Many years ago, when I was young and innocent, I lived in a self-sufficient "closed" community but now that I am older, and more mature (?), it is more accurate to say that today I chose to "participate" or "belong" to several different communities.
In the world of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (F/LOSS) the word "community" is used as a badge, often without any true understanding of what the word really means.
Joomla, like many F/LOSS projects, claims to be a community project but have you thought what that really means?
"A community is nothing more than a group of individuals congregating together for whatever particular purpose they choose to be in such a group"
- What does that mean in the world of joomla?
- Is there a shared purpose?
- Is there really such a thing as a joomla community?
Mitch Pirtle, a fellow co-founder of Joomla & OpenSource Matters, said to me several years ago that there was "... no such thing as the joomla community ..." and he is right. [Doesn't often happen that Mitch and I agree]
The fabled "joomla community" does not exist, Joomla is a "community of communities"!
- A community of users
- A community of consumers
- A community of friends
Together these communities, and there are obviously multiple groupings and combinations of each type, form the "Joomla community of communities". Labelling a group as a "community" certainly does not imply or require that group to be an elected democracy, nor does it imply that "everyone's opinion counts equally" within the group. But they are still a community.
Is Joomla a community project?
It is but perhaps not in the same generalised terms as some people think.
Joomla is:
- community designed
- community developed
- community driven
- community supported
That does not mean that every individual in the "Joomla community of communities" participates in, or is entitled to a say in any of those areas but they can if they want to.
So yes Joomla is a community project and there are Joomla communities but it is up to you as an individual to make the effort to become part of that community.
