The future of PHPFusion

The future of PHPFusion

What is happening? Why did Sheldon step down? How come the official Themes-site is no longer the official Themes-site? Where is PHPFusion moving?

Lots of questions - here you have some answers.

When PHPFusion started a little more than 3 years ago, nobody could have anticipated the success we have had. Today a rough estimate tells you that PHPFusion sites are running on more than 100,000 different URLs all over the world. The official Support sites have more than 40,000 registered users. More and more people get dependent on our ability to provide them with a stable, up-to-date, versatile CMS and with all the special solutions necessary for them to run their websites. This is no longer a one-man-enterprise. And it hasn’t been for quite some time.

It was cozy and nice and good as long as it lasted. But we would have suffocated in our own success, if we hadn’t started changing the organizational backbone to suit the needs of today. As all of you know, the MOD’s functions and Infusion-functions haven’t been working properly for quite some time now. And that is not acceptable. In some cases support didn’t work properly either. And the job trying to keep up with security issues and – at the same time – trying to evolve PHPFusion even further is definitely not a one-man-job anymore.

We have to be able to plan ahead. We have to be able to involve more people in the development process. We have to be able to coordinate the release of new Infusions. We have to be able to coordinate and strengthen documentation on the user level as well as on the system level. For that we need a more professional organization.

That’s the reason that we set out on a reorganization process with the PHPFusion project a couple of months ago. And that is the reason why some of the good old Fusioneers have decided to step down – because they weren’t comfortable with the new way of doing things or because they disagreed with the direction, in which the organization was moving. Fair enough. But nobody disagrees on the fact, that the process is necessary. If we shall be able to move PHPFusion into the next phase we will have to make a viable organization around the project, and we have to make that organization work. So that we can cope with the workload, be responsive to user needs, keep track on all that is happening and go on providing the Web with an effective, versatile, no-nonsense CMS.

A process like that isn’t dealt with over night. And not in a couple of months either. We are working on it. But don’t expect it to happen by itself … or tomorrow. What we need is (amongst other things) this:

* We need to make a version plan and make it stick
* We have to find new ways of cooperation between the support sites
* We need to find a solution to the need for new Infusions and the quality control and distribution of them
* We need to find ways of making the necessary money to sustain the official PHPFusion sites, so that we don’t have to rely on donations
* We have to organize the work on translation and documentation to make sure, that we have a common standard
* We have to find ways of channeling user needs and user demands into the development organization

Those are some of the main issues concerning the PHPFusion organization right now. There are more – a lot more – but these are the main issues.

None of us have tried this before. You won’t find a cookbook about building a virtual organization anywhere (maybe we should write one, when all of this is finished), so we just have to find solutions as we go along. But we are working on it. And in our minds there’s no doubt, that we will accomplish what we have set out to accomplish.

What we have done so far?

Well …

1. A TEAM structure is almost there now. See figure below:



2. The various teams are working on TEAM-plans (or should be working on them) as we speak
3. New TEAM-members are added all the time to get the different TEAMS into working condition and TEAM-leaders have been appointed on all major TEAMS
4. A new official site-structure is on the way
5. The new standard for Themes has been discussed and will be implemented on all official PHPFusion themes - these themes are W3C Compliant
6. Some internal TEAM-sites have been set up to cater for TEAM-needs
7. Work will be started very soon to determine the future license form for PHPFusion (don’t worry – PHPFusion will REMAIN free for all of you – we only have to able to protect ourselves against people trying to rip off the code and distributing it as their own).
8. Different ideas about how we can respond to “Support-vampires” are discussed
9. We are starting discussions on a version plan very soon (just have to have the organization in place first)
10. We are working on the decision processes as well – trying to find a way of handling this issue.

We could go on. But we won’t. In time (and that is not so far away) you will hear more about this. And first and foremost – you will be able to feel the results of our process: Improvements in all areas – a more professional approach to all the big community’s needs. So hang in here. PHPFusion is here to stay and grow.

Digitanium, KEFF, Aquarian, Janmol
[Management Team]