Joomla! 1.0.9 [ Sunshine ] is now available as of Monday 05th June 2006 18:00 UTC for download here.

We suggest that all Joomla! users upgrade to this version. 

1.0.9 contains the following changes:

• 12 Low Level Security Fixes
• 160+ General bug fixes
• Several Performance enhancements

Although this release contains 12 security fixes, as they are of a low level nature, this release is being characterized as a Stabiility/General release.  If you are running 1.0.8, you are advised to upgrade to 1.0.9 as it fixes several annoying non-critical errors in 1.0.8

1.0.9 is available as a Full Package, which contains all Joomla! files and Patch Packages which contain only the files that have been changed by the Stability work conducted from previous Joomla! 1.0.x versions.

• 1.0.9 Download
• 1.0.9 Version Information
• 1.0.9 Changelog
  
• 1.0.9 Package File MD5 checksums

Google's Summer of Code application window is fast closing.  Talented developers who want the chance participate in the prestigious program "need to get their skates on".

Joomla! was involved with the program in 2005 and it was a huge success — generating several high-value projects.  Much of the work from last years' developers is likely to appear in the future evolution of Joomla!  Three of the students who were mentored by Joomla! Core Developers in 2005 are now core members themselves.

Lead developer Johan Janssens believes the success of the Google Summer of Code has created further momentum in the Open Source world.  "The calibre of coders and the buzz around Google's sponsorship created a great place for creative minds to prosper," Johan said.  "I'm extremely pleased that Google taken up the opportunity to support the Summer of Code once again."

As was the case last year, students participating in Joomla!’s summer of code 2006 will be mentored by a great team of core and community developers. All projects will need to be based on the upcoming Joomla! 1.5 which is going into beta soon. This new version of Joomla! has a completely refactored codebase and runs a full PHP application framework under the hood. Students will get the chance to either create interesting extensions for the Joomla! CMS or write framework libraries. Our developer network (http://dev.joomla.org) will be used for community communication about the projects.

As of May 1, Google is now accepting applications from students.

If you are interested, you’ve only got until May 8th to send in your proposal, so you’d better get on it.

Boris Karnikowski and Alex at LinuxTag

Core team member Alex Kempkens has been representing Joomla! at the event, held in Wiesbaden, Germany.  Alex reported back today to describe how Joomla! and other popular and emerging Open Source projects were not only able to present their respective offers but provides the opportunity for collaboration, brainstorming and networking.

Alex said the various Open Source CMS teams and speakers will meet this evening for a get together under the patronage of the OSCom, which is a global association that is providing services such as the CMS Matrix.

Alex is extremely pleased with the amount of interest in Joomla! and Open Source overall.  He said that tomorrow will see a feature of the event – "Web Talk Discussions" — of which Alex will be attending and making himself available as a panelist.

Other project members such as Typo3, ezPublish, Drupal, Magnolia are also involved in the presentations which are on tomorrow.

Joomla! is sharing space at the show kindly provided by Boris Karnikowski, of Addison-Wesley (Pearson). 

Alex has also posted on his developer blog on Joomla's Developer Portal.

Joomla! is software; that we all know.  But if its popularity was rated in radioactivity, it would well-and-truly be considered as having reached critical mass.  The world's most-popular, award-winning, Open Source CMS (Content Management System) has topped One Terabyte (1024 Gigabytes) of data transfer for the month of April (excluding the Forge).  This is enormous, and it reflects the exponential growth the project has been enjoying in recent times.

Sure, we know the metaphor defies nuclear physics, but you should appreciate the humour. 

Core Team member Brad Baker cracked open the statistics package during the weekend to notice "all the dials were glowing".  In fact, Brad and Chris Adams, of Rochen, have had to upgrade our servers to deal with amazing loads they've not seen before.  Traffic to Joomla! sites has doubled since February.

"To cope with the server load, we increased the server RAM to 4 Gig," Brad said.  "We knew that Joomla! was popular but it's a shock to see such huge demands and user growth.  A lot of the traffic increase is due to the popularity of our unique Extensions site — as far as we know there is nothing as comprehensive as this anywhere in the Open Source CMS world."

"Smashing into the Terabyte zone is a milestone for Joomla!  Moreover, we've had more than 130 million hits and about 1 million unique visitors during the last month.  The Forum continues to grow: we've got 33,000 members (4,500 joining in April) and last month alone 37,000 posts."

We all remember the Intel advertisements with technicians in Intel "bunny" flame-proof suits; perhaps we'll have to buy Brad a Joomla! "bunny" radiation-proof suit.  We will have further updates about other exciting Joomla! news this week.

Final LinuxWorld Boston WebCam ImageMitch Pirtle, Andy Miller, Louis Landry

Core Team Member Andy Miller wanted everyone to see the buzz at the Boston LinuxWorld, so he's set up a webcam for us to check things out.

Andy, Mitch Pirtle and Louis Landry are attending the Joomla! stand at the show.  They guys have been inundated with visitors who want to know more about Joomla!

The guys have been giving presentations to users of all skill levels — beginners to experts.  On Monday night, they presented at the Boston PHP User Group .  The presentation included a Skype with the Joomla! Lead Developer Johan Janssens for a quick question and answer session — where there was considerable interest in the forthcoming Joomla! 1.5 beta release.

Update 06/04 : Read Mitch's blog post about 'Day Zero ' and see Mitch rubbing shoulders with Miguel de Icaza of GNOME here.

Update 08/04 : Download the podcast from the Boston PHP User Group presentation here

Update 09/04 : Read Mitch's summaries of each days activities: 'Day One', 'Day Two ' and the 'Final Day'.

Update 12/04 : Read the Ars Technica interview with the gang at Boston Expo.

Just when you thought it was time for a Joomla! release increment, we've decided to take FIVE in one go!

During the past few months, we've been discussing the versioning of the forthcoming Joomla! release.  We have decided to call the upcoming beta release "Joomla! 1.5 Beta", not Joomla! 1.1 Beta.

The sheer volume of changes in the Joomla! core (Joomla! framework) made a minor point (.1) increment inconsistent with the amount of work undertaken.  While it may not be obvious by simply looking at release dates, today's Joomla! core has mutiple technology shifts under the engine.

Much of the work reflects meeting the expectations from requests by the international community, to make Joomla! fully internationalised — and this was given the highest priority.  Lead developer of 1.5 Johan Janssens said the development issues involved in implementing internationalisation required "significantly more developer muscle compared to what shipped in Joomla! 1.0". 

LinuxWorld & NetworkWorld Canada Conference & Expo April 24-26, 2006

"Where the IT Industry Meets!" LWNW 2006 is the number one marketplace for management and IT professionals to interact, learn about the newest applications and solutions, and see demonstrations of leading information technology based products and services in a mixed environment.

If you're a Joomla! fan make sure you're there for the conference April 24-26, and the trade show April 25-26, at Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Bldg, Toronto.

The world-renowned, multi-sector event zeros in on technology pillars: security, dynamic storage, network management, communications, systems architecture, business solutions, server applications VOIP, ITIL, governance, web applications, and more. Exceptional non-commercial, educational programming conducted by renowned authors, academics and end users includes case studies and tutorials, demonstrating real-life applications and solutions.

Joomla! users read on for the Expo specials: 

April will be a busy month for Joomla!. We will be attending the LinuxWorld Expo in both Boston and Toronto.  Our Dutch community has also informed us about their first Joomla! Day. We hope many other communities will follow their lead.

Boston Linuxworld Expo, April 3-6, 2006

The Joomla! project will be presented at the LinuxWorld 2006 at the Boston Convention Center from April 3-6. We have a booth in the .Org Pavilion and many folks from the American community will be there joining Mitch Pirtle, Andy Miller and Louis Landry from the core team.  This expo will be the first time Joomla! has exhibited in the United States.  Joomla! has become a globally recognized brand and highly-acclaimed by the open-source community generally in a very short time.

We announced the birth of baby Joomla! just over six months ago. During that time baby "J!" has matured into a highly-acclaimed, award-winning CMS of choice. Not a bad effort for something so new. Most of us know Joomla's heritage and the massive contributions made by developers and community members to further our aims and ensure its future.

For some time now we've been unable to accept donations to the Joomla! project — much to the frustration of many members of the community.

We can't count the number of times people have wanted to make financial contributions and, we must be honest, the money has been needed. But we couldn't accept it. There's a simple reason for the delay, we wanted tick all the right boxes to ensure everything was done correctly. Thanks to the professional guidance of the Software Freedom Law Center (based in New York), we are now, through Open Source Matters, officially registered as a not-for-profit.

Donations are always welcome ... and at the moment they will help in some specific areas. We have several expos coming up where Joomla! intends to participate.

While Joomla! is looking for ways to raise income from other sources, such as tasteful advertising, we are still expecting to rely on community support through donations to keep this baby fed.

We are pleased to announce we are now in a position to accept donations to help support our open source project.