It's been more than a year since the inception of the Mambo Foundation and the melodrama it sought to end. Now in its sixth year as a free software project, Mambo's momentum continues with the recent release of version 4.6.2. With that in mind, Ric Shreves, the president of the Mambo Foundation and member of the Mambo Steering Committee, took some time to answer a few questions about Mambo and the Mambo Foundation.

In establishing a community-oriented foundation to hold and control a free software project, what lessons have you learned? What would your advice be to other projects that want to do something similar?

Ric Shreves: There are almost as many different ways of structuring community-oriented foundations for FOSS projects as there are projects. My advice to other projects would be that they undertake research, look at how successful projects are structured, and ask lots of questions about what works and what doesn't. Also take a serious look at jurisdictions (where you want to incorporate) and make sure you really think through your initial corporate documents -- they set the tone and are difficult to modify if you find issues later. And finally, don't underestimate the expense of the undertaking and the ongoing maintenance issues, which can be considerable. Managing a corporate entity is very different from managing a software project.

Will Mambo switch to the upcoming GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3 when it's finished, or stay with version 2?

RS: Mambo is licensed under version 2 of the GNU/GPL and will not be making a decision to change until version 3 is finalized and we can assess its implications.

What's coming up in the next Mambo release? Will some of the traditional Mambo problems be solved, like a lack of truly search engine-friendly URLs, and high system resource usage?

RS: The issue of high system resource usage is already a thing of the past. The Mambo code set is tighter, the resource usage more narrowly tailored and the DB calls executed efficiently. We're benchmarking much better than the early 4.5.x series.

Mambo is not obsessing on search engine friendly URLs as a development priority. Search engine technology has moved on and they no longer have serious problems with dynamic URLs. We are working on human-friendly URLs but this is not a feature of the next release.

Mambo 4.7 is well advanced and marks the start of a new kind of Mambo. With 4.7, the front-end becomes fully accessible. Site designers will have the ability to provide sites that are accessible by users of assistive technology and WAP-enabled devices, and also the ability to render sites in valid XHTML.

What is in Mambo's distant future? What will this software become if the development team consistently meets its goals?

RS: In terms of the development priorities, in the shorter term, Mambo will become fully accessible at both the front end and the back end. In a slightly longer view (but not too long!) Mambo will allow users their choice of database software.

In the long run, we hope to continue to deliver a free and open software system which enhances our users' lives and businesses. Not only do we want this software to do more -- to be more powerful and functional -- we want to continue to foster an ecosystem for developers and service providers around our project. We want to keep the software free and open and keep delivering good service to our users. We feel if we can do that across time, we continue to merit ongoing community participation and widespread adoption.

One of the inherent problems with capitalizing on open source software projects is the tendency for developers to leave out critical features so that they can sell commercial add-ons, or to refuse to simplify the installation and configuration processes so that consulting and support services are necessary. Is this something the Mambo Foundation is concerned with? Are any measures taken to ensure that core developers aren't sabotaging the project to increase their own profits?

RS: As members of the Mambo Foundation, all core developers are bound by their obligation to declare any conflict of interest. Every team member accepts the terms of the membership agreement, which is a binding agreement under law. We have these measures in place but have never needed to remind anyone of their undertaking to work in the best interests of the project. We also have a number of internal checks in place to ensure that we are as secure as possible against all forms of sabotage, whether it's the surreptitious addition of hooks for other software or a more serious event such as the recent sabotage of WordPress. In any volunteer FOSS project, these risks exist. However, Mambo has addressed these risks and certainly has no concerns about the current team.

What's the question I didn't ask? What don't people know about Mambo and the Mambo Foundation that they should?

RS: First is Mambo Lite. I don't think this is getting nearly enough appreciation for what it is. We shifted to offering two packages last release -- a Complete distro, which includes a number of bundled extensions, and a Lite distro, which is just the core without all the extra stuff. We adopted this two-pronged release strategy as an interim step. You see, Lite employs a delightful little interface which interrogates our sites for a list of installable extensions and for updates. Users can then check off what they want to install and the system does the rest, which gives the end user the ability to "pick and mix" in ways they have never previously had. Auto-update reminders can be switched on as well. Why isn't this the default release? Because it requires PHP5, which not all the web hosts support yet. Once PHP5 becomes ubiquitous, then this is the future of the Mambo distro. It represents maximum flexibility for users.

And finally my last point would be this: Mambo underwent some major changes in 2005 when the former core developer team left and created the Joomla fork. At the time, many thought this move was a disaster. While it was a PR disaster, in terms of Mambo's development it was the best thing that could happen for Mambo. It gave us the opportunity to regroup, to look to the future and to set a new direction. Had that development team stayed, it would have been the "same old, same old" with development direction dominated by a slim coterie of developers. As it stands now, we have a broad-based group. As a team, their skills encompass every aspect of coding, design, and usability and members of the team bring many years of not just coding for Mambo, but also implementing it and using it in different scenarios. It's a more mature team with real world experience and I feel the users benefit. Mambo is six years old and developers have come and gone over the years, but the project is in better shape now than it has ever been.

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