I am truly hopeful that nothing I share in this post steals any thunder from Mautic.org's announcements later this week (and early next) but I can't contain my excitement another minute. I'm absolutely amazed at a few recent developments in Mautic and I have to tell you and everyone else what exciting things I've seen going on in the Mautic community.
Disclaimer:Let me issue a quick disclaimer though first, read this, not every contribution to Mautic involves code. There are literally dozens of ways to be deeply involved in our community without ever touching a single line of code. I can't stress this enough. Our community has blog authors, social posters, forum moderators, Slack contributors, doc writers, site builders, Mauticamp organizers, other event coordinators and general enthusiasts of all types.
Recognizing Our GitHub Gurus
In this post, however, I am going to focus on those who have been toiling away in the code cave. Those technical titans who spend their time writing code, testing code, labeling code and doing all other things GitHub based.
You're probably wondering why I'm so excited about our code contributions and the community involvement in GitHub. I'm excited because this release demonstrates our community taking control and ownership of the full Mautic code.
Don't misunderstand, Mautic has always been and will always be community-led and community-focused. The code, the product, is our product. But, as you might expect as with any project just beginning there is a need for someone to take the lead and maintain the momentum. There needed to be some driving force encouraging the project to become a product. (By the way, that subtle distinction is worthy of a post all on it's own and you can expect a full write-up on that in the coming days/weeks.)
Transition Success
Because there was this fundamental need, Mautic, Inc volunteered ridiculous amounts of developer time to focus on our project. They donated resources and untold numbers of engineer-hours to help us achieve our product. While this helped our community tremendously this was not the long-term desire of our community (or even Mautic, Inc's goal) for our future.
I recently shared a post written about Magento which holds incredible value and insight into this philosophy and thinking. And this starts to show why I am so excited. Recently the decision was made to make a strong community push to give this control fully over to the community. Mautic, Inc graciously stepped back from various lead positions in order to make way for community volunteers to assume other positions of leadership. (To be very, very clear Mautic, Inc continues to dedicate resources solely to our community and project. And they will continue to be one of our largest contributors.) But that's not why I'm excited either.
Why I am excited
I am excited because the community contributions have exploded! We have seen new volunteers step up into leadership roles, contributing more in the code, testing, assuming responsibility for encouraging others to get involved and generally filling the gaps across our community. This community response is incredible.
What this means for Mautic releases
There are a few important notes to focus on as a result of this transition. First, Mautic 2.14 understandably took longer to release than a typical release. As with any transition there is a lot of knowledge and information to be shared and transferred between individuals. This also means a significant amount of process work to ensure things are done in the right and best way. Moving forward these releases should run smoothly and on the typical schedule.
I am personally not disappointed in any way with the 2.14 timeline. You should not be either. This release represents a massive undertaking. In fact, just to put it into perspective, here's a couple of stats for this release. Please note these stats will change as beta freeze is anticipated to be released tomorrow!
- Mautic 2.14 has 95 merged pull requests (so far) with an additional 52 pull requests still pending.
- Mautic 2.14 has more than 235 code contributors.
- Mautic 2.14 includes 36,000 net additions to the code.
And more! Can you believe there's even more? But I won't tell you what the specifics are just yet. You'll have to wait to hear about those in the official announcement of the release. But quite simply put, this release is massive.
Thank you
Lastly, I'll just simply end with an enormous thank you to each of the contributors who have stepped up and filled a spot. You have proven that our community is incredible and even more importantly, you have demonstrated our community is capable. Empowered with the tools and opportunities, you have assumed the roles and responsibilities of leadership with determination and strength. I can't wait to see our next release (and the next and the next and the next).
