[week 50] Is Mambo loosing the feature battle?

[Admin]

Hi everybody,

this week I would like to discuss with you about Mambo's feature battle against other major CMS. Last week Mambo's new project manager Andrew Eddie announced the split of the development team. While one team will maintain the actual 4.5.x versions, the other one will go for the feature hunt. They plan to release Mambo 5.0 in the middle of 2005. This version will bring a few more features, but isn't this a little late already?

typo3 supports multilanguage websites since ages. In September they released the new version 3.7, which is even more powerfull now, when it comes to multilanguage websites. A new multilanguage workflow and monitoring system is far away from a Mambo webmasters imagination.

A similar gap between Mambo and other CMS can be found when it comes to the userhandling. The possibility of assigning a user only to 1 of 3 static usergroups makes even Postnuke webmasters laugh. typo3's new version let's you even assign rights to language versions of a document.

Besides this many other features are still missed badly. The missing support for admin languages (typo3 supports 40 languages in the administration), the missing support for multi-domain-installations, a complete documentation and a few other things according to the results of the great community survey (http://www.mamboportal.com/content/view/1833/2/).

How far are we behind already? Was it wise to split up the development? Can we offer interim solutions (like Mambelfish)? Or do you think that we finally will win the battle against other CMS? And if yes, how could this goal be reached? Or have we lost already and will always stay the runner up?

I'm looking forward to your answers...

[robbie]

Imo Mambo is still the best CMS for me, PHPNuke or whatsoever, i have tried them but they didn't meet my requirements. If the CMS is powerfull, with some features it's already ok. Mambo is like 1.5 mb to download. PHPNuke is already 7(!). All those features in other CMS's aren't needed, just keep it small and expand all the features with components / modules, don't hardcode them. Many people don't like a component other do like, like i do like Loudmouth, and dislike simpleboard (not oversightable for me).
Mambo stays for me the best CMS.. nomatter what other CMS's will release /implent in their code.

And that they have split up their Team, is just good. Now the teams are aiming at the one product and not being busy with 5.0 while they are coding with 4.5.x .

[divamissx]

This doesn't have to be a competition or a battle. Mambo is moving along at a good pace. It's experienced a few setbacks but that is to be expected in any project so this one is going very well considering its one of the highest-rated open source systems available. "Losing" is a negative word and negative thinking does no good for the community. Mambo is always a winner in my opinion.

[sinanata]

+1 Robbie,

I've tried many CMS's like Xoops,phpNuke,postNuke....But I never seen a CMS like mambo before.Actually mambo has some more improved feautures than the others.But like pluses mambo has some minuses as Arthur said.(Multi language-domain Support,User Groups).

I think MamboServer should read and review this topic strongly and find some bright ideas from there.Cuz ve need their Bright İdeas and services for making advertisement for Mambo and find manymore mambers for this huge community.

Whatever.I know that we won't lost this War against others.Cuz the name is enouhgt... This is MAMBO

I want to repeat this one more time..;

Oneday,everybody will be a MambER.

[spacemonkey]

Before this gets too sidetracked I'd like to point out a few inaccuracies and additions to Arthur's post:

1) We did not split the team - the announcement will be soon (if not already). At this point all I want to say is that the core developers will be even more focused on 5.0, and that your allegations are incorrect.

2) If you want features, then you gotta use plone. Nothing in the PHP/MySQL world even scratches the surface to this humongous beast. As such it has massive performance requirements (and it is in python, get your pocket protector ready!), so Mambo has the perfect balance of features, speed, ease of use, and operational requirements. Downloads of Mambo are only getting higher and higher, despite no 5.0 release...

3) One of Mambo's greatest strengths is the 3PD community. If we were releasing major overhauls every two months then nobody would develop stuff for Mambo - be it FOSS or commercial.

This move has been lauded by 3PDs and many users. It astounds me that this thread has been started, as if it was an attempt at spreading FUD. Say it ain't so, Arthur!

-- Mitch, Mambo Core Developer

[brianteeman]

Where did we announce the splitting of the team?

What was announced was the formation of a new team to handle Maintenance etc.

As for a feature battle I wasnt aware we were even in a battle.

I find it rather strange that a third party developer can one week complain about constant changes/updates that prevent the devlopment/growth of third party components/templates etc and then the next week demand new features in the core that will guarantee to break exisiting third party components/templates.

What would you prefer?

A new version every month with new features guaranteed to break exisiting sites and reduce the availability of components and templates.

OR a stable product with a guaranteed life that provides the stability and security required for third parties to have the confidence to develop for.

If Mambo was to constantly change what incentive is there for a third party to develop complex components if by the time they have finished Mambo has changed in such a way as to make the component unusable.

Brian Teeman

[oxytocin]

To answer short: Yes! I still admire Mambo for the ease of use, the smallweight installation and the nice collection of templates, components, modules and other add-ons. But there hasn't been much progress on the really important pieces of code.

My suggestions would be:

1. Implement important and working user projects into the core code, therefore declaring them to be standard and ensuring further developement. Some of the most important examples are the safemode-patch and Mamblefish.

2. Connected to my first statement: I don't see any reason why something that simple like extra user registration fields is not implemented when a) the code is already done and b) there is a real need for it; other than supporting the commercial approaches to these problems. The developers should no longer support commercial authors on the cost of the whole CMS.

3. Adress the important issuses first. I was really expecting some progress with Mambo 4.5.1, but instead of the many unresolved issues it contained a major redesign of the admin backend. There has to be a more sensible priorytizing of features.

While I still use Mambo on a lot of personal sites, I would probably go for typo3 when it comes to business.

The list of needed features is long, my top three would be:
- Access levels
- Multi-language support
- Switch from Section-Category-Article to nested categories, allowing far more flexible management of content (and finally making the typed content obsolete).

[pestilence]

I believe what was mentioned is correct, mambo is quite powerfull and most carefully developed, actually allthough i am into php and SQL coding for some years Mambo was the only straightforward CMS project that i could easily read and understand.
It's components and function are pretty easy to understand and this helps the rapid development of projects.
I do agree that there are allot of projects out there gone commercial, something i do not fully agree with at least i would agree if mambo components where sold only for commercial use. But at the end that is a developers decision and not mine.
I think a slow development is better in many ways rather than a rapid development of a new version, quick released will often lead to security issues, and most importantly compatibility issues. I would also love to see more projects under Mambo, especially forums (i am allready fighting on my own to fully port SMF to mambo) and also a few fixes inside the Mambo DB code (i think there are missing some really needed functions, such as the mysql_affected_rows etc allthough not hard to add inside, it would be better to have this modifications allready inside rather than needing to redistribute a hacked database file).
User management should also be more focused, afterall most CMS's are used for community portals and extensible user management is vital for this kind of sites, even if someoone does not need one it would be wise such a management to be available.
Thats my 5 cents on the issue, i hope the mambo devel team continues its nice work and that in the future even more people concetrate on this project.

[spignataro]

I have not read anyone elses post. So if i repeat someone elses opinion...sorry

I dont remember reading one thing about the splitting of the team. I think that would be a horrible decision...what was mentioned was the formation of a new team for making sure security is updated and what not....from what i understand. Along those lines more or less.

As for getting to battle of features.

Mambo has them all. Mambo is a powerfull..easy to use...fast CMS right out of the box. If there is a feature that someone wants...there is 90% open source products that will take care of that....and about 5% of commercial products...and about 5% non-exisitant or being worked on products. So where can anyone go wrong? I dont see any other products have as many components/modules/templates/bots as the Mambo community. Each day i see Mambo growing...not just as a CMS...but as a complete community. Each day i see new releases of products....commercial and open source....each day i see new templates...

i dont see that at other communities. I dont even see that in the commerical CMS world.

So do we have it all...why heck yes we do....but do we pry on it and then just begin working on doing nothing because we are at our peak...no...we keep trying to make the product better and moving onward creating a robust powerfull CMS solution.

So thus mambo isnt competing against anyone.

Well those are my thoughts.

[alterego]

Ha! That's a funny question, really! What's a feature? I loved Mambo almost at first sight when I stumbled across it nearly a year ago because after using more than a dozen 'feature-rich' competitors, I still had not found a CMS that would appeal to my client-base. Mambo lets me empower my clients without robbing me of a 'life'! The steep-but-short learning curve beats the other 'never-ending-learning-curves' all to pieces when it comes to getting a site up and functioning quickly.

Missing features? Yep, there are some. But I haven't found a CMS that doesn't lack something 'essential' but that cannot be wrapped in some manner or other. With all the specialty forums, galleries, and vertical database applications out there, what CMS will EVER be able to replace every 'essential' feature? The key to future CMS development is keeping the core VERY simple, VERY fast, SECURE and VERY extensible. Then developing and encouraging the community that will provide the added features and tools is critical to gaining the necessary momentum for a long and happy future.

P.S. Why the mention of 'Typo3'? That's not anything I'd want to try and push onto the general SOHO/NOPROFIT ORG users! You need to be a true geek to appreciate something like that ...or Plone!