Before a while, there was a very promising Proposal called Zeta Components at the Apache Incubator list. It described a set of PHP components similar which eases the life of us all. It has already progressed very good before developers decided to switch to Apache. In the past days this library has been developed under the name eZ Components and was wellknown to the community.
In my opinion this new project will be very important to the ASF. Apache only hosts two other PHP projects, Log4PHP and Shindig. Since PHP is becoming more and more popular for big business (think on Facebook) I think its necessary to attract more developers and bring them into the Apache community. Many PHP projects out there use the GPL license, and that is sometimes very difficult to combine with commerical work. Good that we now have a component framework under ASL! Together with Log4PHP it’s a good start for much proprietary work.
More in future, I think that even the PIWI Framework will benefit of this change. I already had some trouble with dependent GPL code in it and hopefully Zeta can address most of my wishes. PIWI built upon Log4PHP and Zeta would be charming. But as already said, this will need a while.
At the moment, Zeta Components do already have a mailinglists and status page on the incubator. Jira will follow and after finally the CLAs of the initial developers have been processed, work can begin. However, if you are interest in helping this project subscribe to the user and to the dev list mentioned in the status page.
Lucky me I have been elected into the Apache Incubator PMC and can now serve as a mentor to this project. It’s not only honour to me, it’s also a good chance to work with obviously very nice people and excellent technicians. Also it makes it easy to me to step into this project and learn all I need.
So, welcome Zeta Components!! I am glad you arrived at the Apache Software Foundation!
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