Joomla! has an odd ecosystem
Continuing on in year-end odd-project mode, I’ve found myself poking around Joomla! for a client. After working with a variety of Perl, Java, PHP, Python, and Ruby projects over the last 10 years, it’s very strange to find an “open source” project where significant chunks of project-related code are in some way proprietary.
For example, the first calendar component that pops up on my searches is licensed under the GPL, but costs $5 to download. The authors explain that this all makes sense because the files for the component are available at joomlacode.org. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I think there’s good reason this isn’t a common pattern. The $5 introduces some friction into the whole system — while it isn’t a significant amount of money to exchange for something that’s going to save development time, it forces the developer to find their wallet, dig out their credit card, and type in a bunch of numbers, all sight unseen. Multiply this friction for everyone who might come in contact with the code, offer patches, bug reports, etc. I can’t imagine things working this way in any of the other open source project communities I’ve worked in.
The calendar certainly isn’t the only example; the only tag component I can see is a proprietary component, complete with a graphic of a software box and at least a half-dozen “Get your copy - Download Now!” (for £ 25.00 + VAT) links on its home page. A little searching reveals some interesting perspectives from commercial component developers.
None of this is to say that the Joomla! community’s approach is inherently wrong, but as a developer thinking about doing some work with Joomla!, I’m motivated to reassess other, more conventionally Open Source options.