Opinion

I’ve been using Ubuntu for years, both as a Linux enthusiast first and then as a professional Systems Administrator.

Ubuntu is still, in my opinion, the sweeter, newbie friendly, Linux distro available, if you are new to Linux or thinking on moving to Linux, start with Ubuntu, it works with the latest hardware, it does not break easily, and the UI is simple, likeable, easy to get used to and, if you use your computer for simple things, it might even boost your productivity, as compared with other OSs.
Last but definitely not least, if you need help with your Linux OS, the Ubuntu community is probably where you will get the most free and friendly help, the Ubuntu user community is helpful, friendly and newbie accommodating, a value rarely taken into account when choosing an OS that I think is of uttermost importance.

However, those are not my needs, not anymore…
I barely require help with my OS, and when I do, the solutions I need are rarely found in generic help forums around the Internet.
I rarely use this year’s hardware, in fact, I like using older, more reliable hardware, especially for my servers. Hence, the advantage of having up to this week “drivers” like you would expect from an Arch distribution or even up to this month, like you would expect from Ubuntu, is of no use to me anymore.

I’m finally ditching LXC / LXD in favor of Docker and K8s, but maybe not for the reasons you might be thinking…

LXC is still, in my opinion, the best container technology for Mautic, and also for most of the monolithic projects out there, which in the case of open source marketing and open-martech, it’s over 85% of the existing projects.

However, recent changes have occurred in the LXD world, Canonical decided to pull the project from the guys at Linux Containers, that have been developing and maintaining both LXC and LXD projects for many years and bring it fully in-house.

I do not have first-hand information about how this was done, but given the recent fork and how things have been going lately, I do not have the same level of trust I used to have in Canonical. At the same time, I am uncertain of what the new path for the fork, Incus will look like in a couple of years from now. I’m pretty sure I’ll be revisiting LXC, LXD and Incus over time, but for right now, it is time for a change!

Please stop using Bitnami images and Cpanel / Softaculous as a quick shortcut to install Mautic.

Mautic is still a young and rapidly evolving software with frequent releases that contain new features, with new features come new bugs.

As user of Mautic self=hosted, you will need to deal with bugs, you will have to apply patches, you will have to run updates manually and you will encounter problems related to the environment in which Mautic is installed, In order to solve those issues, you will need a basic understanding of Apache or NginX, MariaDB or a compatible MySQL database, PHP configuration, and how Linux operates.

DB Hurley, the innovator and visionary who ideated Mautic, has left Acquia.

According to Mautic’s community manager:

“DB left Acquia mid-February 2020. He remains Project Lead for the Mautic Community.”
– rcheesley

What does this mean for the future of Mautic?
What does this mean for the future of the Community?

The good news is that after 18 months of a complete lack of movement, now Mautic 3 is alive again and kicking strong. Work started around the first week of October, right about the First Mautic Community Summit.

A new Mautic 3 concept is born, Microservices might need to wait for some time, probably a loooong time...

But it’s not all sunshine and roses. Winter is coming!

For me It’s been 13 years since I started using Joomla professionally and a couple moreyears playing with it before that (well, with Mambo).

In 2007 I even developed a free affiliates plugin for Virtuemart, Jafilia VM Affiiates, it lived for some 4 years and helped lot’s of Virtuemart shop owners increase their income (Affiliates and CPA was all the rage at the time, we called it “Viral Marketing” and it really was viral!).

If you are a Mautic community user or Mautic self-hosted user, chances are you are going to need help, a lot of times…

Have you noticed how some requests seem to get a lot of attention while others seem to be ignored? Some users seem to get their questions answered fast while questions from other users go unanswered forever and finally fade into oblivion.

Also, it would seem some questions get well-thought responses while others get short answers that seem not to be helpful at all.

If you are one of those guys who’s questions tend to go unanswered, this post will help you get proper answers almost every time.

Dries made sure both his creations, Drupal and Acquia, remained independent from one another, and hence Drupal became a democratic meritocracy over time. This is not only smart but also elegant and consequent with the community. A clear separation, even if there are strong ties between both entities, allows the community to flourish and grow and hence Drupal grew its reach to become one of the most amazing Open Source communities in the world.

Both these statements initially looked to me as what every FOSS proponent would say… Open is cool, right?

“With Mautic, Acquia is now the only open and open source alternative to the expensive, closed, and stagnant marketing clouds.”
“Open Source will disrupt every component of the modern technology stack. It’s not a matter of if, it’s when.”

But after 4 days of collecting any available information, reading and re-reading everything that has been published and carefully evaluating every word of what the masterminds of this Acquisition had to say, I have come to realize this is actually the core of Acquia’s strategy going forward. Bare with me, we are in for a hell of a ride!

Or what Mautic 3 could mean for the rest of us…

Mautic 3 is going to be wonderful, I have no doubt about it. The core team and the developers both from Mautic Inc and the community are simply awesome, the new paradigm proposed for Mautic 3 is wonderful and the technical possibilities are on par with the latest developments from Google. The conversation about how we are supposed to build Mautic 3 is happening right now in the #core channel of Mautic’s Slack. If you haven’t paid a visit yet, this is a great moment to do so. 

But there is a hidden danger lurking behind the creation of Mautic 3 and how it’s being designed at Mautic Inc, the current vision could have it’s dangers… to the community.