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The Joomla! Production Leadership Team (PLT) is pleased to announce the addition of three new members: Andrew Eddie, Javier Gomez and Tom Hutchison.

• Andrea Tarr
• Andrew Eddie
• Chris Davenport
• Javier Gomez
• Mark Dexter
• Michael Babker
• Nick Savov
• Ron Severdia
• Tom Hutchison

The Joomla! Community Leadership Team (CLT) is currently looking for new active members from the Joomla community to strengthen our team. If you know a fellow Joomla community member who is active in the Joomla.org or in a local Joomla community, and who would be available & suitable for the position, please nominate them. You can also nominate yourself. Please keep in mind that this is *not* a voting contest: asking all your acquaintances to nominate or vote for you, certainly doesn't give you any bonus points :-)

What is the CLT?

The Community Leadership Team (CLT) is the leadership arm of the project responsible for the Community Workgroup (CWG). The Community Workgroup (CWG) consists of certain sites/areas where hundreds of volunteers help out:

• Joomla Community Magazine (JCM), magazine.joomla.org
• Joomla Community Portal (Community site), community.joomla.org
• Joomla Extension Directory (JED), extensions.joomla.org
• Joomla Forum (Forum), forum.joomla.org
• Joomla Resources Directory (JRD), resources.joomla.org
• Joomla Template (JTD), templates.joomla.org (under construction)
• Joomla User Groups (JUG), community.joomla.org/user-groups.html
• The Joomla Project main site www.joomla.org

After much public discussion over several months, the Joomla Production Leadership Team (PLT) has made it official. We will release version 3.2 in September 2013 and move the 3.5 release to March 2014. This pattern is expected to continue for the version 4.x releases.

Now, version 2.5 will be the current long-term support (LTS) release for two years (March 2012 to March 2014) instead of 18 months. Here is the revised release schedule through version 4.5.

• Version 2.5: March 2012 (LTS release)
• Version 3.0: September 2012
• Version 3.1: March 2013
• Version 3.2: September 2013
• Version 3.5: March 2014 (LTS release)
• Version 4.0: September 2014
• Version 4.1: March 2015
• Version 4.2: September 2015
• Version 4.5: March 2016 (LTS release)

In discussions on list and at several Joomla events, the response to this proposal was very positive. The PLT believes this change preserves the advantages of the 6-month release cycle while giving LTS users a longer time between major upgrades. Like any prediction of the future, it is subject to change (for example, if the world ends, people stop using the internet, or someone proposes a better plan).

Happy holidays, and may all your upgrades go smoothly!

During the joint leadership summit meeting in San Jose, California on November 15, 2012, one item that members of Joomla's Production Leadership Team (PLT), Community Leadership Team (CLT) and Open Source Matters (OSM) agreed on was to try and finalize their 2013 team level goals by December 31, 2012.

OSM's draft goals for 2013 are published below. Our next step in the goal setting process is to invite feedback from the community. 

Beginning December 21, 2012, OSM board members will begin finalizing these 2013 goals, taking into account feedback from the community.

Communications

Improve communications through simplifying and targeting communications channels for external as well as internal audiences, and facilitate volunteer involvement.

• Create a curated blog/portal with project information targeting news/media groups and those not acquainted with Joomla
• Create a curated blog/portal with project information targeting the initiated Joomla community
• Create a beginner's roadmap to help community members find information and become involved

Capital

• Develop new sponsors.joomla.org website
• Increase incoming sponsorship money of project by at least 50% ($150,000.00)
• Acquire a Global Event Sponsorship for 2013 sponsor
• Student scholarship program for events admissions, etc.
• Implement a hosting directory of approved partner hosting companies
• Free hosting for life concept - exploring options, structure and RFP development
• Get a documented and structured ad program in place

Internationalization

• Improve processes for translating the Joomla Software and supporting the enhancement of the Joomla CMS multilingual system
• Internationalize and translate the family of Joomla sites including localized documentation and help screens
• Reach out to and build better relationships with local communities

Events

• Turn Joomla Events into a Marketing Tool to attract new users
• Send at least one leadership team member to every JoomlaDay
• Create a "JoomlaDay Tool Box"
• Participate at selected other events that are not related to Joomla
• Start to organize Joomla Regional Conferences
• Plan and launch the 2013 Joomla World Conference (JWC)

Certification

The main goal is to get the Joomla Certification Program launched during 2013. The Joomla certification program will go beyond training by providing a documented measurement of knowledge, so that Joomla professionals can compete under equal conditions world wide.

Trademark, Licence and Legal

Trademark Review Process

The main goal remains to complete the Trademark review process so that our Trademark rules are easy to understand and to follow, and also simpler to administer. The following steps need to be completed to achieve this:

• Complete the Trademark review process with legal assistance. (target date to finish this is end of January 2013)

The next items in full or in part depends on this first point to be completed:

• Finish new Trademark & Licence site.
• New Trademark submission forms and new process
• Refresh of logos
• Quick checklist for submissions
• Translating of parts or most of Trademark information. (can commence once above points is done)
• Better process and communication regarding Trademark matters between teams
• Expand the Trademark team and organize into more defined roles for each member
• Train up new Trademark team lead or facilitate transition to professional lead

Licensing and internal Trademark requests

The goal is to have clear guidelines, and clear communication channels, so that any Licensing or Trademark concern or question can be addressed before it becomes an issue, and that we get speedy replies to those type of question. The following steps will help reach this goal:

• Review code contribution process as it relates to licenses and Contributor Agreements
• Provide clear guidelines to all teams on what type of matters would first need to have Trademark or License questions resolved. (HelpDesk may be useful to manage these requests)

Legal, Agreements and Contracts

The goal is to keep within our conservative budget spending for legal matters. Such spending could be increased on short notice in case of an urgent legal matter, and by approval of the board.

Governance

Form a standing working group that will produce a set of governance improvement recommendations intended for review and consideration by the project's leadership.

CMSGarden - The Open Source CMS Garden Festival at CeBIT 2013

In September 2012 I got a call from Stephan Luckow, who is President of the German Drupal Association called "Drupal-Initiative". He told me about his idea of presenting all interested Open Source content-managment-systems at a common stand at the CeBIT 2013 event. CeBIT is the world's largest IT trade fair and takes place in Hannover, Germany, from March 5 - 9, 2013. He asked me whether I would like to represent the Joomla! project during the planning phase and work as a "hub" to inform the national and international Joomla! community about the project called "CMSGarden" - and of course I agreed immediately.

One could ask why I agreed to help in the project. The answer is quite simple: I strongly believe that every single participating CMS can benefit a lot from it. CeBIT is the world's largest trade fair for computer and internet technologies and offers us a unique possibility to reach people who are using internet technologies in their business every day. But even more important to me is this: a common project of multiple Open Source systems helps everybody understand that we're not really competitors. Instead, we have to be aware of the fact that our real competitors are closed source systems still used in web projects all over the world. We are one "big family" and should exchange our ideas, opinions and lessons learned so that everyone can benefit.

Heathrow is the major London airport and, by some measures, is the busiest airport in the world.

For their main shopping site at http://boutique.heathrow.com, they needed a platform able to handle heavy traffic and showcase brands like Bulgari. They choose Joomla...

...

The Joomla! Production Leadership Team (PLT) is responsible for leading and coordinating the development of the Joomla! CMS and Platform. This includes releasing new versions, fixing bugs, adding new features, and creating documentation.

We are looking for your nominations for new PLT members. We acknowledge that the greater worldwide Joomla! community can help us a lot in this process and make us aware of potential candidates we may overlook.

Nomination Information

We are looking for up to four new PLT members. Useful areas of experience and expertise for nominees include:

• Coding and code design
• Documentation
• User interface and design
• Student and developer outreach

Nomination Criteria

We are looking for people with a track record of positive contributions to Joomla. Some of the criteria that will be used when evaluating nominations include:

• Contributions to the development process - Candidates should have a demonstrated track record of participating in and contributing to the Joomla development process. This can be in the form of coding, documentation, localization, or helping with communications and facilitation.
• Ability to work with others - Candidates should have the demonstrated consistent ability to work constructively and positively with the wide variety of people in the Joomla community.
• Ability to devote time to the project - Candidates should be able to devote enough time to the project to be effective. This includes the possibility of travel to Joomla events.

Nomination Schedule

Nominations open: December 3, 2012

Nominations close: December 17, 2012

Appointments announced: January 7, 2013

Nomination Form

To nominate someone, please complete this form before December 17, 2012. Thank you.

The Joomla Production Leadership Team (PLT) is pleased to announce the addition of two new members: Michael Babker and Nick Savov.

Michael has been developing using Joomla! since 2010, coming to the Bug Squad shortly after the first 1.6 Beta. In the time since he has gone from being a user of the product with no programming experience to writing code for the CMS and Platform, either in the form of extensions or core contributions. Developing code is a hobby for him. His day job sees him work in the IT field primarily in help desk and network management roles, skills he brings back to his Joomla contributions while interacting on the tracker or mailing lists.

Always seeking a challenge and learning, Michael holds an Associate of Arts in Information Technology with a concentration in Web Design as well as other technical certifications spread throughout the IT field. When not paying the bills or writing code, Michael can be found enjoying the scenery wherever he's at in the world, seeking a new challenge, and all in all enjoying life.

Nick Savov has been involved with Joomla for about two and a half years and web related work for only three years. He's a quick learner and enjoys learning new things by applying himself until a goal is accomplished. During his time with Joomla, he's been involved in a lot of areas of the project including documentation, Joomla Bug Squad, marketing, communication, and helping out on the developer mailing lists and the forum.

One of his favorite parts about Joomla is meeting other people in the community, getting to know them better, and working with them to accomplish common goals. He especially loves helping others to learn something new, to solve problems, and to contribute to the Joomla core.

Nick's employed at OSTraining, as the Director of Sites, where he's helped answer thousands of Joomla-related questions. As part of the job, he also gets to work with Joomla and Joomla-related products throughout the day. Having those opportunities and his colleagues as co-workers has made the position a dream job for him.

In addition to Michael and Nick, the PLT is looking to add more members. Look for an announcement calling for nominations from the community in the next few days.

The international Joomla conference is behind us. It is always great meeting people face to face. It is at moments like this that things, often discussed at length, can be quickly and effectively brought into focus.

In version 3.0, we have accessibility issues in the frontend as well as the backend. The goal should be to fix them step by step. It will not happen overnight.

For this reason, we have established a working group to work in cooperation with the UX working group. The long-term goal is to make Joomla the first CMS that is really compliant with the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines.

Through our discussions, two primary approaches have emerged: the development of accessibility guidelines, and the fixing of recognised accessibility issues.

At recent joint leadership summits, proposals were made for improving the way that the Production Leadership Team (PLT), the Community Leadership Team (CLT) and the Open Source Matters (OSM) board function. The three leadership teams have established terms and reviews, set up a group to suggest strategy and goals for the project and agreed to document roles, policies and procedures. A governance working group has also been set up.