What I owe to the Joomla community

This text is not born of bitterness, but of gratitude.

Much of what I have learned about Joomla and open source I owe to people from the community. They shared their knowledge, answered questions and showed me the power that emerges when people work together towards a common goal. Open source thrives on the fact that knowledge does not diminish when it is shared. On the contrary: it grows, because others can build on it and develop new ideas. A strong community needs both: experienced people who know the history and the context, and new members who bring fresh perspectives and new impulses. This diversity is a great strength. At the same time, it makes decisions more demanding, because different experiences, technical backgrounds and expectations have to be brought together.

The further development of the Joomla website is one example. When processes there sometimes take longer, it is rarely due to a lack of commitment. Rather, technical, design, organisational and communication perspectives all come together. Everyone is pursuing the same goal – they simply view the path towards it from different angles. It takes time to understand these perspectives. And it is precisely this time that is often scarce in a community carried by volunteers. Under pressure, all of us find it harder to stay open to other points of view.

That is exactly why it is worth talking honestly about these challenges.

Reaching the limits in open source projects:
When pressure leads to exhaustion

The demands placed on open source projects have grown steadily in recent years. Security gaps have to be closed quickly, new technologies integrated and rising user expectations met. Artificial intelligence acts like a turbo here, accelerating this development even further. This applies to large projects such as Joomla, Drupal or TYPO3 just as much as to the many small libraries on which the entire web is built.

The fact that Joomla has lived up to these demands for many years is an impressive achievement by the community. People take on additional tasks, step in for one another and fill the gaps. It looks exactly the same in other projects.

But even commitment has its limits.

When there are permanently more tasks than time and energy, overload sets in. And overload often looks for an outlet. The frustration is then not directed at the actual causes, but at people: at the colleague whose contribution is delayed, or the colleague who would have made a different decision. Yet frequently everyone involved is under the same pressure. At first glance, such conflicts look like disagreements about technology or organisation. In my experience, exhaustion is often what lies behind them.

This is not a specifically Joomla problem. The same mechanism appears in almost every open source project, and just as much in companies, associations and other communities, whenever more is permanently expected than people can deliver. I have experienced such situations myself. That is why I believe that behind most tensions there are no bad intentions, but people who give a great deal and at some point reach their limits.

Being able to say “This task is too much for me right now” is not a weakness. It is an important contribution to keeping a community healthy in the long run.

Overload affects not only the daily work, but also the future of a project. When almost all energy flows into maintenance, bug fixing and urgent tasks, less and less room remains for innovation and new ideas.

Every open source project needs people who reliably maintain what exists. At the same time, it needs space for those who want to develop something new, experiment and shape the future. Joomla is no exception here. A community does not live on solving problems alone. It lives on discovering new possibilities together.

Onboarding & marketing:
How we win new members for Joomla

A community can only grow in the long term if new people keep joining. Yet this is precisely one of the biggest challenges.

New contributors need orientation, points of contact and time to get to know the structures and ways of working. This onboarding is not a side issue; it is an investment in the future of the community. At the same time, it is often the very same people who are already responsible for development, organisation and support who are also expected to accompany new volunteers.

The same applies to public relations and marketing. Joomla has a lot to offer, technically as well as a community. But this also needs to be talked about. People can only get involved if they learn that their support is needed in the first place and what opportunities there are to contribute.

Yet it is precisely these tasks that often remain undone, because they rarely appear urgent. Understandably, a security update takes priority over a campaign or a beginner's guide. In the long run, this creates a vicious circle: new contributors are missing, which places an even greater burden on the existing volunteers. This, in turn, leaves even less time for onboarding, public relations and marketing.

Breaking this circle is, in my view, one of the most important tasks for the future. A community does not grow by itself – it needs people who welcome others, pass on knowledge and show why it is worth becoming part of this community.

Carrying responsibility together

The community remains the foundation of Joomla. In the long term, however, this responsibility should not rest solely on the shoulders of the people who invest their free time.

Companies, agencies and public institutions that use Joomla and benefit from its quality can actively support this community – through development time, expertise, financial contributions or the involvement of their employees.

Just as important is the insight that every contribution counts. It is not only developers who shape Joomla. Documentation, translations, testing, design, communication, organisation, support, mentoring, public relations and guiding new contributors are just as indispensable.

Not everyone has to write code to move Joomla forward. A strong community emerges precisely because people bring in their different skills. Anyone who wants to get involved will find many opportunities: developing code, testing, documenting, translating, designing, organising, answering questions, supporting events or accompanying new contributors.

Companies can also make an important contribution – by giving employees time for community work or by supporting projects financially and organisationally.

Open software creates great social and economic value. Digital independence should therefore not permanently rely on a few volunteers taking on more and more responsibility.

The more people share the responsibility, the more resilient the community becomes.

A culture of mistakes & collaboration

Perhaps one of the most important tasks for the future lies not only in creating new structures, but also in developing the way we work together.

A strong community emerges where people can openly say when something becomes too much – without having to fear being judged for it. Wishes, worries and feelings of being overwhelmed should have their place just as much as new ideas and technical innovations.

Mistakes are part of every development. Nobody knows everything, nobody can do everything alone. When something does not work or someone needs support, our first reaction should not be: “Who is responsible?”, but: “How can we find a solution together?”

Perhaps it is worth asking ourselves more often, as a community:

• How do we create a culture in which overload can be addressed openly?
• How can we better guide and integrate new contributors?
• Which tasks can be distributed across more shoulders?
• How can companies and organisations that use Joomla support the community even more?
• How do we make Joomla and the community more visible, so that more people find their way to us?

Not every answer will be found immediately. But every open conversation moves us forward. A community grows not only through code, but above all through trust, mutual support and the willingness to learn together.

Feedback culture & appreciation:
Keeping volunteers motivated

Healthy collaboration also includes a good feedback culture. In a volunteer community, however, there is often no time for it. Anyone juggling many tasks at once understandably focuses on the next thing that needs to be done. Feedback simply does not happen – even when someone has done good work.

Yet feedback is far more than pointing out room for improvement. Expressing appreciation is just as important. An honest “thank you”, a “you solved that well” or the message that an idea helped often takes only a few minutes. For the person who has invested many hours, however, it can make a big difference.

People rarely stay committed because of a single project. They stay because they feel part of a community and experience that their effort is seen. Perhaps we should therefore ask ourselves more often: Did we only talk about problems today – or also about what worked well? A culture of recognition does not replace constructive criticism, but it builds trust and motivation. Especially in a community that lives on voluntary commitment, both are equally important.

A personal thought to close

When I look back on my Joomla years, I am above all grateful – for the people who built this project, and for everyone who shared their knowledge, their time and their experience with others.

One insight has become particularly important to me:

The real opponent is not the person working next to us. The real opponent is the overload that arises when more and more tasks are distributed across fewer and fewer shoulders.

Perhaps the future of Joomla does not begin with one big decision, but with many small steps: a question answered in the forum, a corrected section of documentation, a tested update, an hour of development time, a contribution to public relations or an open conversation about challenges.

Every form of participation strengthens the community. Open source does not live on a few people doing everything, but on many people contributing what they can.

Perhaps our collaboration can already change through a small shift in perspective. Instead of asking “Who failed to get something done?”, we could ask more often: “What do we need so that we can manage it together?” The future of Joomla is not decided in the code alone. It is decided in the way we treat one another, how we share responsibility, how we welcome new people and how we make sure, together, that interested people become long-term contributors. Because Joomla's greatest strength was never just the software. It was and is the people who make it possible.

And despite all the challenges, Joomla has made great progress in recent years – in security, accessibility and the modernisation of the CMS. That is exactly why it is worth talking about the conditions under which this work is done.