| Battle of Mambo -- the open-source civil war continues |
May 11, 2006
Miro International is continuing to lose developers in its attempt to maintain control of its "open-source" Mambo CMS (content management system). Now, Mambo's core development team leader Martin Brampton has called it quits.
In his resignation letter, Brampton wrote, "In terms of fundamental principles, there is a considerable concern in my mind that the Board is not informing itself about the members wishes, and not making decisions that fully take account of their interests."
"I have been very much concerned that it recently became apparent that the Board and the members were misinformed about the purported transfer of registered trademarks," continued Brampton.
It's those trademarks and copyrights, that led many Mambo developers to walk away from the project in the summer of 2005.
That August, a fight erupted between Miro International (the Australian firm that owned some of the copyrights and trademarks to the open-source) and some of its developers, over who controlled the project.
In response, Miro formed the Mambo Foundation, a group that would provide support and protection for the development of Mambo. The company also said it had "begun the process of transferring the copyright and trademark of Mambo to the Mambo Foundation."
Many of the developers, including then lead developer Andrew Eddie, didn't see it as a change that made a difference.
They, including lead developers, said they had "serious concerns about the Mambo Foundation and its relationship to the community. We believe the future of Mambo should be controlled by the demands of its users and the abilities of its developers."
The developers claimed that, "The Mambo Foundation was formed without regard to the concerns of the core development teams. We, the community, have no voice in its government or the future direction of Mambo."
The fight between Miro's management, in particular CEO Peter Lamont, and the developers quickly grew hotter, and most of the programmers walked.
Many of these developers went on to form another open-source project: Joomla!. Brampton, however, stayed on with Mambo and became a member of the Mambo Foundation's board.
By December 2005, the Foundation announced that "Peter Lamont, CEO of Miro, signed a legal deed granting to the Mambo Foundation the rights and interests in the Mambo name, logo, and associated trademarks."
However, much to surprise of the remaining Mambo community, they learned on April 4th that "Ansearch Limited has acquired Mambo Communities Pty Ltd., a company that runs a community of websites for open source Mambo software developers" from Lamont.
When Brampton investigated the sale and how it affected the open-source project he was stonewalled. This led to his discovery that the trademarks had never actually been transferred. He then decided that he had had enough and resigned.
Afterwards, James Begley, the Foundation's secretary, said, "The Mambo IP [intellectual property] has been fully transferred with the exception of some pending trademark filings that were recorded by Miro."
Begley added, "Peter Lamont is finalizing a presentation to the Board on the Mambo Communities/Ansearch transaction." Two weeks later, this presentation has not been made.
In addition, harping back to the former developers' concerns, Brampton was concerned that the Board, which is dominated by Miro executives, was changing the Foundation's rules without consulting the membership.
"Critically, there are ongoing problems over compliance. The Board has purported to change the rules of the Foundation, and has solicited opinions on rule changes in a context of claiming that the membership could submit suggestions to the Board for decision," Brampton wrote.
"This is entirely unlawful. The Foundation is governed by the Australian Associations Act. As with practically all incorporated bodies, rule changes can only be made as a result of a special resolution passed by the membership in general meeting."
In the aftermath of all this, other Mambo supporters have left the project, and found themselves banned from the Mambo forums.
For now, Mambo continues on, under its new owner.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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