.codingthings.[com]. software things.
A quick update on the blog URL.
I changed http://wp.ocszone.com to http://blog.ocszone.com . “wp” subdomain did stand for WordPress, and didn’t connect well with the current concept of the site. It was once intended to be a WordPress extensions demo site. Not anymore. I intend to use this site as a full-time blog. Thus the name change 
As the MiaCMS Team, we recently gave an interview at OpenSourceCMS.com.
Here is a tiny excerpt from the interview;
Chanh:
7) There is a plethora of open source CMS’s available out “there” for people to choose. Why should people consider MiaCMS?MiaCMS team:
Chad: The MiaCMS team is focused on producing an simple, yet powerful content management system. The team is focused on stability, security, innovation, web standards, performance, and our users. We are community focused and take pride in our product. MiaCMS is not a toy, an experiment, or a hobby. It is a robust CMS which can be used for sites of all types and sizes. Furthermore, MiaCMS has a very powerful extension system which can be used to develop custom extensions to enable functionality not found in the core by default.Cem: One of the good things that we inherited from Mambo is the mindset of “simplicity”. Can we make it simpler, yet better! We are working on it.
You can read more a http://www.opensourcecms.com/index.php?o…….08&Itemid=188
If you’re in the quest for an Open Source CMS, and don’t want to download/install a bunch of them till you decide, I would surely recommend that you visit OpenSourceCMS.com, play with the demos that they refresh hourly.
In the last month I had a few blog post about the “possible outcomes of Open Source projects in turmoil”. Indeed, all those messages were referring to Mambo CMS project, and the very Mambo Foundation. After refraining myself from all the Mambo Foundation duties (Core Team Lead, Translation etc.) in April 2008, I wasn’t planning to get my hands dirty with the core Mambo code for a while, but instead we (Chad and I) tried to revive the project externally by adding cool features like REST interface, Bridget the RESTful Yahoo Widget and such. Unfortunately, those didn’t fly well with the existing Mambo structure.
Seeing all our recent efforts go down in flames was one thing, and seeing a collective effort exceeding 10 years Mambo experience is another. The latter hurts more. So happened MiaCMS fork on May 11th, 2008.
Mambo’s most recent release 4.6.3 was on December 25th, 2007, and a few important bugs were immediately reported a few days after the release. Mambo Team fixed those in a short time, and Mambo 4.6.4 had been “release ready” since January 2008. And the Mambo wheels spun and spun and spun. The code has been in a stand still since than. Don’t ask me, I still don’t get it; and I was a part of that team. I am sad to admit, I was not able to make a difference with in Mambo Foundation. Too many battles to fight to make the product better. Unfortunately, I personally don’t have the time and patience for it. Plus, what’s the point?
Some insider information on how the fork happened. After Chad and I split from the Mambo Foundation, we’ve been going back and forth with the idea of the “fork“. Everytime one of us brought it up – after getting fired up on something happened in the Foundation- the other one shotting it down. The main reason for being indecisive about the fork was that; it is a pretty big thing to bite. During one of those discussions at the end of April, somehow we got on the same page, titled “let’s fork this thing”. Convenient timing indeed; Al Warren resigns from his new Mambo Core Team Lead position and Richard Peter Ong hops on our fork train. Rest is yet to be history.
April 29, 2008, we grab a snapshot of Mambo 4.6 from Mambo SVN (rev. 1688), roll our sleeves and start coding inside out. In 10 days, we have 200 commits in our SVN:fixed numerous issues, bundled the REST API, added a Sitemap Component and a Social Bookmarking module, revamp the entire Administration console based on Y! UI, (yes it validates almost in all Admin pages), added a new validating template based on Y! UI Grids, a brand new WYSIWYG Editor, probably many more that I don’t remember now. All those needed to be done for ages, too bad we just couldn’t do it with Mambo. At some point, we were so fired up on the outstanding silly validation issues, we even fixed the Installer.
Here we are on May 11, 2008, and I am a proud participant of the MiaCMS project. I already upgraded all my personal sites to Mia, and didn’t bi^%@#!ch about any problems back to the developers (I personally know the dudes who worked on it). Anyways, I love it. And I hope, Mia will grow into a big project with a loving and caring community.
You can find more information about MiaCMS at http://miacms.org (you’ll see the documentation, screenshots, forum links over there
*Chad also has his musings on http://OpenSourcePenguin.net
