Welcome
Welcome to the J! User project.
The J!User project is a community initiative to provide support, bug fixes and compatibility updates for Joomla abandonware. Many users have mature sites that rely on abandoned or outdated components. These components are at risk of breaking or becoming vulnerable when compatibility with current Joomla, PHP, SQL or other libraries comes to an end. Many of these components are either niche products or have been so heavily modified that there is no easy pathway for migration to an alternate product. If one actually exists.
The J!User project is a coming-together of the Joomla community to provide help to those of us reliant on abandonware products to be able to continue to use them into the foreseeable future.
Project Goals
This project is a community run and supported endeavour. Our goal is to help provide those of us who have websites that rely on GPL licensed abandonware products to be able to continue to run our websites into the foreseeable future by providing bug fix and compatibility updates.
The initial aim is to fix compatibility issues with existing products and then address outstanding bug reports. Long term it is hoped that the products may evolve with new features crowd-sourced by the J!User community
This project is a not-for-profit endeavour. It does not aim to infringe on anyones commercial interests or rights.
Contributing
Contributing to the J! User project is easy. You do not need to be a programmer or tech-savant.
Discovering and raising issues, testing, helping out with forum support, documentation and WIKI contributions are all different and valuable ways that you can help the project. As a community we stand together and can provide help to each other. We can all draw on our different skills. Sharing those skills within the community to help others is what this project is all about. Hopefully together we stand strong and can carry this project long into the future.
If you are a developer, or even if you are not but have had-a-crack at fixing something and have a solution, workaround, fix or update. Please share it with the community.
There will always be more work than we have developers to carry out that work, so we are completely reliant on those who donate their time. For this we thank you, as without that generosity, this project would not exist.
Getting Support
If you rely on a Joomla component, module or plugin that has become abandonware and would like to get help maintaining or updating it, please create a post in the discussion forum and reach out to the community
About J! User
J!User is a community run initiative to provide help and support to Joomla CMS users.
It's primary focus is providing help to users that are having trouble getting support for abandoned or poorly supported components and extensions.
Why?
This project was created in response to the sudden and unannounced sale of an (unnamed) major software company. This left users that had made considerable financial and time investments into their products, with an uncertain future. And so, frustrated with the situation, the community decided to come together to support each other, and the JUser project was born.
What J! User is...
J! User is community.
J! User is all of us together, helping each other.
J! User is a coming together of community members to help and support each other in a common goal.
What J! User is not...
J! User is not a commercial endeavour. It is strictly not-for-profit.
J! User is not a 'Warez' site, nor does it condone software piracy
J! User does not aim to infringe on anyones commercial interests or rights.
Usage
The components supported by this project are provided for free - as in free beer and also the freedom to modify. They retain and uphold the GPL2 license and promote the open source ethos on which Joomla was founded.
Licensing
Joomla compatible components, plugins and extensions are released under the same GPL2 license as Joomla. This is because they are considered to be derivative works and so must abide by exactly the same license conditions.
The GPL2 license states that no components of GPL licensed work can be controlled by a more restrictive license, and that all such inclusions form part of the overall GPL licensed whole. This specifically includes such components as images, CSS and Javascript. This nullifies any 'Proprietary Use Licenses' that vendors claim covers these aspects, to prevent distribution of those aspects under the GPL2 license.
The code published within repositories associated with this project has been done so in line with the terms of the GPL 2 license as linked to below
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html
For further information on the application and interpretation of the GPL2 license, the FAQ section of the GNU GPL2 license is a good source of reference
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html
