance, we've all been waitin' to hear from someone closely related to what's gone down with Mambo and now an ex-Miro employee is willin' to speak out? Likelihood of that happenin' looked less promisin' than ice berg in the desert, days later.

Now I've recieved quite a story from the "exmirostaffer", and it seems convincin' enough. I'll take you thru this tired and twisted tale, pilgrims...

As a result of his workin' with Miro and after ten years of web development experiences, this poor pilgrim says he's hanging up his title as Web Developer and "finding a new career that pertains interactions with people who are not so demonic".

Only workin' in the Miro ranch for a short time this year he had been stood down just short of his three month probation period, without any formal letter. Which aint a surprise considerin' their usual method of communicatin'...

Taken aside and told to leave the gang because, all he was told, was that he "did not fit in". Ironic for him because he got along well with a lot of the other folks there, there were "a section at Miro of very nice people.". He went on to write, "It is just just the group that spear headed the stealing of Mambo from the community that are very questionable."

Employed as a web developer, with a strong php/perl background, this must have been the cowboy that had the mishap of answerin' their "wanted" ad about three months back.

He notes that Miro is divided into three sections; Miro (Jango and Oi!), Mironet (hosting) and Websend (an ad delivery system for newspapers and magazines). His work was split between Miro and Websend and his Miro work was totally Mambo related.

That's right pilgrims, his Miro work these past three months has been totally Mambo related. That'd put those varmits plans at conquerin' Mambo some time before the recent split...

He writes, that before the Mambo Foundation announcement there'd been quite a bit of plannin'. He alleges that plans were in place to close the CVS and close down Mamboforge. Why, in fact, the ol' forge has been down quite a bit of late, aint it?

From his supposin', Miro did not think much of the current developer group and that he "got a feeling of a 'screw them' mentality."

As for the Beta release, he writes that planning for that started from his first day at Miro. He questioned Peter about this and the reaction was "we own the IP".

He claims responsibility for the new Updater feature in the beta, which he says was a good idea but he was under the hammer to produce it. He writes it "does some rather funky stuff, but it was just a proof of concept not even Alpha.", and adds, "Not proud of it. But what can you do under the conditions."

Apparently the roll out of the Beta was a two hour job, which Peter wanted out on Friday so it coincided with the 'Mambo on the Beach'. The system administrator and this pilgrim were workin' until 8:30pm gettin' it ready, while "the other 'part timers' (the people doing the pushing) went home at 5 on the dot".

This sad and sorry hard on his luck developer was havin' to walk an hour home from the train station and gettin' home at 11:30pm. Don't sound like too much work satisfaction to this ol' cowboy.

He ends his story with this simple statement:

"Was there a simple 'Thank You' from the boss when I arrived at work on Monday morning? That is bit to much to ask at Miro."

Quite a story, pilgrims, and one I reckon ya'll will hear more of in the near future.

Hard to imagine workin' for them Miro varmits, but we got to remember that those poor folks may be livin' under the hard rule of that lily livered Lamont. Let's take a moment to ponder their extenuatin' circumstances and how we can learn never to work for smug mugs.

Thankye kindly,

The Lone Mamber

Miro on the Beach

2005-09-10T04:20:00.000-07:00

Well, this ol' cowboy just aint as fast as he used to be, seems that lily livered Lamont has been on a world tour just lately, spreadin' the Mambo Love (tm).

When MamboLove launched, I was wonderin' how MamboHub.com seemed to have advance notice, bein' as that's how I found out about it. MamboHub is still at the top of the "Leaders of Love" list, well that is after they removed yours truly.

Turns out, Mr. Lamont launched the misguided Mambo Love at a convention in Thailand. "mambo on the beach", on the 27th and 28th of last month, a "First time of Mambo seminar surrounded with sea, sun, sand -- Mambo on the Beach! Exclusive only for Mambo member." I suppose that bit about only for Mambo member is referrin' to this bein' some kinda user group club meetin'...

Seems like an odd time to be proclaimin' the wonders of Mambo when no-one seems to really know what's goin' on...

From the few pics I've found of it, Mr. Lamont seems to give a presentation on the wonders of Love Points. "And people sure love using Mambo...". Why heck, I wonder what comes next? Lovin' fat men in business suits?

Well, they loved him in Thailand 'cos as CEO of Miro as well as head honcho over at the Foundation, he could be their keynote speaker, their financial sponsor, and their Leader of Love!

Financial sponsor, you ask? Well, considerin' that on the english version of the event site there's no reference to Miro, then that'd be a fair question. But mosey on over to the Thai version and you'll get a garner at that there "Sponsor By miro International" banner.

That's right pilgrims, the first act of the new Foundation is to send Mr. Lamont out on a world tour mission to spread the Mambo Love.

How brave a lily livered varmit can be.

Anyways, movin' along. Seems like that Lamont skedaddled all the way to Thailand and beyond right after the release of that Beta thing, maybe before. Who knows?

Could be the Foundation would know, after all as head of that there non-profit Foundation he'd be travellin' first class on the community dollar. He'd be sittin' pretty, and livin' high on the hog.

As ya'll can see, looks like ol' Lamont has been doin' just that for some time. He sure don't look like he does in his avatar. and hey that sure is an odd expression of his face. Can't rightly see where that hand is either...

Bad shirts and facial expressions aside, seems that the "...special surprise for Mambo Thailand" under the info for keynote speaker Peter Lamont on the event page was actually free "I helped spread the love" MamboLove.com buttons.

As far as I could tell, everyone who attended got one of them buttons and all were happy with the event and with what had happened to Mambo for the past couple of weeks.

This young man was so happy about his new MamboLove button, as seen proudly on his shirt, that he began proclaimin' world peace and broke out into a rendition of Jesus Christ Superstar. They sure do have some excitin' events over there.

Seriously tho, I'm sure he was just gettin' carried away with the excitement of seein' the Leader of Love, Miro CEO, Foundation Chairman, and future lord of the universe... Ah, you know who I mean.

While he was there, from what I've found of these here photographs of the event, Mr. Lamont took part in the "Mambo on the beach" durin' the event. What he did outside of those hours I'm supposin' would also be covered by the Foundation. The rumours of Mr. Lamont partakin' in the buildin' of sandcastles on the beach are greatly exaggerated.

The two men in the centre there are Peter Lamont, in case you were wonderin'.

So what's this all mean? Well, surely launchin' a global campaign to promote the new Miro Mambo in Thailand is somewhat odd. How about on their home soil, or were there too many pilgrims that Mr Lamont didn't want to party with downunder...

Here his is with another convert to the Love Points system, wearin' his badge on his bag strap. Don't they look happy, not a care in the world, well except for the entire community fallin' apart. I guess gettin' money beats havin' to pay to become a foundation member anyways. Unless there was a drive for members as well?

Accordin' to a reader, commentin' on this here blog, Mr. Lamont also travelled over here to the States to meet with a former foundation member? What could that mean, I can't rightly think of an american ex-foundation member. Bit of a mystery that one.

If this is what those varmits are plannin' to do with Foundation money in future, we can most likely look forward to seein' Lamont and co in magazines and conferences near ya'll soon. You might even get to have coffee with a Foundation member and if ya do, try not to spill your coffee on them.

Whatever the Miro/Foundation/Mambo camp are doin', they seem to be stickin' to it for the long haul. What can be said at this point but that ol' line, "it aint over till the fat lady sings".

Now after seein' them fancy Mambo Love badges I thought ya'll might like somethin' more appropriate. So thanks to them CafePress cowboys, here's some badges and fridge magnets and such. All proceeds of which will go to the Joomla project, this ol' cowboy don't need no financial compensation. Why, I just rightly fancied havin' a badge meself, and this was the only way I could get one.

So if you want somethin' topical to wear to yer next big event, why not give the Lone Mamber badge a garner. I'd give 'em away free if I could, if there's any pilgrim out there that could arrange for these things to be printed instead of CafePress, send me a smoke signal.

Heck, this is becomin' a product placement.

Thankye kindly for readin',

The Lone Mamber

No (Mambo) love lost...

2005-09-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

Seems those Miro varmits are payin' attention, 'cos things sure are changin' over at their "Mambo Love" propaganda site. Yup, yours truly has been removed from the list of Leaders of Love, along with around 60 other pilgrims by my reckonin'.

After a week as the Leader of Love over there, well I dint quite feel right about it anyways, but after that time as #1 referrer to their new PR site I've now been stripped of my Love Points.

It's a sad day for this Lone Mamber folks, no longer recognised for his contribution to the cause of spreadin' the Mambo Love. Hey, come to think of it that aint right at all, dunno what this ol' cowboy was thinkin'...

On the plus side, sorta, looks like my comments about the top 5 Leaders of Love list have been taken on board. It's now a list of fifteen (even tho the blurb still says five), but of course there still aint no link back to anyone. I guess that would be "advertising" and not fitting in the new Miro open source ideal.

'Course, it could have been expanded to fifteen cos lil lily livered Lamont had slipped off the end of the top 5. Why he seems as vain as fool's gold thru quartz.

They've also added a line showing the total number of affiliates. Yesterday this was around 507, and today it's dropped to 443. So at the same time around 60 piglrims has been removed from their program. I wonder what they did to offend?

Surley not 443 people have gone and become members of the Mambo Foundation, as required by the Mambo Love signup agreement. Possibly they haven't managed to work thru the list yet and expel the others they don't like much.

Mambo Love? I reckons they should be honest and call it Miro Love, or at least "Love Us, We're Smug Mugs!" or some such.

Time for this ol' cowboy to rustle up some fixin's for supper!

Thankye kindly,

The Lone Mamber

It's open source, Jim, but not as we know it!

2005-09-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Another day, another nail in the coffin of the Mambo Foundation, pilgrims...

As I mentioned in a report a couple of days back, Foundation board member Jim Begley has been sayin' some right odd things about what's bein' seen as acceptable in Mambo releases under the new Sherrif's rule.

Smug is...Smug does

The past two recountin's I've made about this have been taken from one of those ramblin' and pointless conversation threads on the old mamboserver forums. Started by idigital with the title "Ill treatment of Third Party Developer's release announcement", it was a smoke signal to others of the goin's on what many of us called the ol' homestead for some time.

Well, maybe just I'd call 'em that.

Anyways, after the fuzzy haired moderators and their pets had their fun trouncin' the discussion, Mr. Begley tumbled drunkenly through the saloon doors, proclaimin' he'd had a profound insight.

That there was one of 'em metaphors by the way, I can't rightly say if he was drunk or not.

"Templates should not really "advertise" anything, other than attribution to the developer of the template. If you introduce new or enhanced functionality, but force the user to take the advertising in order to get the improved functionality, you are not really keeping in the spirit of Open Source. If a template does contain advertising, it should be simple to turn off or delete by the average Mambo user."

A representative of Miro's Mambo, proclaimin' the evils of advertisin' in open source products? An odder thing aint happened since I drank that magic cactus drink with the injuns.

He's sayin' that they don't want 3PD advertisin' in the add-ons they release for Mambo, such as banners, images, link backs to their sites and such. On the surface that might look like a fair thing to expect, but you know what they say about shit floatin'.

The community devs that create all the new fangled gadgets to plug in to Mambo to make it do extra stuff, they make this stuff for the community. They aint gettin' paid, so who can blame 'em puttin' a small "advertisement" to their home sites.

Most of which don't even sell anything, by the by.

Never mind that Mambo includes linkbacks to their main site within the software, and not only that the default banner system includes ads for Miro products and has done for some time by my reckonin'.

Then the smug buggers has the gall to put his plan to the "community" left over the on the ol' homestead, as if it is some kinda community service he's performin'.

"To the community:
What are your feelings? What kind of advertising would be appropriate in templates, and how difficult should it be to defeat / turn off? Should existing distributed Mambo templates be reviewed / revised to strip out any included advertising?"

Should we sign our souls over to the dark side now, or wait till our Foundation membership is confirmed?

Shortly after the last post in that thread, it was deleted. Possibly someone had just said too much, because this kinda statement is gonna make hundreds of Mambo developers see red.

There's the other thing, anyone supportin' the new Joomla is suddenly no longer considered a member of the Mambo community, it seems. Just because I aint a Miro fan, don't mean I'm gonna start callin' meself the Lone Joomla-er or some such.

Crazy times, crazier than the second time I had that magic cactus juice, which in hindsight I shoulda left for longer than half an hour after the first time.

Right, so after seein' what happened on that there thread I called on idigital to mosey on over here for a fireside chat of what's gone down:

Welcome pardner, mosey on up to the fire and tell us what's been goin' on over there?

Well, I've been away from Mambo for some time and just came back to it recently, just when I'd gotten comfortable this split with Miro happened. It was obvious Miro had gone against the core dev team when there were no comments from them after the announcement. I think most people decided to make the move with the team after that, and I've been so impressed with the level of activity on Open Source Matters I decided to create a backend template with an OSM theme.

How did this "backend template" get ya'll in so much trouble?

I have to admit that I created the template so that for the community waiting for Joomla wouldn't have to keep looking at that ugly old Mambo administrator. To be fair it was great when it was first released, but now it feels a bit stale.

So I made this backend template as a small protest as well, in a way, but it had a practical purpose as well which was to revive Rhuk's old "lite" template where he's incorporated a css menu system.

It was well recieved by the community as a whole, except when I posted on the mamboserver forums, when it was deleted, the followup thread was deleted, and I was banned.

From your ol' interview on Mamboportal it'd seem likely this aint the first time you've been in trouble on the forums there?

Heh, well, these are quite different times we're in now. In the past I've been known to be quite vocal with my opinions, many of which dealt with licensing, copyright issues and the relationship with Miro. Some of which dealt with the aftermath of the other discussions.

Even then, when I was banned several times and had posts deleted, there were usually fair warnings given.

This year especially the team seems to be much more solid, and the forum moderation has been top-notch. The current team running mamboserver forums are doing the worst job I've ever seen on any web forum I've ever been on.

I think most people will see that and move on the the united Joomla! community.

Dya reckon that them Miro varmits are plannin' to change existin' CMTs to their own likin'?

From what Jim Begley has said and the actions of Miro so far, I'd say it's very likely they will take advantage of the many 3PD CMTs to include into their own core code.

Adding MosCE without permission to the first Beta release, really sets a precedent for them to sift through all the components, modules and templates that have been made for the community and take their pick for their own usage.

I realise open source allows this, but open source is something that should really be used in conjunction with ethics. Miro's actions show a complete disregard for ethics.

That gang are really actin' like they can get away with anythin', dya think they will?

I keep thinking there must be a reason for Miro's total disregard for the existing community, and the way they seem not to care about that. Possibly Miro already have big deals lined up with their shiny new Mambo project, and they're just waiting for the dust to settle so they can really set up shop.

So yes. I think they'll be laughing all the way to the bank, unless it's discovered before then that something is very wrong with the way they've been conducting business.

So are ya workin' on anythin' new since the infamous OSM backend?

Right now I'm working on a completely experimental backend template, that is written from scratched and licensed under Creative Commons. I think it will change the way people look at backend templating.

Of course I have a few secret projects running, but if I told you they wouldn't be a secret!

Thankye for your time, pardner.

Thanks for the interview, and for publishing this informative and entertaining blog, Mr. Lone Mamber.

Why, these Joomla! community people are all quite kindly and got the smarts they do. I'm sure I'll hear from more of ya'll soon, there's plenty of stories still to be told, and yarns to be spun.

Thankye kindly for readin',

The Lone Mamber

Foundation member speaks out!

2005-09-03T01:48:00.000-07:00

Well, likely I've stooped slightly addin' such a sensational headline to this report. Yeah, I've had a word with a Foundation member, but we're not talkin' a board member or nuthin'. Hell, I reckon the only words those board members would have for this ol' cowboys would be them four letter ones.

Never mind, what we do have right here is a member of the community who has been takin' some lengths lately to attempt to work out that wacky Foundation those Miro varmits has setup.

Absalom is the guy I mentioned was goin' to have a coffee and a chat with Mr. Lamont, and he enrolled as a payin' member of the foundation (the $10 kind, that is) to try and get some more info out of these squirmin' snakes. After tryin' and tryin' and bein' quite polite about it, he's been banned from the official forums, even though he's a payin' member of the Foundation.

I asked him to mosey on over to the fireside and give us the lowdown on what he's found out in his investigations...

What did ya do to deserve that kinda treatment, pardner?

"I was asking for the Board to be publically accountable for spreading false, misleading and factually incorrect information. The fact a relative newbie on the Mambo forums then publically and privately persisted in a call to get me hellbanned because I asked for this professional accountability in a business setting didn't help."

Why did ya'll become a Foundation member anyways?

"I became a member to get an inside look at how the Foundation was going to treat the membership, and then to spread whatever information I could find out to the wider community, helping keep my clients informed as to which path (OSM/Joomla! or the Foundation) was a better choice..

As the Foundation remains an incorporated association within Victoria, it should be able to supply the list of members to its membership as part of the legal obligations it has. This hasn't happened - 3 emails to the Mambo Foundation emails on the Foundations' own website, numerous PMs to the various Foundation members on the Mambo forums, have resulted in a sum total of nothing. The Foundation has been silent, and it's Secretary, Jim Begley, looks to not be keeping in step with the legal obligations for the Foundation by denying me this information.

I did this by using my idea as a test case. How the Board treat Foundation members reflects on the ideology and understanding of the Board - how it sees itself, how it sees others. Currently, as it stands, the Board is simply looking for itself, and remains unable to listen to any contrary or diverse opinion. This confirms that the Foundation is just a cash cow for Miro and Begley - they have no reason to censor dissent if that dissent aids the Foundation, as well as Mambo as a product, grow and mature. If they treat one Foundation member this way, that means they sure have the ethical obligation to treat all Foundation members this way.. which is a perfect public relations disaster for them.. both now and in the future."

I saw your post about havin' your signature removed, have those varmits deleted any of your posts as well?

"One of the moderators did remove one of the threads I created on licencing accidently, and one of the moderators has removed, thus far, 1 post in the Mambo 4.5.3 thread. Supposedly "Yeah, right.. We weren't born yesterday" is considered offensive behaviour towards the Board and a rules violation. The licencing thread is back now, so some moderators are open to change on the Mambo forums."

Seems like Miro have gone to some lengths to appear that everythin' in the Foundation is all tiptop and above-board, can ya'll see anythin' in their actions that says otherwise?

"There are numerous areas that demonstrate the Foundation isn't above board:

Censoring dissent within the membership - this means the Foundation isn't free. If they treat people this way now, imagine the amount of nasty tactics that will be in place during the AGM.
Multiple, conflicting and factually incorrect statements by Board members both privately to me and to the community in general
Numerous times Mambo Communities, under direction from the Board, hijacked and violated copyright attributions on users accounts.
Jim's spin on the Backenders template censorship
The fact the new Board members, all Miro employees, have been appointed without consulting the membership. Since I'm a paid member, it is within my rights to be informed of these potential appointments before they take up a Board position
Peter Lamont's double take on claiming it's okay for people to vote the Board out of office, yet when someone expresses dissent to the way the Foundation is being run, they get censored and banned
The fact Mambolove.com is using the images for the template it runs outside of the licencing agreement for those images
Non disclosure agreements for all moderators - what are they hiding that requires an NDA?

There are probably more areas, both legally and otherwise, that the Foundation need to get their act into gear to demonstrate they are a legitimate association, but the major factor in recommending people against them is that they actively punish dissent against the Board. Independence isn't recognised."

You went to have a cuppa joe with the guy, what were your impressions of them and their offices?

Firstly, lets deal with their offices. Since they don't have a receptionist, I was left waiting for about 5 minutes till one of the tech heads wandered passed where I was sitting in the atrium. Whilst I understand most coding shops want to hide away their tech staff, the fact Miro / Websend, doesn't seem to have an outward focus (apart from the tech support phone / email line) tells me that they need to work on their customer service skills better. In total, it's say I saw about 8 offices, with a total of around 10 to 15 staff in the entire organisation (best guess).

The impression Peter Lamont and Justina Phoon gave me when I met them was that they wanted to get me onside as best as possible. The fact the first words when we sat down to discuss matters regarding Miro, the Foundation, the Board, the forums and the community were "This is not an interview" told me that they seek to control the perspective on how others see them. This doesn't gel with my business background, because if people are honest, they don't need to hide anything..

Justina, by and large, remained silent throughout our discussion, only commenting here and there, whereas Peter Lamont made extensive pitches as to why the Foundation was good, why he just didn't like some people in the core / ex-core team, and why Miro was not at fault for the PR disaster they got themselves involved in. I've mentioned some of this previously, both on the Mamboserver and OSM forums, and towards my clientele.

After readin' thru some of your posts, and your comments here, I'd have to say you've at least given these varmits a chance to prove themselves. Do you reckon they've fallen beyond redemption at this point?

"I have given them ample opportunity to prove themselves, both in how they deal with diverse opinions of users who support their product, and in taking the time to listen to Peter Lamont and others on the Board (namely Jim Begley) and analysing the value and credibility of what they have to say.

The Mambo brand might be able to be salvaged at some point, but at the moment, the Board have indicted themselves as being untrustworthy, self-serving, and unable to deal with change at this point. The fact you can't even call for a Special General Meeting to vote them off now doesn't help the membership either."

You've been runnin' your own business devoted to Mambo stuff, for some time now, how has this experience of late affected your decisions about what your business will be supporting in future?

"My business will be recommending all clients to OSM and Joomla!. Furthermore, as Absalom Media is developing on other content management systems for other clients, the fact we can no longer publically support our users on the Mamboserver forums means that they are now coming directly to me for support, instead of relying on the knowledgebase I've built up through the Mamboserver forums.

It's still business as usual. Sure, the product name has changed, but the development and support arcs haven't.

I think my thoughts on what has happened here will provide enough information for people to make an informed choice about signing up to the Foundation.. If there's any more information people need to know, I'll get it out as soon as I can.."

Quite a bit to digest there, that pilgrim sure is in-depth with his observin' skills, I reckon that since he's livin' in the same part of the world as those Miro varmits and has garnered quite a handle on the way they're operatin', why he could surely stir up some right proper investigations by them governin' bodies and the like.

Seems to me that this is the tip of the iceberg pilgrims, and icebergs really don't last long round these parts...

Thankye kindly for moseyin' over,

The Lone Mamber

Begley begs, "If you want to build OSM templates, go to OSM."

2005-09-02T17:11:00.000-07:00

On my jaunts out into the badlands that have become the boards at the ol' homestead, I seen some mighty odd behaviour of late. Seems like Miro are employin' some of the meanest low down fuzzy haired varmits (trolls I hear ya call 'em) ya'll could find over there.

With all the hoo-ha over the split lately the community has had it's say, and loudly, with a handful of non-miro employed supporters on the other side. Most of whom conducted themselves in the manner of pigs in shit, and some of those recently became the new posse of Mamboserver forum moderators...

What's come of this lunacy? Well, besides a slew of post deletions, community member banning, and the whole place becomin' a bit of a ghost town... Actually, that's it mostly.

As a for instance, there's been a very heavy bit of brawlin' between Mr Jim Begley and a developer who'd released his template on the ol' Mamboforge and on the mamboserver forums, even tho the thing had an OpenSourceMatters theme to it. Hardly a crime I'd reckon, but apparently the new gang in town has some right odd concepts about what's right and wrong...

Postin' over there as "idigital", he seems to have been around the scene for a while as I found an old interview on that mamboportal about him. He released a "backend template" lately, that alters your Mambo admin to give it an OpenSourceMatters theme. After postin' on the OpenSourceMatters forum, I've been told he posted a few notes on the ol' homestead as well and they were deleted without notice.

Mr. Begley, the only Foundation board member that aint under the employ of Miro (as far as we know, anyways), has made a few odd remarks about these eventuatin' circumstances...

From the "Ill treatment of Third Party Developer's release announcement", started by idigital, Jim Begley defends his fuzzy haired moderators actions and tells us how he reckons 3PD input and community involvement work out under the new Sherriff:

"If you want to build OSM specific content......

put it on OSM. The same would apply if you want to build content for any other CMS application. What belongs in these forums is posts relating to Mambo content, not OSM or other CMS's.

To say that you have been treated unfairly is inaccurate. Your post was off topic, and you know that.

If you are so jazzed about working on OSM, please go to it. Why waste everyones time here? You are a talented guy, go use those talents to where you will be constructive."

Ah, poor ol' Begley, given such a position of the Foundation board and unable to cope with the simple task of comprehendin' what's goin' around him. Harsh, you say? Well, maybe, but for Mr. Begley to claim that OpenSourceMatters is a "CMS application" is vergin' on the mentally deficient. Surely it's obvious that OSM was an intiative, and that Joomla is the new drivin' force of the project formerly known as Mambo...

So what he's sayin' here, is that this template made for Mambo itself, aint welcome in the Foundation's community due to it havin' the words Open Source Matters on it.

Some would say there's a whack of irony to be had right there. Someone make 'em a banner "When Open Source Matters - Get Out!" or the like.

"It was clearly branded for OSM. If it got submitted without the branding, there would be no issues.

Our logic is sound, it just may not be to your liking. What happened in the past with a Plesk issue is the past. If you want to build OSM templates, go to OSM."

Yeah, and I've seen templates "branded" with all kinds of stuff and released without any fuss. It's just a design, anyone can go and change a few images and even make it into a Mambo Beta template. Aint that the point of open source?

Well, unless the point of this is censorin' the template from the community, so it can be made into a Mambo beta template...

"It was not a constructive post to the Mambo community. It was handled appropriately."

So there we have it, from the nervous typin' fingers of a Foundation board member, what they says goes and if we don't like it we can shove it.

Frankly, I'd rather shove an OSM template in the Mambo backend, thanks to the good work of that idigital. Can't seem to get hold of the guy for this report tho, but surely I'll have a word with him in good time.

Couldn't get hold of Mr. Begley either, 'cos he's just such a slimey snake it aint possible to keep a grip. Ah, don't mind this ol' cowboy, I don't mean to offend none (was that one of them disclaimers?).

I did get hold of Lawrence (absalom) who's been seriously workin' at makin' some sense of these varmits and has just been rewarded by some more clumsy words from Mr. Begley and a ban from the ol' homestead besides. Seems to be a very serious young man but much obligin' to share his story with this ol' cowboy and ya'll. Well, there were a bunch of words so I'll stick em into the next blog post for ease of readin'.

Thankye kindly pilgrims,

The Lone Mamber

JOOMLA! Matters, pardner...

2005-09-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

That's right, pilgrims, the headlines today are all about the new arrival to our community, baby Joomla! After the announcement, ramblin' began over on the OpenSourceMatters forum about creatin' a new logo or a slogan for the new project.

It dint take no time for the community to recover from the good news and start creatin' a new brand to sear our cattle with, and such.

Baby Joomla! in the paper!

Why aint that cute, and sure enough the OSM and new joomla.com sites struggled somewhat with the rush of new "joomlans"in the excitement. The new Joomla! web hq has a good lowdown of what's happenin' and where Joomla is headed.

They even announce on the site to developers that they're plannin' a new "Forge" for projects, which will surely get some more drive into our new community.

In other news, yours truly is officially the #1 "Leader of Love" over at MamboLove!Awww, see, I knew ya loved me! I got the Love Points to prove it, gosh durnit!

Now it's time for this ol' cowboy to get some shuteye!

Thankye kindly for readin'

The Lone Mamber

... Joomla!

2005-09-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

...Joomla!

That's right, pardners, the new project has a new name and it is...

JOOMLA!

Kinda rolls off the tongue quite nicely, smoother even than the words "open source Mambo" slides off the forked tongue of Miro spin doctors.

Jokes aside, from this point on our community and our project aint connected with the bad ol' days of lookin' in the Miro all the time. Joomla has been released from it's den and is emergin' from it's slumber blinkin' like a new born babe.

Hang in there, pilgrims, these is excitin' times and I'm sure as slashdot there'll be some more news to hand any time now.

Thankye kindly,

The Lone Mamber

Join the Foundation. Resistin' is futile, pardner...

2005-09-01T06:12:00.000-07:00

Just discovered this nugget over on the new OpenSourceMatters forum, posted by a Grutkowski. It's an email from "Cecilia Ho" of Miro askin', well some would say demandin', that all those dedicated moderators over there get loyal or get out.

Let's have a look-see at this here notice, 'cos it done smells like spiced ham to this ol' cowboy...

To all Mamboserver forum moderators,

Due to the recent events that have occurred on the forums, we now require all moderators to become Active members of the Mambo Foundation. The process of registering will require that a "Code of Conduct" is agreed to and from that time on, the Rules of Association put in place by the Foundation must be adhered to. The following documents are attached for your consideration and action:

- Mambo's Code of Conduct: please read and indicate in your reply email that you agree to abide by the Code of Conduct
- Rules of Association: please read and indicate in your reply email that you agree to abide by the rules
- Active Member Agreement & Non-Disclosure Agreement: please fill in the relevant details, sign the document and fax it back to +613 9614 5344

Recent events on the forums? Why I'm sure the only real problem bein' had with moderators aint comin' from the old team, seems very much like it's comin' from the new Miro appointed moderators, what with all their deletin' posts and bannin' people just for speakin' their minds.

That aint no way to be treatin' a community, and demandin' members of the community join the Foundation, agree to a "Code of Conduct" that ensures financial punishment for breakin' it and sign a Non Disclosure agreement is certainly not "community oriented" behaviour.

It's pseudo-corporate mumbo jumbo to make lily livered Lamont and co feel more comfortable when havin' to "deal" with the responsibility of takin' care of a community...

We do value your input and the tireless work that you put into helping others on the forums. As such, the US$10 annual membership fee will be waived.

Awww, how nice! Free membership! Altho I spose if ya happen to be one of them Third Party Developers ya'll would have to pay $990 instead. Hey, that is 10%, not bad!

So, for the input and the tireless work that they've put into helping others they get the chance to sign over their freedom and a Non Disclosure Agreement?

Are they all completely barmy over there, or is this just one man's madness. Who can say.

Actually, maybe Peter Lamont could say, but he aint been talkin' of late.

We understand if you do not wish to be part of the Foundation in light of recent developments and will respect your decision should you want to be removed from the forums. Please respond to this email and let us know how you would like to proceed by 7 September 2005, Wednesday. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will be happy to address them.

But... What if a moderator don't want to be a part of the Foundation and wants to *STAY* on the forums? Aint that an option, Ms. Ho?

7th of September. That'll be the day the real Mambo community dies.

Thankye kindly for perserverin',

The Lone Mamber

Lone Mamber joins the Mambo Foundation?

2005-09-01T00:51:00.000-07:00

Well, this is now vergin' on enterin' the Twilight Zone, pilgrims...

Seems like a few hours since I registered as a "Mambo Lover" so I could start to collect my "Love Points", yet I've just recieved an odd automated email...

Dear Mambo Lover,

Thank you for registering to become a Mambo Love affiliate.

To complete the process, please read the enclosed Code of Conduct and reply to this email by stating
that you agree to abide by the terms of this Code of Conduct.

If we do not receive an email from you or you choose not to agree to the Code of Conduct , we will
automatically remove you from our Affiliate list within 24 hours.

Regards,
The Mambo Love Team

Ok, so that doesn't seem that odd, right? Wrong. Here's the thing.

It seems, that by registering as a "Mambo Lover" I have inadvertenly become a member of the Mambo Foundation, without any warning whatsoever that this would occur. Oh yes, apparently I have sold my ol' soul to the Foundation.

Why do I say this? Well the attached "Code of Conduct" is, in fact, a blurb on requirements for being a member of the Mambo Foundation!

A few excerpts from this hot potato I've been thrown:

Mambo’s Code of Conduct

This Code of Conduct encompasses your behaviour as a member of the Mambo Foundation, in any forum, mailing list, wiki, website, IRC channel, public meeting or private correspondence.

As a member of the Mambo Foundation, you have agreed to support the Foundation in all your communications and actions both within and outside of the Mambo community. Any inappropriate behaviour and acts of misconduct may result in expulsion from the Mambo Foundation and from Mambo’s official forum. It is the responsibility of each member to help the Foundation enforce this code of conduct to provide a safe and positive environment for members to collaborate in. Should you be actively serving the community in a key role, please enforce this code of conduct in the capacity of your role. Should you become aware of any inappropriate behaviour and acts of misconduct, please report the offenders to feedback@mambo-foundation.org.

The Mambo Foundation will arbitrate in any dispute over the conduct of a member of the Foundation. If you have a genuine grievance, ask the Foundation Board to step in rather than take matters into your own hands. Offenders who break the code of conduct will themselves be subject to disciplinary proceedings by the Board.

So, seems I am now a member of the Foundation, and am open to "disciplinary proceedings" that I suppose involves that $500 fine I've heard about. As well as being banned from the forums and such, all for running my own independent site with my own independent opinions.

Don't seem right to this ol' cowboy. Not right at all.

I don't think this is even legal, to be recruitin' new members to their Foundation thru this front of "Mambo Love". Hell, it's downright rude.

Does this also mean they're considerin' all members of the mamboserver forums as members of the Foundation as well? Pilgrims, I smell something stinky about all this, and it aint me boots.

I'll leave it up to ya'll to make yer final decisions, but be wary of these Miro varmits, they're speakin' with forked tongues and coatin' pigshit in honey and askin' us to eat it.

Thankye for perserverin',

The Lone Mamber

MamboLove spreads your IP!

2005-08-31T22:33:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here's a shockin' development right here folks...

I just moseyed on over to check my Love Points, and was amazed to discover that anyone can see anyone elses stats without even being logged in!

Not only that, you get to see the IPs of every unfortunate pilgrim that wanders over there from your Love badge.

"Weeell, he's the leader of Love, alright!"

Checkout my Love Points so far (link not relevant, removed from program). Looks like this lone mamber is the Leader of Love! How's them potatoes.

This here seems like a major security problem over at MamboLove.com, and don't bode well for the future development of Mambo either come to think of it.

Just so ya'll know pilgrims.

Thankye kindly,

The Lone Mamber

Miro spreads the bullsh... love!

2005-08-31T20:12:00.001-07:00

Well, this is a right oddly occurrence in the lead up to the new project name announcement...

Miro International, seemingly, have launched a propaganda site under the name of Mambolove.com. I say seemingly 'cos it aint rightly clear who is responsible, but it has their copyright on it.

In the same line as the popular SpreadFirefox initiative, Mambolove has a banner program that allows users to promote the site from their own sites and such. Altho it could be said those varmits have taken their inspiration from the ol' "Publicity and Advocacy" board on the mamboserver forums, where last year a few pilgrims put forth the concept of SpreadMambo or GoMambo.

Oh, coincidence you say? Well aint it odd that if you pop over to SpreadMambo.com it takes you straight to the "love".

Ironic aint it? Miro proclaiming their love for themselves after showing so little for the hard workin' team that built what they're promotin', or the community that has long supported it. Why I'd hardly call all the deletin' and bannin' goin' on over at the ol' forums any kind of love.

No sir-ee bob.

So let's have a mosey on around their new digs and see what we can see...

First up, there's "Spread the Love":

If you are using Mambo or heard of it and absolutely love it, just like the millions out there and would like to help us spread the word of this amazing Open Source Content Management System (CMS), it is simple.

Heard of it and absolutely love it? Them's messy arrangin' of words, sounds like they're expectin' us to love it just from hearin' about it. Why I believe even this ol' cowboy has a better hold of the language. But I get off the point there don't I...

We want to invite you to become a Mambo Lover and to show your support for this great system, to start just sign up here.

Ah, I see, even if you love Mambo, you have to be invited to become a Mambo Lover. That's almost as backwards as payin' $1000 to develop free addons for the varmits software...

As a Mambo Lover, you will receive the latest news and events updates on the happenings in the Mambo world and most importantly the sooner you get a Mambo Love badge or link on your site, the sooner you will start collecting your Love points.

Oh goody, I do so love meat in a can, especially direct to my mailbox. Better sign up now!

But wait, what's this? Love points!!! Ohhh, I wonder if I can cash them down at Miss Philly's House of Ladies...

We recognize the efforts of our community and we want to show our appreciation of your efforts in helping to spread the word of Mambo around so we've started Love points.

Oh, those kind of love points. So, how does it go again? First you get de moneeeey, den you get de poooower, den we get de looooove points!

Shame they can't be cashed in for de weeeeemeeeen...

The concept is simple, whenever visitors click on the Mambo Love link on your website, emails or blogs, you will start collecting Love points, one click one point*.

Joy of joys, we get a love point for every unsuspectin' pilgrim we sends their way. But what do we get for that, that shows Miro's appreciation of our efforts?

The top 5 Mambo Lovers, with the highest number of Love points will be honored on the Love Scoreboard, which is updated in real-time. We think it is important to acknowledge the top performers and to give the others a little motivation.

We get our username in a list of FIVE others on the front page of Mambolove? What the hell kind of appreciation showin' is that, why I get more appreciation out of Miss Philly's ladies and I tell ya those girls get quite worn out in their line of work.

So, like SpreadFirefox there is a top list of referrers. SpreadFirefox has a top list of 250 referrers tho, and each one is given a link back to their own site from that list, as an incentive. A unlinked up list of five pilgrims, with nothin' to show for anyone below that? So what happens when the five largest sites just keep on referrin' links and stay at the top?

Never mind, ya'll get to show how much you love Miro... I mean Mambo.

As a lil experiment, why doncha go and click on this banner right here, let's see if we can get in the top five eh?

Deflower Mambo For Love!

Looky who is on the top of that thar list! Why it's lily livered Lamont, I knew that smug mug loved himself a bit too much.

Now onto the next area, "World Love":

With Mambo communities all around the world today we would like your help to make Mambo Day happen in every corner. World Love is about spreading Mambo globally, across the borders, interstate, across the ocean, you get the idea.

Yeah, I think I am gettin' the idea. This Mambo Love stuff is all about some marketing mumbo jumbo involving a certain cafe culture lounge lizard lovin' hisself. Oh yeah we can all make pretty words to sound big and official, but when it comes down to it, the guy in charge over there is a smug bugger who cares only for the buck.

World love? I'd think that would have to do with lovin' the world, donatin' to charities or some such. But no, this is about spreading the word of the recently hijacked Mambo project, "you get the idea".

If you are thinking of hosting your very own Mambo Day, write to us and tell us where you are from and your ideas, we want to help you kick-start your Mambo Day project. If you have a great idea for other Mambo-related events and need help to get started, we would like to help as well. All you need to do is to submit your proposal for the kind of event you have in mind.

Here we go again, makin' out like they haven't just stolen someone elses thinkin'. Why, I remember a quite successful Mambo Day event held over in Europe that was planned since last year, and that dint have naught to do with this Miro bullock scrotum. There's a whole forum devoted to it over on Mambers forums...

Every proposal submission will be taken into consideration, if your proposal has been accepted, we will provide you with the information you need to start your own Mambo event, put you in touch with the people who will be able to help you plan your event and in some cases Mambo communities will offer financial subsidaries* as well.

* Financial subsidaries will be considered on case by case basis, which would be subject to the nature of each proposal.

Should change the durn title to "Make My MamboDay" rather than some World Love misleading tomfoolery. Hey, in some cases mambo communities will offer financial subsidiaries! So, ya'll can put an event together for these varmits, and if some other varmit is lucky, they can foot the bill. That's mighty generous, Mr. Lamont.

Aw hell, I get ahead of meself here, I should be consultin' the FAQ first. Oh gawd no, it aint the FAQ here, it's the Frequently Loved Questions (FLQ). I guess all the questions the community has asked so far haven't been so loved then, given the lack of attention they've been given...

Frequently Loved Questions
What is Mambo?

Mambo is a 'free' web-based content management system, which allows its users to create, organise and update content using a web browser, without the need to know the web technicalities usually involved in producing content for the web.

'Free'? Is that free as in free beer, or free as in free as a pilgrim in a noose?

Mambo was developed 5 years ago by Miro International to be a simple to use web publishing system. It was released to the Open Source community and since then has been developed by members of the community into one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems available.

Hey now, this aint right at all. Seems like Miro's spin department are forgetting the dedicated core dev team who have been developin' this thang since Miro dropped it on it's ass to pursue their commercial flop years ago. Varmits.

What is Mambo Love all about?

As a non-profit organization, Mambo Communities have very limited resources at its disposal to market Mambo to the world. Mambo Love has been setup based on the principles of community involvement - much like forum.mamboserver.com, but this site has a focus on the global marketing and advocacy of Mambo.

Mambolove.com has been specifically setup to form a global marketing network to strengthen the marketing and advocacy efforts of Mambo around the world.

Mambo Communities, non-profit organisation run by Miro employess. Hell, this whole thing stinks higher than a varmit in pig shit at noon. Setup on the principles of community involvement? Why is it that the community weren't told none about it on forum.mamboserver.com? I only happened across it while wanderin' thru Mambohub.com which has become what seems to be an advance affiliate...

Who manages the Spread Mambo Love website?

A team of dedicated volunteers from the Mambo community oversee the day-to-day running of the site, this includes updating news and information, managing enquiries etc.

The question, I reckon, was WHO MANAGES THE SPREAD MAMBO LOVE WEBSITE? I aint seein' no answers right there, just a bit of spin that says to me lily livered Lamont and co run the thing. And what do we see here in the question? Spread Mambo Love. Ah. I see.

I spose they realised Spread Mambo weren't highly original, and that GoMambo concept was well and truly cornered by pilgrims that aint too impressed with Miro's behaviour.

The objective of the site is to increase community involvement in the advocacy and marketing of Mambo. If you are interested in becoming part of the team or you know someone who might be, click here to provide us with the relevant information.

Yeah, click away, never mind they aint even bothered to tell anyone who's runnin' that there site...

How can I be involved in Mambo Love?

The simplest way to start is to sign up as an affiliate Mambo Lover. Once you have signed up, add your Mambo badges to your website, blog or in your email signature. And start spreading the Love.

An affiliate Mambo Lover? Sounds like one o' them kinky european menage o' trois situations. That can get right complicated, pilgrims.

Own Some Love Points Today!

So we just haveta add one o' them banners to anywhere at all and then we be spreadin' the Love, eh? Round these parts we'd call that spreadin' the spiced ham in a can, with plenty of cow dung to make a good fertiliser...

What are the perks of being a Mambo Lover?

When you sign up as a Mambo Lover, you will receive:

Regular news and event updates
Love points

Ok, do I have it right here, that what you get for bein' Miro's obedient lil love pony, is spam in your mailbox and some points that will get you into the top five names to be ridiculed. If you have a big site that can make it to the top that is.

Lovely, we appreciate your efforts, now fight like dogs for our love!

Those Miro characters are down right queer.

What are Love points?

Love points are points awarded to you everytime someone clicks on the Mambo Love link on your website, emails or blogs . It is as simple as, a point for every click-through we get. Love points are setup to recognise members for their effort in helping to spread Mambo. The more points you get the higher you rank on the Love Scoreboard.

Love points, love 'em or hate 'em. Tho I guess the spin here is you'd sound kinda simple if you went around sayin' "I hate love points!". How it's setup to recognise anyone for their effort in the community is beyond me, all it's gonna do is garner Miro some clicks, and a few sites at the top get to show their username in a short list.

Whoopee. Time to celebrate.

My, that load of bullshit has just tired out this ol' cowboy, I reckon I'll catch some shuteye before the real news comes in. New name soon folks, we'll be lookin' ahead, and movin' away from these mutinous varmits and into greener pastures.

Thankye kindly for readin',

The Lone Mamber

Project Name Announced!

2005-08-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

Well folks, as you may have seen on the OpenSourceMatters homepage, the project formerly known as Mambo will be rebadged and renamed quite soon indeed.

Surely this has to be an excitin' time for the community, and this ol' cowboy can barely contain himself. Time to throw off the yoke of the old, dance referrin' asterisk flowerin' Miro brand and show off the new!

This here's history, pilgrims, and the future of the new project gets the official kick off tomorrow sometime. Well, you can see exactly how much time from the timer in the title right there that I, well, borrowed... Hope my enthusiasm can be excused ;)

If ya'll are readin' this and don't know, the followin' statement has been made in the announcement:

"In order to give those of you with existing *mambo and mambo* domains the opportunity to continue with *newname and newname* we will be providing early notification of the new name.
Those of you with 'mambo' domains that want to receive early notification can fill out the form below."

So if ya'll have a mambo based site name right now, I rightly suggest ya get over there and register while ya can.

Now I reckon I'll go make a pot o' coffee and keep me eyes open for further developments, I'll be keepin' ya'll up to scratch as news comes to hand.

Thankye,

The Lone Mamber

MosCE developer says NO to Miro

2005-08-29T04:32:00.000-07:00

Well, seems my inklin' of Miro's movements in the release of their Mambo 4.5.3 Beta were not unfounded, pilgrims...

Yes, they went on ahead and included a 3PD (third party developer) add-on into the core of their release. That is, they took the old dev team's work, made a few tweaks, and whacked in this snazzy MosCE editor to make it look purty. Sure, it's open source, but then the developer of this add-on had publicly stated he would not support Miro's Mambo...

So they went and stuck it in anyway, with nary a nod to the guy or even a wham bam thankye mam. Nuthin'. Zilch. Nada. Pretty much what we've come to expect from them varmits 'round these parts.

Meanwhile what did the developer, known as Happynoodleboy on the boards, have to say about this eventuatin' circumstance? Well, oddly, over the weekend when Miro released their Beta we heard not a peep from the pilgrim. Some of us were even thinkin' maybe those low-down no-good gang of Melburnian coffee swillers had put out some hired gun on the lad and we'd never hear from him again.

But never fear, pardners, the Happynoodleboy has surfaced today and he's agreed to have a chat here about his view on all this...

Welcome pardner, mosey on up to the fire and tell us a bit about yerself, how long ya'll have been usin' Mambo and what brought you to creatin' this MosCE gadget?

"I've been using Mambo for about 10 to 12 months now. I found it after looking for a CMS for my companies website, after getting a little frustrated with the likes of Postnuke and the MDPro fork. Mambo looked so professional and easy to use, and I figured it would fit the bill perfectly. I stll haven't created that site yet :), and to date the only Mambo website I've deployed is my own.

When I first started using Mambo, I was using the HTMLArea wysiwyg editor, but really liked the look of TinyMCE (it was visually appealing more than anything else I suppose, I wasn't really thinking about anything else, like performance, but it was easy to use). I noticed repeated calls for the ability to upload images from the frontend, which you couldn't do with TinyMCE, and which was 'disabled' in the free version of HTMLArea-XTD, so I thought I'd give it a go. I added more and more functionality, the Admin component, and eventually changed the name to mosCE cos there were quite a few users posting questions in the Moxiecode TinyMCE forums. I thought the name change would get rid of the confusion."

So where'd ya get to this past weekend that resulted in your disappearin' for the duration of this release?

"I don't actually have internet access at home, so I found all this out this morning from your initial e-mail. I read the thread in the OSM forum, but the thread was closed before I had a chance to participate in the discussion. I was working on the new mosCE most of this weekend by the way :)"

Surely it must have been quite a surprise comin' back and findin' your hard work included into the new Miro Mambo release, didja ever imagine such a thing?

"Yeah, sure. I don't want to make too big a deal out of it, I didn't cry or anything (I don't think I even swore). I just felt a little put out and dissapointed that something like this would happen. I've always wondered what would happen if someone decided to create a fork of mosCE, and I think that would be great, cos I wouldn't have to offer support for it, but in this instance, it looks like I'm expected to take on that load, without even being asked to do so. I would have appreciated the courtesy of being asked or informed, although I probably would have said no (with good reason)."

I noticed a few statements by yourself about only supportin' the original team's future development with MosCE, where do ya stand on this split between the core and them Miro varmits?

"I think this incident is a good indication of why. The reason a lot of people get involved in and enjoy being a part of Open Source communities like Mambo, or OSM, is because everyone is quite respectful of the development effort, and people go to great lengths to help each other out. There is no direct financial benefit for your effort and work, you do it because its fun, and cos its contributing to a greater something. Miro have forgotten that I think, or they never really bothered to consider it. I think their actions were also incredibly disrespectful of the core developers and the community, and smacked of the type exploitative capitalism I detest."

Have Miro changed anythin' in your release, or otherwise botched it in any way in their Beta?

"No, but they included an older version of the editor mambot, mosCE 1.0beta, and not the newer RC1. I think there were also a few files missing (no list view in the Image Manager), thats all I've noticed so far. They do now claim to be the original authors of some of the files, an example of manager.php (from the Image Manager) * @Original author $Author: mambofoundation $ and the same in the Advanced Link plugin in link.php."

I noticed a link to your site from the configurin' part of MosCE in the Miro release, have you had many queries since for support of what they included and how do you plan to deal with that?

"There have been a couple of posts in the forum, but I haven't had a chance today to see to them. I have since posted an article on my site saying that I won't support queries relating to the 'bundled' mosCE."

Open source is open source, anyone developin' it can expect others to make use of it, has this action from Miro changed the way yer thinkin' about future development?

"No, not really. I will carry on releasing it as LGPL, and eventually it will become dependant on the new CMS. Its just going to be difficult to support all the different users in the interim."

Do ya'll have anythin' to say to other developers out there who may be wonderin' if their creation could be the next sucked into the Miro development quicksand?

"I'm not sure if there is anything we can do about it. If there is a copyright violation I guess we could take it up with them, but the only way I know of to protect your work from them would be to licence it differently?"

Thanks for poppin' by for a chat, pardner, rightly glad you obliged to have your say here.

"My pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity and for bringing this all to my attention!"

There ya go folks, and that Happynoodleboy sure is a good natured pilgrim I must say, if the same had happened to me I don't need to tell ya I'd be out on the plains with guns blazin'.

Now, after bringin' this story and the MJJ Source story to light it's occurred to this ol' cowboy that perhaps ya'll out there may have pertinent stories to share as well on what's goin down in your part of the world since our humble community had it's foundations shook. So if ya'll would like to share with the rest of us anythin' at all, just leave a comment or send me a smoke signal.

I've heard rumour some of ya'll might have had the hard word put on ya by some of them varmits in the antipodean cafe scene, I'd rightly like to hear if this is true...

Till next time pilgrims,

The Lone Mamber

Who is the Lone Mamber?

2005-08-28T03:45:00.000-07:00

Ridin' the frontier of the open source badlands, tellin' it like it is with no recount to no-one so ya'll can get the lowdown on what's been happenin' round these parts, why it's an occupation that aint without it's dangers, pilgrims...

Surely lettin' your view be known in the world we're livin' in today, that can lead to all sorts of nasty endings involvin' the buildin' of wooden structures and the stretchin' of lengths of rope...

For these reasons this ol' cowboy has had to keep his identity unknown, writin' these words day after day with no other motivatin' factor other than to fight the good fight against some no-good low-down varmits who've been doin' their best to despoil the work of our heroic band of core team members and even the community itself.

Now folks, there are some out there who feel the need to unmask this ol' cowboy for who knows what ends, mayhaps they like to build wooden structures and stretch rope. For whatever their reasons, an unmaskin' of this lone mamber would surely lead to grief...

And why? Why would anyone wanna bring the heat down on your humble reporter? Well, cos likely they feel that I'm just voicin' the opinions of many of you, dear readers, and that scares the bejeezus out of 'em...

Since Miro took back the CMS formerly known as Mambo and I began my daily reports on the debacle, well the community has been rightly revolutionary in it's support of the core. We've all been fightin' the good fight against these varmits, and I'm sure that there are some of you out there who given the chance would do what I have done.

I reckon, that in many ways, this ol' blog here reflects the views of the community that supports the core. That in each and every one of us, there's a lil bit of Lone Mamber fightin' away for justice and freedom.

That when that day comes someone points the stick and demands "Who is the Lone Mamber?", ya'll won't feel a moments hestitatin' in respondin'...

"I'm the Lone Mamber!"

The storm's comin', friends, I know I won't have to ride it out alone.

Thankye kindly for yer support,

The Lone Mamber

Miro supersizes 4.5.3!

2005-08-26T05:25:00.000-07:00

What's with the wacky title on this post, you ask? Well there's shockin' news at the front, those scallywags at Miro have released the next version of Mambo and it's more than doubled in size, for no real gain.

With no doubt some irony, it's called 4.5.3 Beta, not that it's been thru a proper alpha phase at all, or it seems much testin' of this lame donkey of an "upgrade".

Well, I'm overstatin' the thing there, it aint even an upgrade. There's no way to move up from your current release to this new version, not that ya'll would want to anyway.

To be fair, a beta release aint sposed to be an upgrade, it's for testin' by people who feel like testin', not for live sites. In the announcement tho Miro has this to say "Click here to download and test drive", the poor unsuspectin' pilgrims would barely know what an unstable ride that could be...

So, let's take a tour of this stagecoach crash...

First thing I notice, there seems to be a few problems with the display of the copyright symbol in the installer. Must be some bad shaman magic goin' down there, karma if you're more inclined to smokin' tumbleweeds.

Then funnily enough in the default content, Mambo License, I find this juicy nugget:

2. Who owns the copyright to Mambo?
The copyright to Mambo is held by Miro International Pty Ltd. Miro were the original authors of Mambo and continue to actively support the project.

Now, if ya'll remember not so long ago the huge spin those varmits put into transferrin' their copyright to their "Foundation", for the good of all. Seems they've forgotten about that move already...

Into the backend and there's a few changes here from the old team's unreleased version. For a start, they included mosCE as the new editor. This seems to be the cause of this new version being more than twice the size, and if ya ask me that is pretty durn bloated for a content editor. Also a wee bit overcomplicated for most:

Looky at all those tabs, and that's just for the editor!

The odd thing, the really odd thing here folks, is that the developer of this extension to Mambo apparently doesn't support the Miro development at all. In fact on the front page of his site he declares full support for the core team's split and says that MosCE will not be supported for Miro's Mambo:

"So, how will this affect mosCE? Well, for starters, I fully support the actions of the developers. I believe it is the best course of action in the interests of Open Source, Mambo and free software. With that in mind, mosCE will no longer be available for the 'old' Mambo as of 1.0 Stable. There will however be a bugfix release some time next week to fix som eof the major reported problems, released as mosCE 1.0 RC3 for the mambot, and mosCE Admin 1.0 RC4 for the component.

From what I understand, the first release of this as yet unamed CMS will be fully compatible with all existing modeules, components and mambots.

As I don't have the time or the energy to support what may become to different CMS platforms, I have to pick one. On principle, I have decided to support the 'new' CMS."

It seems quite likely from this statement that this community developer has no association with his program being sucked into the new Miro 4.5.3.

Is this the kind of low-down action we should expect from the new Miro development process? Are they going to further take advantage of open source to simply turn Mambo into a hulking beast created from incorporating the hard work of others? Seems rightly so, pilgrims...

Oh yeah, I can hear some of you already gettin ready to rant on about the wonders of Open Source and how it's there for the takin', but hey, they could at least notify the guy they're adding his code to their CMS against his will.

Dirty no-good snakes...

So what else have we here? Well, there's a new way of havin' a look-see at your content now, which looks purty but would be a pain for larger sites, I expect. A "tree menu" that expands and shows you your sections and categories. The problem being if ya'll have hundreds of the little blighters your page is goin' to take some time to load...

Another new gadget is the Mambo Updater, that takes your ftp details and then updates straight to your site. Well, at this point, I don't rightly think I trust that lil devil...

So, I've had a long day on the frontier and maybe this here lowdown on the new Miro 4.5.3 is a bit low on actual content but hey, give an ol' cowboy a break. I'm sure ya'll could have a look-see and find all those bugs I been hearin' about. Surely this is one rushed job from the Miro camp...

Ya know what they said about the hare and the tortoise, the tortoise is slow and wins the race, and the hare is right tasty after it's been char-grilled. Yum.

There's a hoedown on the lowdown right over on the new OSM forums right now about this, plenty of good info bein' shared in those parts, if you wanna know more I recommend it highly.

Thankye kindly for readin',

The Lone Mamber

Miro shakes in boots, removes content...

2005-08-23T15:40:00.000-07:00

Now, this could be one of those coincidences, but after my last post about the change of authorship of content at the ol' homestead Miro have removed that content completely. In much the same way they did with the gallery showcase, seems like this is the way they like to deal with such things.

Are they becomin' wiser to their ways? Well, given what's gone down so far, that seems unlikely. Are they shakin' in their boots? Maybe. Then again it's possible they've had to take action on advice from their sharks... er... legal eagles, them seem to try to get away with just about anything once before they flip-flop after someone points out just how stupid lookin' their frilly shirts are. You know, it's quite plain to see you can't get around in fancy clothes in these parts just by claimin' it's your gangs label.

Could be they'll reconsider their harsh invasion of privacy of some people's accounts on the ol' home of the community forums as well, altho their attitude till now suggests they could care less.

Of course, not all content over at the old home of mambo has been affected. Author of the recent slashdotted "20 questions with Miro" propaganda, Ric Shreves, has also written quite a bit of content over there and his ramblings remain untouched.

It'd be pure speculation of a paranoid ol' cowboy to suggest Mr. Shreves had any connection with Miro, now wouldn't it pilgrims.

Ah, crazy times folks, crazy times.

Shenanigans at the ol' homestead!

2005-08-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

Seems things have been movin' about, vanishin' and changin' here and there over at the ol' homestead of the project formerly known as Mambo, mamboserver.com. Surely they must have a hauntin' over there or some such, right oddly goings on of late.

For starters there's an update from mjjsource.com, who I've now heard news they did in fact tell Miro to remove their site from the gallery and all PR associated with them varmits that have taken over the fine piece of software we know and love.

Indeed I can only speculate that this demand from MJJ Source caused so much fear in the black hearts of lily livered Lamont's gang that they took down the entire gallery, worried other showcase sites would begin protestin' against the actions of these snakes of the open source world.

That's just speculation mind, and I might add a fair whack of anythin' a Miro supporter might find on these here pages would be seen as parody by the law. Just thought ya'll might want to know that, Mr. Lamont.

Anyway, my ol' cowboy paranoia aside, there have been other odd changes at the ranch.

It appears that the new gang are movin' in on the content on mamboserver, adding themselves as authors and such. Although it also seems like these sideshow clowns don't even know how to use the software they've just taken over in this coup.

For example, Brian Teeman, member of the core team of the project formerly known as mambo, left a blurb about his travels to Thailand late last year. It's still there, so all well and good. Exceptin' this, Brian's travel article now seems to have been written by someone by the name of "Travis Fraser".

Now that would be quite bewilderin' to anyone who comes along to have a read, that all this content built up over time by the ol' team is now somehow written by people we've never heard of. Oh yeah, there's plenty more on there.

Now, giving the varmits at Miro the benefit of the doubt, and I'm bein' mighty generous doin' so, this looks just like they've changed existin' accounts into the names of their staff members.

Much like the way they did with the head moderator's account at the ol' forums, when they not only took control of the forum they took a private pilgrim's account and used it to misinform the community, as well as ban other community member's accounts and delete their messages. They had full access to his private messages and the works, pilgrims.

Not what you'd call the actions of anyone familiar with ethics or morals, I'd say.

Makes me even sicker than last week when I was sicker than that time I had to eat my boots. Think I'll go boil me up a chamomile tea.

Thankye kindly for readin',

The Lone Mamber

p.s. By the by, for the few of ya'll that are here with bad intentions and too much spare time now ya'll have resigned from some position or other, this new fangled gadget does keep track of your IP. Troll these parts again and you'll have hell to pay.

Waddya reckon, pilgrims?

2005-08-22T00:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I've waited until ya'll left more than a hundred votes for each poll, now seems like a good enough time to have the lowdown on what ya'll are feelin'.

Now firstly, it's mighty apparent these ol' surveys aint completely serious and put up mostly in the spirit of fun, but the results I'm sure will still be interestin' for some.

Firstly, I asked ya'll:

Do ya trust them varmints at Miro?
Hell no!		78.4%
They could be on the level.		12.8%
Why sure! I love snake oil!		8.8%

Trust at this point in time is an important part of whether the pilgrims are gonna accept the law put down by the new gang in town. That's Miro, if ya'll are doubtful of my meaning.

Out of 125 voters, 98 of you said "Hell no!". Now I'm sure there's been a few of the Miro faithful thru these parts, so that number aint no thing to laugh at. No, seems the actions of Mr. Lamont and co have not garnered much trust at all.

16 of you believe Miro could be on the level, that's mighty generous I'm sure.

Now, funnily enough, eleven trust Miro enthusiastically and what's more they love snake oil. Those would be those faithful Miro supporters my new fangled IP tracker has been tellin' me about...

Do ya reckon Mambo should have a commercial license?
Hell no!		83.64%
Not sure...		10%
Why sure! I love highway robbery!		6.36%

Ok, in my rush to get these gadgets up and workin, the wordin of the polls may not be identical. Give an ol' cowboy a break ;)

This poll was regardin' a comment Mr. Lamont made during the initial community pow-wow about the Foundation, "...to sever ties between Miro and Mambo by providing the foundation with their own unique license which allows them to continue to release Mambo as free software under the GPL." This rightly triggered much concern amongst the community, as it did seem at the time to indicate there was something unique about the Foundation having a GPL license for Mambo. Surely this, and history, could imply Miro would attempt their own seperate license.

Now it would seem that those fears are unfounded. It would seem that way, but who can say what dastardly plans Mr. Lamont and his posse are concocting beneath their layer of hogwash...

To the results:

One hundred and ten of ya'll put your word on this and this poll was more definitive, even amongst the Miro faithful it would seem.

A staggering 92 said "Hell no!" to the thought of there being a commercial Mambo release. I wonder if any of the Miro posse popped in to see that, altho surely it would be obvious to them now they have to be real careful with their propaganda in future.

Eleven were not sure about this question, quite probably due to them only poppin' by to have a chuckle at my bad cowboy rhetoric.

Seven were all for the idea of highway robbery. I reckon they're probably under the employ of the Lamont gang, could be this old cowboy is gettin' paranoid tho. If ya'll voted for the "Why sure!" camp and have no link to Miro and can prove it, leave a comment.

Finally, we mosie on to the last poll...

Who do you support?
The core dev team!		90.76%
Whoever wins!		7.56%
Miro! I love mutiny!		1.68%

This one is surely the most important of the bunch. In these unsure times, who do you in the community support?

Well, this one is quite frankly surprisin'...

Out of one hundred and nineteen votes, one hundred and eight support the core dev team that have split off from Miro. That could be expected, altho it sorta does imply that some who trust Miro still support the core in their action.

Nine of ya'll are just scallywags sittin' on the fence and waitin' to take a side, shame on ya'll!

Only TWO declared that they support Miro due to their love of mutiny. Well, at least they could choose a side and be honest about it. Altho it aint unlikely that those two was donkey votes.

So, there ya go, the voting so far on these quite silly polls. Makes a break from the monotony of reading twenty questions and answers of complete bullshit, no don't it?

Thankye kindly ya'll for stickin to yer guns,

The Lone Mamber

Turncoat Castley resigns from Foundation

2005-08-20T16:05:00.000-07:00

The thlot pickens over at Miro's Mambo Foundation, pilgrims...

Earlier in my reportin' I wrote that we all hope Mr. Castley was a somewhat innocent party to these shenanigans, that somehow he may have come into this mutiny with his eyes wide shut.

Well, it surely seems that way now for Robert Castley has resigned from the board of the Foundation. Yesterday his account on the official forums was apparently deleted, altho a similar thing happened when Robert left the project early this year. Late last year? Ah, this ol' cowboy just has a memory like a sieve.

Anyway, an announcement by core team Public Relations member Brian Teeman on the official forums revealed that the ex-leader of the project formerly known as Mambo has indeed resigned from the Foundation:

"I think that you will find that now that robert has found out the whole story behind this foundation that he has RESIGNED from it.

Knowing Robert from his time in mambo and knowing all too well the huge number of hours he put into mambo from the very first days that Miro abandoned it to sourceforge, I am sure that Robert would never have become involved in the Foundation if he had not been led to believe that it was for the good of the community etc.

The reaction to the foundation by the community and the subsequent relevation that the foundation had been created in a manner in contradiction to that previoulsy discussed and decided upon by the mambo Steering committee has I'm sure been a shock and a revelation to Robert.

Congratulations to Robert for being strong enough to see the truth and to take the honorable course of resigning from a foundation that was not in the best interests of the community or the project.

I wonder who Miro will sucker into sitting on the board now. The two chosen ones, Andrew Eddie and robert Castley have both refused to be involved. As for Mr Jim Begley, a merger and aquisitions specialist I wonder what his true motives are for being involved in mambo."

This surely clinches the motives of the Foundation for any of ya'll who till this point were still clingin' to the belief that all is well in Mambo town. The only member of the so-called Foundation board who had any right bein' there, has skidaddled. Vamoosed. Other such cowboy slang cliches concernin' makin' a quick escape.

One thing I quite rightly think about this here eventuation', happens to be this:

Robert Castley joined this Foundation, he supported it right up until it was plainly obvious that it had failed. I'd still like to think he's an innocent party to this debacle, but think about it folks. This was a man who left the project in the lurch, and his team members, although for apparently good reasons.

Besides that, I'm sure the core team considered Mr. Castley as a good friend for a long time, yet leading up to and durin' this horrible turn of events it did not seem he made one iota of effort to get in touch with them directly to see what was goin' on. Never mind that he totally abandoned his fellow former collaborators in this recent time for what were his own visions for a project he had left, no matter how good were his intentions.

Call me a cynical old cowboy, but hey, if an outsider like yours truly can suss out the motivation of Miro and see how things were turnin' out... Why couldn't the former head of the project?

Why I'd think twice before lettin' such a dubious character step back up into the new project, I'd think twice and then three times, then one one more time for good measure. From where I come from, we ride these folks outta town where they can do some serious thinkin', before we just let 'em back into the posse where they can easily get a bead on ya in the next showdown.

I'll let ya'll make your own conclusions.

MJJ Source Tell Miro To Beat It!

2005-08-19T02:08:00.000-07:00

Well pardners, this has to be the biggest sign of support for the core team and the new community that's formin' around them. Surely it don't get no bigger than... Michael Jackson!

That's right folks, on this day the official Michael Jackson site, MJJ Source changed their site credits to show their support for the move the core team has made to split from Miro.

This site has been developed using the open source software formerly called Mambo. This is a full-featured content management system that can be used for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Currently this software is being rebranded by the developer's team.

I had a look-see earlier today and saw the now completely Miro controlled mamboserver.com has removed the 'gallery of mambo sites' page, quite likely 'cos of this move by MJJ Source and maybe other sites listed in that showcase...

This here's just the beginning folks, right now if you're behind this movement to support the core dev team and the new project, do your bit to keep spreadin' the word, and mosie on over to Open Source Matters. Let's turn this ol' dance into a stampede.

And Miro - it's too late to change the time, and there's blood on the dancefloor, aint no-one here dancin' to mambo no more...