For me open source is not just about the software it's about community and community is not just about people working together it's about sharing. And it's not just about sharing code, it should also be about sharing experiences, successes and failures.
The more open and transparent we are when we share the better for everyone. For me life isn't a competition it's an event and what better way to have a successful event than to learn and share from and with each other.
Some people might have been surprised to hear that I've been invited, and accepted, to be a featured speaker at the upcoming Drupal conference in Munich. My presentation in the community track is titled "Joomla! - Hippies, Pirates, Revolutionaries or a Distributed Community" where I'll be sharing my personal views on the successes and failures within both the Joomla! community and its leadership structure.
I'm not going to Munich with the intention of saying "Joomla! is better than Drupal" or to convert dedicated Drupal users to use Joomla! I'm not a Victorian era missionary looking to save people from the wrong path and guarantee their place in heaven.
We should not be spending our time comparing or criticising each other, we are not enemies or combatants in a war. Joomla! and Drupal are both open source projects looking to provide a better experience for people in the online world. If there is an "enemy" or "competion" then it is the proprietary CMS and if there is a greater challenge then it is a common one, the majority of websites that do not use any CMS at all.
At no point in my presentation will you hear the words Drupal, Dries, or Aquia. I'm not going to Munich to tell people that they are doing it wrong or that they are following the wrong path. I'm simply going to share, explain and perhaps interpret the Joomla! world to a different audience.
I hope that my presentation will encourage debate and discussion and perhaps even closer ties between our two communities. I know personally I'm looking forward to the full experience of attending an event for an open source community with thousands of attendees. I am sure that when I return from Munich I will have learnt a lot about the Drupal ecosphere and hopefully many of the attendees will have learnt about the Joomla! ecosphere.
During the 3 days of the conference will anyone ask me "which is better, Joomla! or Drupal?". Of course there will, and my answer will be "it depends" for there is no quick and easy answer that anyone can give to such a generic question. I hope that it's enough to say that both Joomla! and Drupal great open source community projects, just different.
