Let's return to the facts!

This article is written by erpe

The WebsiteBaker project

WebsiteBaker CMS and it's community had had an outstanding reputation. Not only because the cms is more than a really nice and simple system but the forum is engaged, quick and helpful.

And this is really important for users who are looking for their first or a new cms.

But there had also been some lacks right from the start:.

• leadership
• active core-developers
• active addon-developers
• marketing

These lacks were well-known and could obviously not be solved over the years. Unlike as it could be assumed there had been always lots of helping hands to support the project work.

But with the step by step retirement of Ryan things changed. The lacking leadership was a big problem and more and more helping hands turned away from the project and at least even core developers left the project.

In that situation the association WebsiteBaker Org e.V. was founded to save and move the project.

But for several reasons this did not work. One reason for sure is that the leading guys didn't succeed in bringing the community close to the association. The reverse happened.

Lots of examples for this can be found on the forum.This results in less engagement and less activity on the forum.

But instead of asking for help the remaining project guys tried to ignore all things. Conversations on the forum got harsh and if constructive criticism or legitim complaints came up those people were defamed and/or offended.

And if this didn't help users were banned temporarily or completely from the forum without notice or announcement. This is why you couldn't get support on modules or boards though members are still listed as moderators on the forum - like Ralf (Berlin) or FrankH - but don't have forum access.

Frustrating Situation

Though the cms itself has lots of users and supporters the group of frustrated developers and "old" community members was and is increasing. And again the so called leaders boosted the group of frustrated users and volunteers by excluding the community from core development. Some nice hints to that are placed in this article by Chio.

So there are only less possibilities for the left frustrated users/supporters:

• keep quiet and calm and carry on
• try to change things in the project
• search for a new cms
• make your own cms

The current leaders proved that changing things within the project was not possible. This can also be found on many forum threads.

This means if you are loving the CMS of your choice and you don't want to be calm and quiet to silly things that happen as well to the project as to the core-code the only thing left is to start your own project.

In this case you ideally fork the code of your choice, a totally normal thing in open source movement.

The Initiators of LEPTON

LEPTON is based on the stable release 2.8.1. that has some - let's say - lacking in security. If the initiators didn't love the usability of WebsiteBaker CMS they would have surely forked another project.

Are "forkers" bad guys at all? Maybe it is worth to have a closer look to the starting guys:

• Aldus, former member of WebsiteBaker Org e.V., ex-member of core development, author of several addons released under GNU GPL and published on AMASP
• Ralf (Berlin), former member of WebsiteBaker Org e.V., ex-member of core development, most active addons author of WB, addons released under GNU GPL and published on AMASP, WB-Forum moderator
• erpe, initiator and founder of WebsiteBaker Org e.V., ex-member of association board, initiator and maintainer of AMASP for the last 3 years.

These guys should normally not be suspicious to be enemies of WebsiteBaker project.

But if you follow some german sites referring to LEPTON versus WebsiteBaker you can suppose, that those who started LEPTON are only perpetual nagging slackers who want to destroy a prosperous project.

But again the opposite is right.

The Start

We are surprised how many "former and old" WB supporters sent positive reactions referring to the release of LEPTON RC and how fast the team is growing. We appreciate this for there is a lot of work to be done to get this project settled. Updating the core is really not the only thing that has to be done. We know that and we don't care about some comments on missing things but doing one step after the other according to our timeline and plan.

The Future

We are constantly developing LEPTON to that cms we -and all team-members - want it to be. If there are some good ideas at WebsiteBaker or other cms like Joomla, Drupal or whatever, we will have a closer look at them and decide, if we think LEPTON should have this feature or not. And if yes, we will surely make this available for LEPTON. But we are not focussed on WebsiteBaker and with every new release the code will move away from WebsiteBaker core. We don't want to compare with WebsiteBaker but we know we have to compete.

Forks are daily business in open source projects.

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