Multi-lingual content manager for Joomla! - Nooku

As we tweeted a few days ago we are preparing a major announcement.

Nooku HQ is buzzing with activity. We are super excited about our announcement for#jd11nl. Changing everything, again !#innovation #joomla (source)

Unfortunately the news got leaked today on the website of the Joomladay.de, by an unnamed source, forcing us to announce earlier then planned. We are forking Joomla, creating a new CMS called Mambo 5 (codename: Lou Bega)

The fork is a joint effort between the German Joomla and Nooku communities and the Mambo Foundation. We have been collaborating due-diligently since the beginning of 2011.

Mambo 5 is a dream of group of passionate open source professionals, developers and hackers. We’re building our dream, for us and for you!

Power in Simplicity

Mambo 5 is a turnkey open source CMS that allows you to setup a website in minutes. Just install the Mambo 5 distribution and get started. No additional components, no parameters, no more overcomplicated module configurations.

We added a impressive feature set. The features Joomla always wanted but never delivered despite all the promises. Multi-site and multi-lingual support,  CCK build in, and a contemporary and easily customizable user interface. Generic comment and tagging systems have also been included.

Initial tests show that Mambo 5 will be 60% smaller in code size than Joomla 1.6 and approximately 200% faster. A lot of care was taken to make sure it runs on all platforms.

There and back

After weeks of secret negotiations, we have been able to acquire the copyrights on the word Mambo from the Mambo Foundation. Everyone involved agreed that this was in the best interest of both the Joomla and Mambo communities and will give Mambo a much needed and bright future. Mambo will live on and 5 is its number.

Open source

Mambo 5 will be GPL licensed. At its core Mambo 5 uses our Nooku Framework.  In the spirit of F/OSS we have agreed to license the framework LGPL to give developers real freedom and allow them  to sell proprietary licensed extensions. The CMS application itself was written from scratch by the Mambo 5 Core Team. The content construction component is based on a Nooku-fied version of popular K2 extension.

Alpha release

Mambo 5 is not finished yet. It has been deployed on the Joomladay.de site for live testing. Mambo 5 Alpha 1 will be available for download on the 2th April 2011. The Nooku Team will be demo’ing Mambo 5 on the Joomladay NL this weekend.

We would like to congratulate the Mambo 5 Core Team with their work. Collaboration between our teams has been a very rewarding experience. At Nooku we are honored to be a small part of this great achievement.

May the power in simplicity be with you!