Miro took the PHPNuke code and turned it into Mambo

[insider]

Mambo's code started life as PHPNuke, has anybody realised this? 

Go and read all the PHPNuke security advisories of over the years.  Then compare them to the Mambo security advisories. 

Look back a few years and you will see the EXACT same security holes in PHPNuke always showed up exposed in Mambo a few weeks later, and often the code hole was identical.

Of course many years and much development has taken place since 2000, but really, in truth, Mambo is a fork of PHPNuke. 

Miro shouldnt have total copyright of Mambo code because it all started from the PHPNuke code.

What about this interview on this page
http://ricshreves.net/content/view/105/47/
where it says:

Q: How well documented are the origins of the Mambo core?

A: Very well documented.

If the whole story was told, Peter would have said, Mambo is very well documented as beginning life as PHPNuke and we made a lot of changes. 

I know Mambo started life as PHPNuke. 

I thought the developers here would like to know.

Go back and match up all the security advisories and a pattern will emerge.  Most likely a VERY strong pattern.

I hope someone takes the time to investigate this, because Mambo truly is the PHPNuke code made into a nicer CMS. 

[Sebastiaan]

Could be that people got new ideas when they knew what security problems to look for in other software. Try and compare those security problems with other CMS'es as well, you'd probably find a similar pattern.

It's pretty irrelevant anyway.

[unity]

Just to point out that a lot of those security advisors will have been the result of both platforms using PHP - you can't infer a common ancestral code base from such advisories.

In any case, even if it were true, the extent to which its been re-written and re-engineered over 5 years would mean that none of the original codebase would remain intact.

This is of no real relevance.

[shadoe]

PostNuke and Mambo couldn't be from the same core, it's just not possible. If it ever was - they have left that codebase behind long ago...

[insider]

I know for a fact that Mambo started life as PHPNuke.

I wish I could say more but I don't want to be identified.

I suggested investigation and comparison of the security advisories because it is the most concrete way to prove Mambo started life as PHPNuke.

However, if there is no value in proving this then fair enough.

On the other hand, if it helps the situation in some way... then it would be worthwhile to document the vast number of similarities between the security advisories of PHPNuke and Mambo.

The point would be to prove that Miro do not own the full copyright because they started with PHPNuke and forked it.  And what license is PHPNuke?  Obviously PHPNuke is forkable because of PostNuke, but does the PHPNuke licence impinge on Miro's claim of complete copyright of the initial source?

[Sebastiaan]

If by helping "the situation" you're suggesting that people could accuse Miro of some "crime", I don't think that's what anybody needs right now. I think the dev team are ready to leave Miro behind and start afresh.

And, again, it's not relevant indeed because whether or not it was a fork, the dev team had a vision of a better CMS and made one. Under the GPL license this would be no problem and therefore this is a non-issue.

[insider]

OK no problem.  Just wanted to let it be known, just in case it might have helped in some way.  If not that's fine, I just wanted to get it off my chest.  Good luck with all future development. 

[shadoe]

and as previously stated - I doubt any of the original PHPNuke code is still in use...

[mediamagnate]

Hi chaps,

What a faceless bunch we have in here. Interesting thread. News to me. Anyway, I'm not in here to comment, as I don't know but I'd like to encourage all posters to use a photo as their avatar.

Check out the virtual bbq http://forum.opensourcematters.org/inde ... 152.0.html where socialising is part of our community as much as good hearted debate.

Thanks for joining up.

[svladcjelli]

sorry, my 2 cents... PHP Nuke is a GPLed platform, so if ANY code remains, Miro would still be bound by the GPL, no? Whose impetus is it to prove license compliance?

[Sebastiaan]

Hi chaps,

What a faceless bunch we have in here. Interesting thread. News to me. Anyway, I'm not in here to comment, as I don't know but I'd like to encourage all posters to use a photo as their avatar.

Yes sir, done! 

[jema]

I find insiders accusations very shallow. Code and databases have masses of clues running through them as to their origins. The security stuff is meaningless compared to what could be found in earlier versions of the code.

If they want to have themselves taken seriously on this, they should put up or shutup.

[alwarren]

I smell a troll.

[masterchief]

News to me.  It's certainly not surprising or necessarily sinister because Open Source projects borrow ideas from each other all the time.  Nuke was the 'in' thing at the time that Miro would have been developing the first generation of Mambo. 

That said even if it was true it's water under the bridge.  Basically after I joined the team took Mambo from an unscalablable application to a not-to-shabby application framework.  By the time we got to 4.5.1 I think we had purged the last of the orginal Miro groundwork except for some nomenclature (components, modules, etc).

But at the end of the day we don't gain much by looking under every stone for a scandal.  Let's just move on.  There's enough solid work to do to restore normality without getting into this stuff.

[Tyndal]

The point would be to prove that Miro do not own the full copyright because they started with PHPNuke and forked it.  And what license is PHPNuke?  Obviously PHPNuke is forkable because of PostNuke, but does the PHPNuke licence impinge on Miro's claim of complete copyright of the initial source?

Did i miss something? I thought m1ro is having the copyright on the word "Mambo" - nothing more, nothing less. What would change if Mambo was made out of Nuke or not?
I believe m1ro could now take the Nuke-Code and release it as a fork under the name "Mambo" - that wouldn't change anything.

But listening to an insider is quite interesting, isn't it? I wonder who'll catch you first by tracing your IP... FBI? CIA? NSA? MI5? Or even more evil organisations like NASA, M$ or even m1ro??? Watch ya back! They're coming! 

[Radu]

I smell a troll.

Me too!

In fact allmost all the security holes and other problems could be the same on Nuke and M$mbo because again allmost all of them are the holes from PHP&MySQL.

[insider]

not surprising or necessarily sinister because Open Source projects borrow ideas from each other all the time.

Well the early versions of Mambo were more than borrowing, it was PHPNuke with the original copyrights and credits removed, and the code rewritten.

By version 3 of Mambo it was a fair bit different from PHPNuke, and of course today it is miles apart.

The older versions of Mambo could be shown to have many exact lines of code from PHPNuke.

And yes I agree some of the security advisories over the years were generic in nature like PHP safe mode or whatever, but look beyond those generic ones and you will find amazingly similar chunks of code.

The point of the original post was not to troll, but to let you know that Miro are not all that squeaky clean behind the scenes when it comes to identifying the origins of the Mambo source.  You are not supposed to completely delete the credits from GPL'd code, the original authors should have their names kept in the code.

Anyway, all in all I now realise from some of the other comments in this thread that at this point in time it really doesn't matter any more.  Sorry for starting a minor fracas.  Mods feel free to delete this thread.

[Chris]

Ah, phpNuke, PostNuke and all the others.

What are they?

Scripts for a CMS, written using PHP, MySql, phpAdmin, HTML and whatnot.

How many ways can one write functions to access a database.

I am sure that it does not matter how one writes a script, there will always be a similarity in another script.

[Norgaard]

not surprising or necessarily sinister because Open Source projects borrow ideas from each other all the time.

Well the early versions of Mambo were more than borrowing, it was PHPNuke with the original copyrights and credits removed, and the code rewritten.

By version 3 of Mambo it was a fair bit different from PHPNuke, and of course today it is miles apart.
....

Well there might be some similarities because when you do programming in PHP there are some styles and good structural traditional rules to follow so that other people can read and understand your code, even more important when the progress is done in a team. Included is the fact that PHP itself also is quite strict compared to HTML where most wrong coding styles is just ignored.
Seen from an intellectual point of view there is not much comparison with Nuke except for the modularity and also there is a magnificant difference. Mambo has a lot more flexibility to offer. Security issues is more like typical PHP and MySQL issues and leads back to the Apache Server. The thing is that Nuke also uses PHP and Apache and Mysql. That is most sure why the same holes has existed.

All the best
Norgaard

[zoomer]

this is actually the first i've heard of mambo's origins being nuke-ish.... if that's the case, then i must say that i am impressed with the job they did in getting the nuke out of it... 

[alwarren]

I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale if anybody wants some.

[clenard]

I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale if anybody wants some.