I just published this post on mauteam.org
Sadly comments in the blog are deactivated because I migrated it to AMP (still working on re-activating comments)
So what’s your view of this news?
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Hey. Read your article. My first thought when I saw this post, was Why ?
I saw your interview with him and the fact that he did not answer why he left… saw your response…
I personally had dealings with Acquia and it was unfortunately not a very positive experience. I do have a lot to say on the subject, but maybe not the best to do it on a public forum.
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Hi Yosu,
Here is a bit of official feedback that I can give on behalf of the Mautic Community Leadership team:
Basically, the situation of DB as “project lead but non-Acquia” had not been envisioned in the Governance Model, therefore role and competency have to be clarified quickly together with Acquia - once that is out of the way, we will be back to having a proactive project lead.
(With emphasis on proactive. It is not at all like DB has gone; he does react and respond in day-to-day business, currently simply refrains from taking the lead).
I would like to add some personal comments to this:
- I completely agree that the radio silence we had lately on the situation is bad communication. Frankly, the delay and lack of information and the resulting vacuum made me worry too.
- In that regard, I appreciate the fact that you openly addressed the issue, which helps in resolving the situation, getting rid of the vacuum. My personal goal is to be there by next week.
- On the other hand, while I do understand that you call your post an “opinion”, I still find it problematic to do this in wild speculation, personal insults, and certainly in click-bait manner - as opposed to constructive contribution within the community. We are all trying to work towards exactly what you demand, so why not be part of it instead of complaining from the outside? (This is a serious invitation!)
- Plus, last and more general remark: I am quite happy that the community is currently growing more and more mature. Things like style of leadership and even your personal relationships with individuals may even look much better in the new context. I would ask everyone to be open and positive about it.
Thanks,
Ekke
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Thank you for shedding some light on the topic @ekke.
Yes, we must remain positive, and in positive terms is how I wrote my opinion post.
Thank you for the invitation, I will consider having a more active role in the community once/if it becomes a democracy and after the community owns itself.
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Hi, I really object to this statement.
I am a long time mautic user for my small buisness and also a former community manager for a different open source email platform, so I have experience of both being a user and a professional in a similar environment. I object from both sides of that community / leadership divide.
I don’t know the post author in any way personally, but his unofficial mantic newsletter has long been providing me with a vital service. Usually this has been in the absence of any serious community leadership from mautic itself. In my view this gentleman IS a community leader for mautic. His email updates are probably the only reason I’m still using this software and haven’t given up during one of the many bad times I have had, where there was no adequate response from the developers to serious problems.
From a professional perspective, I disagree also. Mautic/Aquia can’t expect to not publish a statement on this issue and still keep control of the conversation. If his article is speculative, that’s because of the complete vacuum of information about this very serious issue! What else is left but necessary speculation.
Just before the Aquia deal came though I had made the decision to transition away from mautic, because of the constant technical difficulties and lack of response/support. When the deal was announced I decided to give it some more time because I felt that this was a big opportunity for mautic become a more viable, reliable product for companies like mine.
That there has been a breakdown in relations at the highest level of the project is a very serious problem indeed for people like myself. I rely on mautic to earn enough to pay my bills keep a roof over my head, if things are “going south” I need to know asap so I can move to a more stable platform.
In short, I believe that the post and any speculation included has been valuable and unfortunately necessary, and that the author is (and has long been) filling a much needed role within the community.
I would like to see mautic become a more professional open source product, and hopefully that can still happen! In the mean time I will keep watching the unofficial newsletter for updates about the direction of travel!
Thanks for reading, hope you are all safe from coronavirus and keeping well - Ax
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Thanks for putting my thoughts into words, Anna 
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Dear Ax,
I appreciate your passionate words, and I strongly believe we’re very much on the same page!
(And one thing I’d like to repeat up-front: I have nothing to do with Acquia, I am just a team lead in the Mautic community.)
Thoughts:
-
Yosu does excellent technical blog posts, but he is not the author of the newsletter that you mention (that one comes from Chris)
And no disrespect to Chris, I consider him a friend - but when I look at the Mautic Slack, my impression is not that he is the perceived de-facto community leader in that place. (Yes I know that that is largely hidden to those who do not use Slack.) -
I do agree that this blog post was a good thing in order to get things moving - I only wished that in our community, we always remain respectful when it comes to discussing personal matters publicly.
-
Just like you, I want Mautic to be a really successful and fun open source project (and product). Now the big question is: What to do about it? There seem to be three schools here:
A) Destroy what exists, and hope for something better to resurrect
B) Complain about “those in charge”
C) Try to actively fix or improve things (structurally)
You probably noticed that I am in favour of ( C ), and that I am very happy with what is currently growing there. Not everybody needs to feel that way, and I love to receive a lot of constructive criticism, but my biggest worry at this point is that the A’s and the B’s could crush the achievements of the C’s, by frustrating those volunteers who contribute a lot of time every single week.
Thanks,
Ekke
P.S. Yosu and I had a long and good call after the original posts. While we come from different directions, it is always helpful (and even fun) to discuss matters openly, which we do.
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Thank you for your kind words @annafjmorris it’s people like you who gives people like us the strength to keep publishing that kind of information despite all the pressure against it.
Chris Calabro is the curator of the newsletter, for about 3 years now. I am the author of the post.
We chat regularly, I can assure you neither of us has a specific interest on leading this community, we just try to keep people informed about what’s going on in this community.
Sadly, in a world where obfuscation seems the norm, unsanctioned information is not always welcome.
There’s nothing private in the founder of the project leaving the company.
That list of options looks rather limited to me, and obviously not very positive.
That was a really nice conversation that I hope we can repeat soon, however, 2 people talking on a closed call really has nothing to do with “discuss matters openly”.
Who pays for the podcast?
Nobody but our agency (Leuchtfeuer). Should we ever accept ads or sponsorship, that’ll be clearly marked.
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