Towards a future of independence

Community Blog
1

Jump to translations of this article

Mautic has experienced strong growth over the past years since the acquisition by Acquia of Mautic Inc.

We’ve seen a vibrant, welcoming international community coming together to build Mautic and support each other in being successful with Mautic. We’ve also made some great strides when it comes to developing the product.

Mautic is clearly on a strong trajectory of growth, which is very exciting to see!

Time for change

Currently the Mautic Community has quite a unique governance structure. Acquia features heavily in the governance model and has significant control in the project. Acquia also owns the Mautic trademark and brand.

Back in 2019 as part of the consultation process for establishing the first Community Governance Model, we added a clause for the Mautic Community Council to review with Acquia each year whether the model was still fit for purpose.

Until now we have not felt the need for changing the governance model, but increasingly myself and Acquia feel that it is the right time to consider some changes to our structure to support Mautic’s future growth as an independent, self-governing open source project.

Why do we believe this is the right step for Mautic?

Being supported by Acquia has given Mautic a great opportunity to establish our project governance model, develop teams to take up responsibility for areas of the project, and really start to drive the open source project forward. 

Speaking personally, being able to work on a full-time basis for Mautic supported by Acquia since mid-2019 has been a huge privilege and has meant that a lot of things could get started and move forward to support the community’s growth which would not have otherwise been possible. Likewise, having Acquia engineer John Linhart’s expertise for half of his working time at Acquia has allowed us to focus on improving code quality and driving further improvements.

We have continued to make great progress since 2019, with both the uptake of Mautic-based solutions and community contributions increasing strongly. We have seen multiple businesses start and thrive in the Mautic ecosystem and this trend is continuing to grow. The project and community has a palpable momentum, and I feel that the time is right for us to step into our own space in the world.

Furthermore, Acquia has a clear vision for its product portfolio, and believes that in order for Mautic to reach the next level of its growth, it would be best for it not to be controlled by a single corporate entity. They support the view that for Mautic to truly grow to its full potential, we should do so as an independent open source project.

Moving forward together

The Mautic project and our whole community needs to move forward together. 

I believe that the Mautic Community has the necessary resources to drive us towards a future of real and sustainable growth, and am excited for us to take the first steps on this path. 

Acquia has offered to provide fixed-term seed funding to the Mautic Project to help us with establishing our future governance structure, and also to transfer the ownership of the trademark, brand and domains to the Mautic Community, to be held by the Open Source Collective on our behalf. 

Our next steps are as follows:

  1. Share update with Mautic community ⬅️ we are here
  2. Research and review proposals for Mautic’s new organization structure and governance model
  3. Finalize governance proposal and share with community
  4. Implement new structure and governance model

What does this mean for Mautic?

Project Lead’s employment

I (Ruth Cheesley, Project Lead) will cease to be employed by Acquia on 14th April 2023, and will become employed by the Mautic project, through the Open Source Collective’s employment facility, until such a time as the organizational structure and governance model are finalized. This will ensure that there is continuity, and the seed funding from Acquia will help to support this financially.

Organization and governance structure changes

We are proposing some substantial changes to the organizational structure and governance mode. We recognize that this needs to be done with careful consideration of Mautic’s long term future at the heart of everything we do.

We will be sharing research, proposals and decision making processes in the public domain, allowing everyone in the community to be involved in reviewing, discussing and providing input into the future of Mautic as we have done in the past.

Planning for the future

In November at Mautic Conference South America, I shared our mission and vision, and our longer term goals (check out mau.tc/future if you missed it!). 

I also shared some of the areas we will be focusing on over the next three years - we plan to review these goals as part of the process, to ensure that they remain relevant given the new structures that we will be implementing.

We have ambitious goals for Mautic, and we will still need your support to achieve them, both financially and in terms of practical contributions. We will be sharing how you can get involved soon.

Questions (and answers)

Will Mautic continue to be open source?

Absolutely yes. We will continue to be an open source project, and the license will not change.

Who will now own the brand and trademark?

Acquia has agreed to donate the brand and trademark to the Mautic Community, which will be held under legal contract by an impartial third party - the Open Source Collective - who are currently our fiscal host. 

A license will be granted to Acquia so that they can continue to use the term Mautic as they currently do, but the Mautic Community will be the owner of the trademark, its domain names and the brand.

The Mautic Community will continue to manage the use of our Trademark aligned with our Trademark Policy and will continue to take enforcement action against reports of misuse, with legal support from the Open Source Collective who we already partner with as our independent legal advisors.

Is Acquia stopping using or supporting Mautic?

Acquia continues to use Mautic in their Campaign Studio marketing automation product. There are no plans to change this. 

They will provide seed funding to help us get started, and will continue to contribute code and resources to Mautic, and support John Linhart in his community contributions. They will also continue to be a Mautic Community Partner.

Acquia wants to see Mautic grow and thrive, and is committed to doing everything they can to ensure that our next phase is a success.

Will a non-profit organization be created for Mautic? 

A non-profit organization is not being discounted, it will be one of the options that we review in the next steps of this process. There are several different options that we will be considering including whether a non-profit organization is necessary or not, and if deemed to be necessary, where to geographically locate the organization.

More questions?

I expect you have a lot of other questions about this which we haven’t covered above, and we’re setting up a series of webinars over the coming weeks to give our international community the opportunity to ask questions and share feedback.

Upcoming webinars

English language : Thursday 20th April at 2pm UK time

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87644421946?pwd=blBxSnBxTllYZEZqOUNXU2pjdjE2Zz09

Meeting ID: 876 4442 1946

Passcode: 263299

Portuguese language: Tuesday 25th April at 10am Brasilia Standard Time

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87893312489?pwd=T0ZBUC9nWDl6alV1QlJIM1owM3JtUT09

Meeting ID: 878 9331 2489

Passcode: 008835


Spanish language: Thursday 27th April at 6pm Central European Time

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83094600035?pwd=V2xmV2F6UmUrTjZ5V3hPb1NSV0x4dz09

Meeting ID: 830 9460 0035

Passcode: 751190

German language: <insert date and link>

Would you like to facilitate a session for your community? Drop Ruth an email at ruth.cheesley@mautic.org.

Project Lead Office Hours

I will continue to hold my regular Office Hours and have added a few more over the coming week. These are an opportunity to drop into a video call with me and chat about whatever you might be interested in discussing.

These are next on:

Wednesday, 19th April at 0700hrs UK time (my office hours are at this time every fortnight) 

Video call link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87562856285?pwd=TEJSSFJUQkd1ODJXK1VGK3lDR0I0Zz09

Meeting ID: 875 6285 6285

Passcode: 210498

Thursday, 20th April at 1400hrs UK time

Video call link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87471995567?pwd=cXdNaXNjWFJWcGF5Tmg2R1BYdFp2Zz09

Meeting ID: 874 7199 5567

Passcode: 296492


Friday, 21st April at 10am UK time

Video call link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85052425009?pwd=OWIvTUNrUTBPYjIvT28xeUhOalFSQT09

Meeting ID: 850 5242 5009

Passcode: 148977

Thursday, 27th April at 2pm UK time (my office hours are at this time every fortnight) 

Video call link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86824099822?pwd=eWk1Q0NnMXQwOEdBQ21wbDdaeGhyUT09

Meeting ID: 868 2409 9822

Passcode: 535689

We have answered some of the questions that we anticipate you might want to know the answers to, but please do use the forum thread linked at the bottom of the page to share any further questions, ensuring that you bear in mind the Mautic Code of Conduct while doing so.

Translations of this article

Thanks to our awesome community you can find translations of this article in:

Spanish (Julio Roldos): Towards a future of independence - Final Version [ES]

Portuguese (Rodrigo Demetrio): Towards a future of independence - Final Version [PT]

French (Norman Pracht): Towards a future of independence - Final Version [FR]

German (Ekke Guembel): Towards a future of independence - Final Version [DE]

Would you like to translate this article? Please add a Google Doc in this folder and use the same naming convention as others have used. The English version can be found here.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.mautic.org/blog/community/towards-a-future-of-independence
3 Likes
3

What is the commercial benefit Acquia for the restructure?
This reads as they are de-risking their investment or writing it off

Is this something Acquia has done previously or following a benchmark model of another platform that has done this before?

5

Read Dries post here Mautic to become an independent Open Source project | Dries Buytaert

3 Likes
6

Perfect - context was missing haha this makes senses now

Drupal rinse and repeat
so its a net sum game, with independence = commercial confidence for other commercial entities which compounds support and growth

My questions spirred out of commercial confidence - Don’t want to build dependence on something that has no future or conflicts of interest.

2 Likes
7

@tornmarketing

Your read is exactly the same most of my clients are having, one of them said it clearer than most:
“Aquia wants to distance itself from Mautic without suffering a loss. Could have been done in 1 sentence.”

I don’t know what the intent was, but it is very bad from all points of view, cause for the community, it tries to picture a brighter future, but it completely fails to deliver; last time I checked, that is the exact definition of BS.

1 Like
8

Dear Mautic Community members,

I understand that the recent announcement about Mautic’s independence from Acquia has raised some concerns and questions among community members. However, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the numerous benefits of Mautic becoming an independent, self-governing open source project and why this decision will lead to a brighter future for both the project and its community.

  1. Greater autonomy and decision-making power: As an independent project, Mautic will have the freedom to make decisions that are in the best interests of the community and the project itself, without being tied to the goals and vision of a single corporate entity. This autonomy will allow Mautic to develop and implement strategies that are solely focused on its growth and success.
  2. Broader community engagement: Independence will allow Mautic to cultivate a more diverse and inclusive community. By removing any perceived or real barriers associated with being controlled by a single corporation, Mautic can attract a wider array of contributors, users, and supporters who share the vision of making Mautic the best marketing automation solution available.
  3. Enhanced innovation and development: Mautic’s independence will encourage greater creativity and innovation within the project. The community will be empowered to contribute to the project without any constraints, leading to new features, improvements, and ideas that will help Mautic stay ahead of the competition and better serve its users.
  4. Stronger collaboration and partnerships: As an independent project, Mautic will be in a better position to forge new partnerships and collaborations within the open-source community and the marketing technology ecosystem. These relationships will provide valuable resources, expertise, and opportunities for the project to grow and thrive.
  5. Improved long-term sustainability: Mautic’s independence will strengthen its long-term sustainability by fostering a more stable and self-sufficient community. With a diverse and committed community behind it, Mautic will be better equipped to face challenges and seize opportunities in the ever-evolving marketing technology landscape.

It is crucial to recognise that Acquia’s decision to support Mautic’s independence is not an abandonment of the project; rather, it is a testament to their belief in Mautic’s potential to grow and thrive as an independent entity. Acquia will continue to contribute code and resources, support John Linhart in his community contributions, and remain a Mautic Community Partner.

Mautic’s independence is an exciting opportunity for the project and its community to forge a new path towards growth and success. Together, we can embrace this change and work towards achieving our ambitious goals for Mautic. We welcome your continued support and contributions as we embark on this exciting journey.

Yours sincerely,

Julio

9

@jcroldos

Amen Julio, amen. You know your corporate doctrine very well indeed.

The problem is that Acquia does not give the community ownership of anything. They just say they will, someday… maybe, if they feel like doing so… and if we have a good behavior, of course… just exactly what they did 3 years ago.
Lot’s of empty promises and lots of wonderful things “we will do in the future”… but in the end, we are still in the exact same spot, lots of verbal concessions leading nowhere, but not an inch given where it really matters.

Until the 501 is created, the assets delivered and proper elections are held, to me, this is just a huge pile of corporate BS… After waiting for 3 years, we deserved much better than this.

Prove me wrong, I beg you!!!

1 Like
10

@Yosu_Cadilla you are wrong and I don’t know how you can affirm what you claim because you are not in the structural discussions as far as you are not invested / contributing in / to any Mautic Community Teams. You would contribute more, you’d be in this discussions

This move is different. All assets are dropped by Acquia. This is written black on white (or white on black if you have a dark screen):

We’re currently working on it and associations are currently being created (with help of Open Collective). It’s not words, it is fact. I am personally with Ruth the contact of Open Collective for the EU and all of this is physically progressing.

So please, if you have questions, feel free to ask them with question tag, but keep your allegations :slight_smile:

2 Likes
11

Hi Norman, thank you for helping dispel these doubts. I know you are a very busy person and I really appreciate you showing up here and taking the time to shred some light into these important topics.

I can but wonder why Ruth is not showing up for all these conversations that are happening all over the place, since she clearly is the best person to answer all these questions authoritatively.

Here are some generic questions I am certain many other people are wondering about:

  • Who EXACTLY owns the assets right now? And how can that be verified by the general public.

  • Why is everything so sudden? Why after 3 years of mostly silence from Acquia, just right now, it is imperative for them to clearly state they are done with the Mautic community?

  • Why do we need the assets to be “held by the Open Source Collective on our behalf”? How exactly does this benefit the community? How is this better than than having a 501 and what are the advantages for the community?

Questions from your reply:

  • Why is there an elite of people aware of “structural discussions” instead of the entire community?
  • Who elected that elite group of people to speak for the entire community and make decisions on their behalf?

And here are some questions specific to your last message or specific to your former position or related to you in general (of course you do not have to answer these, but it would be really great if you do).

  • Why did you leave your leadership position so abruptly?
  • Why could you not wait until this storm had passed?

And finally questions about the promises Acquia, DB, Dries, Norman (you) and Ekke (plus many others that are now gone) made to the community. Some of these are in the “manifesto” you guys published, remember that document? I do! Maybe it is time to abide by it?

  • When exactly will we have yearly or biannual elections?.
  • Ownership of our own assets. When will the proper 501 be created?
  • When will openness and public discussions FOR EVERYTHING be brought back as we had before the Acquisition?
  • For how long will the appointments by fingerpointint and elite petite committee elections continue? And what are the exact steps that are going to be taken to ensure this practice stops?

I know, many of these questions should be answered by Ruth, but as the Mautic lead for 3 years, I would be grateful if you could answer a few of these and most importantly, share your point of view on how these things should be tackled in the near future.

1 Like
12

Hello,

It is a lot of question :sweat_smile: !
I’ll try to answer as best as I can and I believe that @rcheesley will answer to the more Community specific questions:

Who EXACTLY owns the assets right now? And how can that be verified by the general public.

Right now I think it is still Acquia because we’re actually (lawyers and Ruth) processing on ownership change. In a few days / weeks, this will be Mautic Community helped by Open Collective (I think that has been mentioned).

Why is everything so sudden? Why after 3 years of mostly silence from Acquia, just right now, it is imperative for them to clearly state they are done with the Mautic community?

Well. I think this question is starting from a vision of the situation which is incorrect.

  • It is not so sudden. We are working on it for approx. 4 months. The Community management architecture + the sensitiveness of the situation didn’t pushed us (Community leading team) to make it public until now. We had tons of meetings, with Acquia, with team leaders, etc. to find what we believe (as far as we represent the Community) is the best for Mautic.
  • Silence from Acquia. I’ll not talk much for them because I’m not the right person for it. But from an active Community member perspective, I can state that your feeling is wrong ; dozen of meetings with Acquia representatives (including Dries), Ruth was an employee of Acquia, Jan is an employee of Acquia and dedicated half time for the community. I wouldn’t say that their time = silent. I’d say they have been doing a lot for the Community. Event if I would have loved if they (Acquia) have been doing even more, but I believe they are not resourceless ? :slight_smile:

Why do we need the assets to be “held by the Open Source Collective on our behalf”? How exactly does this benefit the community? How is this better than than having a 501 and what are the advantages for the community?

Do you have time to manage a 501? I don’t.
Many people don’t have more time to focus on administrative tasks. While we need (in my opinion) more efforts on the Communication and Product perspective.
This is the choice the Leading Team has been taking to make it the most simple and the most effortless.

Why is there an elite of people aware of “structural discussions” instead of the entire community?
Who elected that elite group of people to speak for the entire community and make decisions on their behalf?

Thanks for the compliment!
More seriously >>>> https://contribute.mautic.org/community-structure, you have all the information about how teams are built and elected.
Keeping in mind that we don’t have tons of candidates (one reason why I have been Product Team Leader for 3 years, which should not be the case).

Every time we have Community suggestions to enhance all those process, we take it into consideration and make changes if relevant.
But let’s keep being honest, people invested in the Community governance (I mean contributions, weekly meetings, etc.) is not the type of people we have the most. And it’s good like that we are already very happy of all the Community Contributors we have. Every roc brought helps us to build our house.

Why did you leave your leadership position so abruptly?

Again, this is not abrupt. It is for you because you are not invested in the discussions in teams.
I’m having this discussion especially with Ruth for months (years ?). By the way, I stay assistant in the Product Team, this is an important role :wink:

Also, Webmecanik (my company) stays involved as it is since the beginning of the project. The 2022 annual contribution report is not saying Webmecanik (because I am not alone) is leaving the Community :wink:

Capture d’écran 2023-04-21 à 11.15.55
Capture d’écran 2023-04-21 à 11.15.551308×424 24.9 KB

About the WHY, I can answer on 2 sides:

  1. From a Community perspective:
    • I strongly (and since Day 1) believe that the role I had - which I didn’t apply for and people asked me to take due to my Mautic experience & history - should be carried by someone more technical. I’m a Marketeer, eventually a Manager (if that is a job), but not a developer. Some decisions on the Product Team must be leaded by a more technical person.
    • A leader should not (if possible) stay leader for 3 years. My role is owned by Community, this is not my personal good.
    • Mattias has been doing HUGE contributions for community last months (and you don’t see them all, everything related to Security is kept discreet).
    • And I also believe that I am far from perfect fit form the Community in terms of personal time investment.
  2. From a personal perspective, I’ll make it short:
    • I manage a Company with 25 collaborators
    • I have an amazing wife and 2 wonderful daughters
    • My passion is mountaineering, nature (see pics hereunder, while I’m doing that, I’m useless for the community). Not spending time behind a laptop

I have to chose what I want to do to make most of what I do the best as I can.

Why could you not wait until this storm had passed?

Storm? Storms kill people.
You seriously have to better chose your words. Do you see anyone dead? Fired? Everything is doing well, we move forward and this is exciting for the Community.

Again Mattias is here, I’m having this discussion for months, I’m not necessary for the Community. I own nothing here and the Community doesn’t own me (hopefully).

And finally questions about the promises Acquia, DB, Dries, Norman (you) and Ekke (plus many others that are now gone) made to the community. Some of these are in the “manifesto” you guys published, remember that document? I do! Maybe it is time to abide by it?

Hm. What do you expect? Like if the list of persons here is able to carry alone an entire Community?
What about you? What did you do for Community beside challenging people offering its energy and time to it?
I could spend 1 hour to help community moving forward, but you see, I’ve spent my Friday hour to answer to your very subjective questions instead.

To achieve all of our dreams, we need resources. We don’t have enough resource.
You’d be in Community Teams, you’d have seen I often say it publicly, I’m confortable with it.

When exactly will we have yearly or biannual elections?.

Probably Ruth can answer this. But we need candidates for it :smiley:
See https://contribute.mautic.org/community-structure/governance#term-durations-and-elections

Ownership of our own assets. When will the proper 501 be created?

The day we believe this brings a better advantage and we have resources to handle / manage it.
Today it would bring only time consumption.

When will openness and public discussions FOR EVERYTHING be brought back as we had before the Acquisition?

It is open. I invite you to join teams to know all the topic we discuss and finally decide in leadership councils > this is the current governance model and I think (it is my opinion), it is efficient.

For how long will the appointments by fingerpointint and elite petite committee elections continue?
And what are the exact steps that are going to be taken to ensure this practice stops?

Useless and not constructive question. Read governance model, offer seriously and positively a part of your time and you’ll see you are wrong.

I’ll stop the debate here, I think I offered enough of my Community and personal time. We have webinars coming up to discuss, feel free to join to have public discussions :wink:

On last personal word: less sour words, less aggressiveness, less negativeness. More positiveness, more enthusiasm, more personal investment would make the Community better and and more powerful.
Make love, not war.

Pics I promised explaining why my free time is not spent on Community side:

View on Mont Blanc from Dent du Géant
View on Mont Blanc from Dent du Géant1920×2560 546 KB

Climbing over 4000m altitude
Climbing over 4000m altitude1920×1079 303 KB

Alpin hike at night on Glacier
Alpin hike at night on Glacier1920×2560 409 KB

Skiing steep corridor
Skiing steep corridor1920×2560 400 KB

2 Likes
13

Hi folks,

I have not been jumping in on the replies here partly due to time, but also because I wanted to enable the community to have their voices heard before I jumped in.

I’ve just come out of the first webinar and office hours session (recording here, will be posted to YouTube in due course) where I answered most of the questions in this thread, but I will respond in line so that it’s clear to people coming to this thread / reading the comments on the website.

I am delighted to share that the legal contracts were signed on Monday, 17th April to complete the trademark assignment from Acquia to the Open Source Collective. I had asked if we could share these publicly but the lawyers at Acquia have requested that they remain confidential.

The patent attorney made the request yesterday (19th April) for the transfer at the USPTO so that should be actioned imminently and then once complete, will be available to inspect when you go to the search facility.

The domain names are in the process of being transferred to Open Source Collective as the new domain registrar, and Mautic’s infrastructure team’s Cloudflare account for DNS. This is a relatively complex process with unlock codes and the like, so it will take time to complete but it is already underway. You won’t really notice any material difference as an end-user.

As above, shortly this will be verifiable publicly on the USPTO database.

I appreciate that the announcement has come out of the blue for people who are not in the Leadership Team or Community Council.

This process was initiated back in December 2022 initially, as Dries mentions in his blog post.

At the start it was just myself involved researching and discussing with Dries and others at Acquia what the future might look like for Mautic.

Then at the start of the year, the Community Council were involved in discussions, and finally the circle was widened to include the Leadership Team.

This his all been over a time period of approximately four months. So while it seems sudden, actually it has been quite a rigorous and lengthy process and there has been involvement from the decision making bodies of the Mautic Community throughout.

Following up on the comment about Acquia being done with the community, that is not the situation, which is made clear in the announcement and also in Dries’ blog post.

Creating and running a non profit organisation takes a lot of time, resources and money - all of which we do not have in abundance.

After extensive research, speaking with multiple maintainers, project owners and non profit board members, the overwhelming majority emphasised not creating your own non profit organization until it is financially a necessity and the project has the people resources to support properly maintaining it, due to the extra burden it places on the project where resources could be better used in getting the project to a sustainable footing

Many, if not all, of the services that we would need our own non-profit for is already provided for by the Open Source Collective:

  • Fiscal hosting (read more here)
    • They act as our bank, deal with our tax returns and manage all things accounting (check opencollective.com/mautic to see this in action, we have used it since 2021)
  • Holding of trademarks and brand assets (read more here)
    • They can hold trademarks as an impartial, neutral entity on behalf of Open Source projects (and also register new trademarks)
    • For Mautic this includes our existing trademarks, and all domains relating to the open source project
  • Legal services
    • They provide access to an expert lawyer with deep experience in open source
  • Employment and contracting
    • We have already used Open Source Collective for contracts of work with developers in the community
    • Open Source Collective will employ the Mautic Project Lead through their employment services (see more here)
  • Maintainer support and training
    • Last year a series of six training courses were held for open source project maintainers which were extremely valuable (see the notes in the Guides section of their documentation)
    • Funding for maintainers to attend events which support them in leading their projects (read more here)

Creating a non-profit organization in the future is not off the table - it never has been

We do not have enough consistently active contributors interested in pursuing this option to make this a reality at this time

I also feel that at this point in time, we have to focus on our immediate situation, and the most beneficial use of the resources we have available - we have much of what we need to grow our project through the Open Source Collective. I do not feel that we would be well served diverting our limited resources towards creating a non profit at this time.

To be clear, there have not been any decisions made on what the governance model will be going forward yet.

I have made a first draft of what I think might be a good option to discuss, which will be shared in the Governance Working Group - a public Slack channel (#wg-governance) which is recently established (so you haven’t missed anything!) where anyone who is interested in getting involved in this process is welcome to join with respectful discussion and curiosity for exploring different ways forward. This is a first draft - a starting point.

I will answer this from my perspective as Project Lead, as Norman has answered this above in more detail. Norman and I have been talking about succession planning for some months, as team leads are coming up to the end of their three year terms and Norman had shared that his time has been limited recently so he felt it would be in the best interests of Mautic if we looked at finding someone to take up the team lead role.

We had discussed who might be a good leader for the Product Team and be able to dedicate the time that is needed, and about two months ago we approached @mollux to see if Dropsolid would be in a position to support him taking on the role. Mattias has been very active in the Product Team and as a Technical Architect at Dropsolid, has a good technical grounding to lead the team forward.

Dropsolid discussed this internally and about a month ago we heard that it was going to be something that Mattias could take on, and would be supported to make time available for this important role. The leadership team onboarding process began on the 31st March, and we announced the change in team lead in the newsletter and on the quarterly round up post that went out on the 3rd April, and in the Product Team Slack channel on the 4th April. So at this point, the whole community were aware of this transition of leadership. Nothing was done in the dark, and the community was informed through our three main communication channels (Slack, Email and website blog).

We could have waited to announce this, but at that time we did not have any clear timelines for when this news (about Mautic becoming independent) was going to be made public, and our prime focus was on driving the work of the Product Team forward.

This is something that I would like to see happening in the very near future for the Community Council, and which would be decided in the Governance Working Group. Please get involved there if you want to be a part of that discussion.

I think this has been explored and answered above.

As a community we have tried as best as we can to default to transparency, with meetings being open for anyone to join and teams being open to any contributors. All of our documentation is on the shared Google Drive, for example, which is publicly accessible.

I hope that we can continue to build on this going forward, and maybe make it much easier for people to find out what is being discussed in the different teams and council going forward. Again, this would be part of the Governance Working Group’s remit to work on and figure out.

I am not sure what you are referring to here. The current team leads are the people in the community who stepped up of their own accord, to lead the teams. Nobody else stepped up, there were no elections because we simply did not have anyone else who wanted to take on the roles, and we needed to get things moving without adding extra layers of complexity when we all felt there was no need.

Some of the original team leads have subsequently stepped down and we have put out a call for replacements or asked people who are active in the team if they would be willing to step up, which is how the current team has come into being.

So, in summary, I hope that I have answered all the questions in the thread as fully as possible, but if there is anything else that remains unclear, or any further questions, please do post them or feel free to drop into any of the webinars and office hours which are listed on the blog (please check the actual blog post as some more were added after the blog was published).

(note: I started writing this yesterday but wanted to check with Mattias that it was OK for me to share about the discussions that happened at Dropsolid - hence it’s a day late and the days mentioned and tenses might be a bit out of whack as a result!)

2 Likes
14

Is Mautic 5 still happening?

I’d feel more confident about this announcement if Mautic 5 had been out on/close to schedule by now.

15

If we get more contributor and not only users, Mautic 5 would have been released but not too late to still get it released. Mautic 5 requires major work of rewriting to twig and that was completed but might still take time to get the beta release.

If you can help, join the #t-product on slack.

16

@tobsowo, I can’t help; I am not a good enough PHP developer. I have posted a lot of findings here trying to figure out bugs. That is the best I can do.

It is just weird to blame end users for slipping release dates etc. It feels like nobody is taking any responsibility. It doesn’t instil confidence.

If there is a lack of developers or/and budget, adjust the timelines accordingly, manage expectations, solve the issue somehow. Communicate honestly what is going on.

17

There was a recent blog post but unfortunately, the date expected was also missed so at the moment it’s difficult to fix a date.

19

Thats how it would work in a company with paid employees. This is an open source community. The work is done by volunteers that cannot give time estimates as life happens. But even in corporate, dependency upgrades are impossible to estimate accurately. We had a long list of Jira issues we knew need to be done but you never know how much code needs to be refactored to solved the issue until you start doing it.

The massive Twig refactoring was done by developers hired by the Mautic open source community. We’d still in the middle of it if it weren’t for the financial contributors. So it actually was much faster than if only volunteers would be doing that. If there would be bigger budget then the work would be done faster.

That’s what @tobsowo was suggesting, I appreciate you take your time to report bugs. That’s very important. Now we need people to solve them along side the massive refactoring that is happening along side for Mautic 5.

For however would be looking to speed things up, here are the options: https://contribute.mautic.org/contributing-to-mautic

Disclosure: I am paid by Acquia to work on Mautic 5 for around 50% of my time.

3 Likes
20

You and others were apparently paid by Acquia, a company with paid employees that was supposed to be backing Mautic. Until several deadlines were missed and now we’re suddenly on our own in a hobby project?

21

I don’t like to keep questions hanging without an answer. I can’t find a way how to answer it politely without offending anyone so I’m moving on to updating Mautic’s JS dependencies as it will be a better use of my time.

6 Likes
22

Thank you all for your investment and the transparency of this communication.
All the best for the future.

2 Likes