PHP Groups Announcement

Wed, 7 Mar 2007 21:33 UTC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Ben Ramsey
770-704-5279
Email: ben [at] phpgroups.org
Web site: www.phpgroups.org

Worldwide support network for PHP user groups launches

ATLANTA, Ga., Mar. 7, 2007 – PHP Groups, a worldwide network for PHP user groups, launched today with the intent to foster an open community for PHP user groups to share and exchange ideas and information. Membership is open to anyone working with a PHP user group or interested in starting one.

“This is a great opportunity for PHP user groups to become more aware of each other, find out what works and what doesn’t, and share ideas and, potentially, some resources. I think the overall PHP community will benefit from this kind of exchange at the grassroots level—the user groups,” said Ben Ramsey, the organizer of the Atlanta PHP user group and one of the founding members of PHP Groups.

Every month, PHP.net lists events for over fifty PHP user groups. However, there may be as many as 200 or more PHP user groups around the world. PHP Groups seeks to unite these user groups and provide a means for them to communicate with each other.

User groups are clubs focused on the use of a particular technology. PHP user groups focus on the PHP programming language and related technologies such as Linux, the Apache Web server, and the MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. The first PHP user group formed in Chicago in 1997.

At present, PHP Groups provides a mailing list where user group leaders and those interested may subscribe and take part in a dialog with other user groups. “I hope that part of our accomplishments will involve uniting and bringing together for an open dialog all of the PHP user groups across the world,” said Ramsey. “I hope this mailing list can get that conversation going.”

To subscribe to the PHP Groups mailing list, go to www.phpgroups.org.

About PHP Groups
PHP Groups networks PHP user groups into a tighter community, provides a means to share information and resources among its community members, and aids in the formation of new PHP user groups.

About PHP
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, or simply PHP, is a “widely-used general-purpose scripting language,” designed with the Internet in mind. Commonly implemented to manipulate databases and dynamic content on the server, PHP is also an indispensable local scripting tool. Delivering high performance, intuitive syntax, powerful structure, and a rich feature set, PHP puts ideas into action, both locally and on the Internet.

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3 Comments »  Permalink  Tags: community, php, php-group, php-mongers, phpgroups, user-group

Sun buying PHP/Zend?

Thu, 5 Aug 2004 11:09 UTC

I logged on today to find a very interesting and controversial article at DevShed.com (via this post) concerning the future direction of PHP. In short, the author surmises that the changes made to PHP 5, essentially making it more Java-like, are a step on the path to a Sun-influenced, if not owned, PHP. It presents some stark evidence, all circumstantial of course, that points to this direction, saying that “the long-lasting popularity of LAMP environments (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) will soon be replaced by SLOP environments (Sun, Linux, Oracle, PHP).”

I’m not sure whether I can agree with the author. However, he makes a good case, and it is definitely a troubling matter. I cannot imagine that the PHP Group, who have thus far seemed very committed to Open Source, would transfer the countless hours of hard work by developers to a corporate entity, giving it to them as their property. Furthermore, it is the PHP Group and not Zend that owns the copyright on PHP, the language. And, even if Zend sells the Zend Engine to Sun, and manages to somehow get the PHP Group to transfer PHP to them as well, there are versions of PHP still under an OSS license that can be taken by the developers and forked to maintain an open-source version, perhaps on parrot (as mentioned by Rasmus and others).

In summary, I don’t know what the future holds for PHP given this startling news, but perhaps Harry Fuecks, who also adds to the controversy discussion, summed it up best by saying, “I find the conclusion somewhat tabloid.” In short: it’s all hype.

Let’s keep PHP where it belongs: in the Open Source community.

No Comments  Permalink  Tags: opensource, parrot, php, php-group, sun, zend