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MAMBO developers leave to start their own branch of the project after hostile disbute

The core developers of the Open Source content management system Mambo are now leaving the project after it was indicated that the (GNU) Copyright holder Miro International are way more concerned with increasing their profit margin than doing any actual work on the project.

The important developers, Andrew Eddie, Emir Sakic, Andy Miller, Rey Gigataras, Mitch Pirtle, Tim Broeker, Alex Kempkens, Arno Zijlstra, Jean-Marie Simonet, Levis Bisson, Andy Stewart, Peter Russell, Brad Baker, Brian Teeman, Michelle Bisson, Trijnie Wanders, Rey Gigataras, Shayne Bartlett, Nick Annies and Johan Janssens, have now together announced that they are leaving the official Mambo project to start their own Mambo-based variant under a new name, rumored to be "Present Freely 2000".

We, the core development teams, unanimously believe:

An open source project is about people producing free and open software and contributing to something as a team for the benefit of others.
Open source projects reflect the spirit of collaboration and fun while garnering community feedback and providing good governance that allows for business to confidently invest in its development.
Open source projects are open to the participation of anybody who can contribute value and is willing to work with the community.
We, the development team, have serious concerns about the Mambo Foundation and its relationship to the community. We believe the future of Mambo should be controlled by the demands of its users and the abilities of its developers. The Mambo Foundation is designed to grant that control to Miro, a design that makes cooperation between the Foundation and the community impossible.
The Mambo Foundation was formed without regard to the concerns of the core development teams. We, the community, have no voice in its government or the future direction of Mambo. The Mambo Steering Committee made up of development team and Miro representatives authorized incorporation of the Foundation and should form the first Board. Miro CEO Peter Lamont has taken it upon himself to incorporate the Foundation and appoint the Board without consulting the two development team representatives, Andrew Eddie and Brian Teeman.
Although Mr. Lamont through the MSC promised to transfer the Mambo copyright to the Foundation, Miro now refuses to do so.
What we will do: We will continue to develop and improve a version of this award-winning software project currently released under the GNU General Public License. We wish Miro and the Mambo Foundation well and regret that we are not able to work with them.

(From http://www.opensourcematters.org/)

Two versions of Mambo

The Mambo web server was reciently awarded at LinuxWorld SF. and it is very popular. Australia's first Macintosh Online Auction, The Macauction website by Miro, got over 300,000 hits in the first week of bidding warfare.

Miro and the Mambo Foundation is expected to continue developing the normal Mambo version, so the fifty thousand or so websites using this content management system will eventually have to choose if they want to stick with the official Miro version or go for the new version created by the rebels.

The developers are normally the driving power behind new and cool features, so the current Mambo project will probably resemble a stable branch which is good for production usage while the rebel version will have more cool new unstable potentially dangerous features which is excellent for anyone wanting to play with it or actively take part in the development.

> Linux Reviews > News and headlines > 2005 News archive > August >
MAMBO developers leave to start their own branch of the project after hostile disbute