J! 4: Who is in charge?

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J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by sozzled » Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:34 pm

A fairly simple question: who is actually in charge of the J! 4 project?

For a project that has been running for over five years, one would expect that a steering committee would have oversight of defining the project's scope, setting the objectives and making sure that the project was meeting those objectives. I'm not seeking to apportion blame or criticism here. I'm only seeking to obtain information that assists us to understand what's happening and who is/are responsible for ensuring that the project remains on track. Does anyone know?

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by brian » Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:06 pm

yes
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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by Webdongle » Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:47 pm

And they are staying secret because of all the controversy ?!
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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by sozzled » Wed Apr 21, 2021 6:16 pm

"Yes" ???

I took comfort from one of @brian's hidden secrets presentations (from August 2012) — The trouble with tribbles—working with an international community — in which he answers the broad questions about the community like this:
  • Who's in charge of Joomla? And the answer is no-one. Yeah, we don't have a big boss. So some of those other open CMSs have a big boss. We don't. We don't have a dictator—benevolent or otherwise. Yeah, we don't have anything like that. We aren't a secret group, either. And what is really strange is that we kind of don't have a planned direction either. What happens will happen.
  • What is Joomla's project structure? We do have a non-profit association—it's called Open Source Matters—and that is the bit to look after the domain name, the money, the trademark, copyright; any legal stuff. And it is designed to be weak. Open Source Matters cannot say that the next version of Joomla is going to have this feature because it's nothing to do with them.
I encourage everyone to spend the 45 minutes or so watching the presentation. Even though the video was made nearly a decade ago, it's worth watching. We're witnessing a repetition of these events today.

I'm not sure whether J! (as a project or as a community) with survive; I don't mean that statement as a prophecy. I mean it in the sense of asking the question, "What intervention is required to re-inject life into the project?" I think that's more constructive and optimistic. :)

I'm unsure how (or where) we can discuss that question. Again, I intend no criticism of The Joomla Forum™. I believe these discussions, however difficult or awkward they may be, should happen and they should not be restricted to an elite few. These discussions need to be honest and robust but they also need to be properly facilitated; it may sound like sending a couple to the marriage counsellor but that may be the kind of intervention that's required. I don't know if FftF demonstrated anything more than a few day's retreat, write up an action plan but not follow through.

It's too big a job for one person (and certainly it's too big a job for someone like me) to find out how to get involved. Brian's video talks about "the problem with the pyramid":
The problem with the pyramid is that it's very hard for a new person to get to the top. It's very hard to get somebody in and, as they contribute more, to move up the ladder. Because they can't move up the ladder until somebody else moves down.
I have no ambitions about moving "up the ladder"; I don't even have a foot in the door. :laugh:

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by brian » Thu Apr 22, 2021 6:09 am

That talk is very old and doesnt represent the structure of joomla/osm today
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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by erick-b » Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:14 am

it's too long to get that version 4... Joomla is a very nice project but Ill switch to wordpress

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by ceford » Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:06 am

Some colleagues of mine switched to Wordpress for no better reason than it was allegedly easy to use and everyone else was using it. The result is (still) a technical disaster! No reflection on Wordpress, just on those who thought it easy to use. Talk about Lemmings going over a cliff!

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by gws » Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:47 am

I still have no idea who is in charge of Joomla 4,would Brian perhaps enlighten us?

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by erick-b » Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:38 pm

ceford wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 9:06 am
Some colleagues of mine switched to Wordpress for no better reason than it was allegedly easy to use and everyone else was using it. The result is (still) a technical disaster! No reflection on Wordpress, just on those who thought it easy to use. Talk about Lemmings going over a cliff!
As dev I find Joomla easier but the project is dead or dying

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by sozzled » Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:49 pm

I didn't ask this question to be provocative, controversial or suggest any "secret" agenda was in play. I didn't ask this question with an expectation that it would be ignored. I would respectfully ask that people should not draw conclusions about why people ask questions (or infer any non-reasons that people may ask questions). This is The Joomla Forum™: forums are where people discuss things. I simply asked (and it could have been simply answered):
sozzled wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:34 pm
Who is actually in charge of the J! 4 project?
Answering this question will ease any confusion on the matter.

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by AMurray » Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:57 pm

In what context to you mean "in charge"?

From the software developer perspective e.g. "Release Lead" (?) or from a "comms and marketing" perspective as your question(s) (on other threads) have been about finding news on J4 progress.
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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by sozzled » Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:18 pm

Thank you for your question, @AMurray, and thank you for your interest in the J! 4 project! :)

I will try to make it clear what I mean by "in charge" from a project management perspective. Yes, I know who has been delegated to be the release lead for J! 4.0. Remember, though, that the J! 4 project also involves the release of J! 3.10 and there is a different release lead for J! 3.10. The people who co-ordinate the releases of J! (whether we're discussing J! 3.9, J! 3.10, J! 4.0 or J! 4.1) fulfill different functions in the overall scheme of things. The release leads determine when certain milestones have been achieved, when there is a consensus of opinion about packaging software for a new release, and organise the packages.

Marketing and communications management are also a subset of the overall project management. Obviously, from a project management perspective, it's important to have all of the pieces working together—working towards a common objective. I should not need to explain these things to people who have any experience in managing large projects.

From its conception (in 2015) the overall objectives for J! 4 were outlined. Those objectives were further refined along the way.

So, when I was asking "Who is in charge?", I meant that in the context of project management.

sozzled wrote:
Tue Apr 20, 2021 8:34 pm
For a project that has been running for over five years, one would expect that a steering committee would have oversight of defining the project's scope, setting the objectives and making sure that the project was meeting those objectives. I'm not seeking to apportion blame or criticism here. I'm only seeking to obtain information that assists us to understand what's happening and who is/are responsible for ensuring that the project remains on track.
It doesn't matter to me what people may know or whether anyone is right or wrong. It matters to all of us to understand how the project is managed. If there are ways of improving the project management then it's a collective responsibility to address those things.

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by sozzled » Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:15 pm

There's a bit of debate in GitHub about who's making decisions about what is in or out of scope for J! 4.0. From what I've learned, it appears that the final say about defining the scope for J! 4.0 rests with the Production Leadership Team. It's worth browsing through the Board members quarterly reports for information concerning J!. These things tell us what's happening.

Also see: BTW, @AMurray, does this help you to understand what I'm talking about? ???

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by Webdongle » Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:26 pm

Looks like they can't agree who is in charge. Perhaps a fork is in the wind?
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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by sozzled » Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:54 pm

Nah ... I doubt any talk about forks. Ooh, I'm a poet and didn't know it. However, from what I've seen over the past couple of weeks, some people are mighty unhappy about retaining the "FTP layer" in J! 4 (and a few people are might unhappy about removing it). We'll see what happens in a few weeks after the 4 May meet.

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by darb » Sun May 02, 2021 6:34 pm

I think that issues as this example like the debate about the ftp layer could have been solved before too and hope the whole architecture review about "functions" will better timely analysed/discussed too next time when the important planning and set up the architecture of a "new" Joomla 5 happens.

This is really important steps for Joomla future. Maybe create a Joomla Next (5) analysis group?

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by AlexVega » Sun May 02, 2021 11:12 pm

Please no more groups, we already have something like 1 million of them...
We need better key roles.

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Re: J! 4: Who is in charge?

Post by darb » Mon May 03, 2021 5:24 am

AlexVega wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 11:12 pm
Please no more groups, we already have something like 1 million of them...
We need better key roles.
Agree but thats an organisational decision and understanding.


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