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When is an open source project not open source ?

When it demands those who moderate the forums, who help manage the community as a volunteer, should sign their lives, ideals and values to the project to silence dissent. Today, the moderators for the Mambo forum were approached by the Mambo Foundation and asked to sign away their ideals, values and conscience to the Foundation to maintain their moderation status.
The email sent to the moderators follows:

To all Mamboserver forum moderators,

Due to the recent events that have occurred on the forums, we now require all moderators to become Active members of the Mambo Foundation. The process of registering will require that a "Code of Conduct" is agreed to and from that time on, the Rules of Association put in place by the Foundation must be adhered to. The following documents are attached for your consideration and action:

- Mambo's Code of Conduct: please read and indicate in your reply email that you agree to abide by the Code of Conduct
- Rules of Association: please read and indicate in your reply email that you agree to abide by the rules
- Active Member Agreement & Non-Disclosure Agreement: please fill in the relevant details, sign the document and fax it back to +613 9614 5344

We do value your input and the tireless work that you put into helping others on the forums. As such, the US$10 annual membership fee will be waived.

We understand if you do not wish to be part of the Foundation in light of recent developments and will respect your decision should you want to be removed from the forums. Please respond to this email and let us know how you would like to proceed by 7 September 2005, Wednesday. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will be happy to address them.

Regards,
Cecilia

Mambo Foundation

Silencing dissent does nothing, and considering the public relations disaster Miro International Pty Ltd has endured over the last few weeks, it would seem consistent, if not expected, for them to continue on as if it was just business as usual.

Unfortunately, it's not. The core team, along with 90% of all other teams, have left the building of the Foundation, leaving Miro Pty developing Mambo with 2 in-house coders versus the Mambo communities 200+ coders and 3PDs. This is yet another public relations disaster for a company that has wanted to take back an award winning open source project and only succeeded in ostracising most of the open source community in the process.