Joomla! is Free as in Freedom

Joomla! is free software. Anyone can use it, modify it, add to it, study it, extend it, or patch it. Anyone can share or sell what they have done with Joomla! so long as what they distribute is also free in these same ways.

To some, free software sounds suspiciously radical and certainly idealistic. In recent weeks, we have seen just how powerful an approach it is. Nearly 40 development tasks were selected by 25 Joomla! contestants in the Google Highly Open Participation Contest. For these teens, the ability to study how Joomla! works and adapt the code for their own purposes meant learning to be stronger developers technically as well as in terms of working as part of a community. During the same period, the community--including some of those same students-- has come together to work on Joomla! 1.5, making a RC4 a reality and continuing to make strong progress since then.

We have seen that "there are good reasons why free software tends to be of high quality. One reason is that free software gets the whole community involved in working together to fix problems. Users not only report bugs, they even fix bugs and send in fixes. Users work together, conversing by email, to get to the bottom of a problem and make the software work trouble-free." (https://www.gnu.org/software/reliability.html)

Joomla! Community Working Together

Joomla! is only possible because of the contributions of thousands of people. A community of this size requires a great deal of effort. In addition to the core team, hundreds of others participate in important ways as Translation, Development, Sites and Infrastructure, Documentation and Foundation Working Groups members. Joining a working group where your talents are best applied is only one way to contribute to Joomla!.

Community-driven activities

It is the members of this community who drive outreach. Joomla! Days, Joomla! User Groups, local support forums, conference presentations and white papers, special events and meetings, blogs, and, yes, even discussions around the office water cooler, are essential to sustain and grow Joomla! by getting the word out and recruiting talent.

Last year, Joomla! Day events were held all across the globe. Special thanks to those who made good things happen in Melbourne, Malaysia, France, Toronto, Sydney, Thailand, California, Norway, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Texas, Brasil, Hungary, Manhattan, Sweden, Finland, Serbia, Cape Town, Nigeria, and New Zealand. If you are interested in organizing a Joomla! Day where you live, learn more in the Joomla! Days board.

Joomla! Celebrates New Years 2008

Happy new year to the Joomla! Community. 2007 has been extraordinary, and 2008 is full of promise of even more. In six months Joomla! 1.5 went from Mapya (new) to Karibu (near by). Joomla! 1.0 continued its mature, steady shine with release 13, SunGlow. How did it happen?

People

Starting with Australia in January and ending in December with New Zealand , and around the world in between, Joomla! Days brought together the world wide Joomla! Community. As of April there were over 100,000 members of the Joomla! forums and in September the forums went to over a million posts.

Following on from the huge success of the Joomla! 1.5 bug squashing days, please join us for the first world-wide Joomla! 1.5 documentation days starting on 19th January 2008. We will have tasks for everyone; coders and non-coders alike. Our primary aim is to dramatically increase the volume of documentation available for Joomla! 1.5.

So far we have locations in Vancouver, Canada and Brussels, Belgium and we hope to confirm other locations soon. For the latest information on locations and other arrangements, please visit the Joomla! Doc Camp wiki page. Please note that space at these locations is limited, so don't register unless you are certain you can come.

Joomla! 1.5 RC4 - Karibu

Just a week and a half ago people from all over the globe gathered in various locations to do a little Bug Squashing... today the fruits of their labour can be revealed as we announce the release of Joomla! 1.5 RC4. This release is code named Karibu which is Swahili for nearby, close, close by, at hand... all terms that we feel reflect the nature of this release.

Karibu marks an important milestone in 1.5's development, as barring any major issues we believe it will be the last release candidate, with the next release being the big one... Joomla! 1.5 stable. When that happens will in part be influenced by the Joomla! community...

More so than any previous, this release really has been one of unprecedented community involvement with people from all the various Working Groups as well as others banding together to help increase momentum as we head for a stable release. There is an enormous amount of energy building up around the 1.5 release and it is inspirational being a part of the process.

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