In the course of conducting my research for the Everybody Mambo! article, I had the occassion to conduct email interviews with 3 key members of the Mambo Team: Andrew Eddie, the Head of the Mambo Development Team, Peter Lamont, the CEO of Miro, and Brian Teeman, the leader of Mambo's PR efforts.

With their kind permission, I am publishing here those interviews, starting today with a Q and A of Brian Teeman (the other interviews will follow in the next two weeks).

I have exercised very little editorial oversight on these interviews -- they are here, raw, as it were. I think you will find them interesting, not only for their insight in Mambo, but also as a look behind the scenes of how a major Open Source software project has developed and is run today.

So, read on, and learn what Brian has to say about Mambo, Miro, some sticky IP issues, and what sort of commitment it takes to be a key player in a major Open Source effort.

Thanks Brian!

Basic Background

Your name, please (to make sure I get the spelling right!)

Brian G J Teeman For whom do you work? I’m a Director of UKLinux.net, an award winning ISP for Linux users in the UK.

What’s your involvement with Mambo?

I’m a member of the Core Mambo Development Team and one of the two Mambo representatives on the Mambo Steering Committee

Do you have a title?

I’m not a big one for titles, but some people have given me the title of Counsellor

Your responsibilities?

I’m involved with several areas of Mambo, specifically anything that could fall under the hat of PR, Advocacy and Exhibitions. I have no coding role but I do advise on usability, development plans etc. I also provide advice to users and developers alike on various licensing issues and potential copyright infringements.

How did you get started with Mambo?

I first found Mambo back in 2003 when I was evaluating various CMS for a local charity. None of them fit the bill until I found Mambo. I was surprised to find that the Project Leader, at that time, was Robert Castley who was a customer of Uklinux.net and that as they say is where it all started.

How long have you been on the team?

From the end of 2003, pretty soon after I found Mambo

Is this your day job?

It sometimes feels like it. But no I’m not involved with Mambo for any monetary gain. UKLinux.net has a commitment to its users that all the profits go to funding/promoting Open Source/Free Software. My time involved in Mambo goes along way to satisfying that commitment. (My colleagues are involved in other Open Source/Free Software projects and UKLinux.net sponsor the .Org Village at all Linux Exhibitions in the UK)

How much time to a week do you devote to Mambo? How long is a piece of string?

On average I would estimate 2-3 hours a day, 7 days a week although sometimes it can be much longer. It’s not unusual to find me at the computer replying to emails or writing policy documents at 2 or 3am

Making any money at this?

No, and it’s not my motivation for being involved in Mambo. For me my involvement in Mambo is about two things. Firstly it’s about being part of a global community and secondly it’s about giving back to that community.

This can be best summarized by Rabbi Hillel:

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

If I am only for myself, what am I?

If not now, when?

How did you rise to this level on the team?

Not really for me to comment. Probably due to others seeing what I do and that I do it well

Concerning Development Team Organization and Process…

Who works with you? (How many?)

There are currently 10 members of the Core Development Team plus a team of people working on Documentation and another on bug fixes and Maintenance Releases. But in many ways the entire Mambo Community works on Mambo, providing suggestions, code, bug reports and fixes and of course the numerous add-ons and templates

How is the team organized?

The Core Development Team has a Project Leader, Andrew Eddie, and he drives the team but it really is a meritocracy with each person having an equal say.

How do you identify development priorities and address them?

These usually come from the Mambo Community who are out there using Mambo in the real world every day. The Forums at Mamboserver.com (http://forum.Mamboserver.com/) contain many active discussions on a variety of topics regarding the development of Mambo. The Core Development Team listen to these discussions and when appropriate roll them into the “Road Map” for Mambo.

How do you communicate with the team?

As we are distributed across the globe time zones are an issue so the majority of team discussions are done via mailing lists. Even if a discussion is primarily between two team members it is useful for these discussions to take place on the mailing list so that other team members get an idea of what is happening and may be able to contribute in some way. We also operate an IRC channel where we can talk in real time with each other and these are logged for team members to review later. Sometimes the most interesting discussions take place when half the team are asleep and the logs provide a useful way to catch up.

What challenges do you face in a distributed development environment?

The biggest challenge is probably the time zones. When the American based members are just logging on it’s the middle of the next night for the Australian’s. So an urgent query may have to wait for the sun to rise on the other side of the planet. We all make sacrifices to our personal lives to try to find times when we are available for each other.

Why did the previous team leader leave?

As with any Open Source project, where your involvement takes place in your free time, there comes a time when your personal life has to take precedence. Robert simply felt that with a young family and an ever more demanding job the time had come for him to step back from Mambo. There was no falling out, no disagreement, and no dispute it was simply a case of time to move on and put the family first.

Mambo & Miro: What’s the story behind Mambo now returning to the Miro fold? How did this decision come about?

There were many factors involved here. But first, for clarity, Miro never went away. They were always there in the background providing advice and support and most importantly financial support in running the project – cost of servers, legal fees in defending copyright infringement etc. In the last 12 months Mambo has seen a tremendous growth in both its user base and its functionality. It was becoming increasingly apparent that there was a demand and a need for developer certification, training and commercial levels of support. All of these require both finance and a stable infrastructure, something that the Development Team could not provide.

What exactly does this mean to the Mambo development team?

For the development team it means many things. For some it means stability, structure and greater organization. For others the financial investment Miro are making into certification, training and support challenges us, as developers to provide the features that larger bodies require. For me personally it will free my time from dealing with the “Connolly” style issues. On a day to day basis there is no change however as Miro have no direct involvement or influence on the development of Mambo. In general it frees the developers to do what they do best. Creating the best CMS.

What exactly does this mean to users?

For users it’s great. Miro provides structure and stability. We are often asked to recommend a developer or designer but without certification we are unable to judge anyone’s capabilities or competence. Developer certification and training will also improve the quality of third party products and a user will have a certain level of confidence in a product when they are receiving it from a certified developer. End-user training courses will allow a developer to truly hand-over a project to the client. I see threads discussing certification and training.

Can you explain what is planned?

This is still very much in the initial planning stages but the general intention is to provide certification/training for both developers and users (site administrators). We only have to look in Thailand to see the great work of MamboClub in developing and delivering training in the Bangkok area and the effect that has had on both the uptake of Mambo and its development in Thailand.

How long had this been under discussion?

Discussions have taken place over many months but they were really to just fine tune details. As far as Mambo is concerned the development team unanimously saw this as a win-win situation

IP Issues

Any comments on Brian Connelly’s intellectual property claims?

I think everything that needs to be said, or can be said in a public forum has already been said. The sad thing about all of this was that even though no formal accusations were ever made nor any evidence provided the whole incident disrupted many of our lives and cost Miro a considerable amount in legal fees.

Have there been any other similar claims?

[ed.] No.

How well documented are the origins of the Mambo core? How are the origins of code traced / documented to avoid problems like the Connelly claim?

All the code for Mambo is managed using CVS which logs who enters a piece of code and when. So in this instance it was easy for us to see that the piece of code Connelly referred to was not in the Mambo code nor was it ever in the code

Any thought given to following documentation standards similar to those put forth for the Linux kernel by Linus Torvalds?

Using CVS is the first step. If we ever get to the stage that we have thousands of developers contributing to the core code we will look again.

However it should be noted that not everyone in the Linux community has always agree with how Linus manages the code and there have been numerous disputes over the years. (Linus and Andrew Morton don’t even talk to each other)

Any connection between any of these events and the change in team leadership or the relationship with Miro?

No none at all!!!

Mambo & The Future

How would you compare Mambo to other Open Source CMS (particularly, PostNuke, Zope, Magnolia)?

I never like to comment on other products. We all have our benefits in some areas and weaknesses in others. And in many ways we all seek to serve different markets. For example it could be said that Nuke sites are more orientated to providing content for other to comment on whilst Mambo sites are more about presenting comment

What do you see as priorities going forward? Does the change in leadership mean we will see changes to the roadmap?

I don’t believe that the change in leadership has lead to any fundamental changes in the recently published roadmap. One major change however is the recently announced changes that provide greater stability and longevity. See http://Mamboserver.com/menu/Mambo_4.5_and_5.0_Roadmap/

What do we have to look forward to in the next version release?

5.0 is the next Major release. Any other releases in the meantime will follow the 4.5.x tree and will mainly address maintenance issues.

For 5.0 the major changes are the ability to use databases other than MySQL, greater levels of ACL, re-organisation of content structure and greater separation of data, logic and presentation. Non-English language users will also see extended multi-language support from just static labels to content itself.

When can we expect that?

We are aiming for an alpha release in mid 2005

Where will Mambo be a year from now? Where will any of us be?

I believe that we will see Mambo continue its move from the niche Open Source market. There will be a thriving community of trained and certified developers able to develop stunning sites and components that are simple to administer and maintain.