About this site

In August 2005 the core development team of Mambo resigned over a plan to move the project’s trademark into a new foundation, forked the GPL-licensed code, and shipped it a month later under a name chosen by public vote. The code was identical on day one. Everything that separates the two projects happened afterwards.

That makes it unusually legible. Where most arguments about software mix technical merit with organisation and money, this one isolated the variable: same codebase, same community, different structure. The sections here follow the consequences — the release history and its two hard compatibility breaks, the extensions directory and what its listing rules decided, the licensing argument over what could be sold, the security process, and the people whose names are on the decisions.

The writing is historical. It does not recommend a content management system, and it does not tell anybody how to run one.

How it is organised

Six sections, nineteen pieces. Every piece is reachable from its section page or from the archive, which lists the whole roster in one place.