A German press-release from Zend titles:
„Die PHP-Architekten sind gleich dreifach auf der führenden Konferenz Europas für Java-Technologien vertreten“
Everybody knows that some blurbs are neccessary for a good marketing and PR work (in German we say „Klappern gehört zum Handwerk“). But I don’t think that it’s a good idea to claim to be the „architects of PHP“, although Zeev and Andi provided most parts of the ZendEngine (II) (which I’m very thankful for).
Companies that earn money with PHP shouldn’t forget where PHP comes from: the OpenSource community, hundreds of people that donate their spare time to PHP. So there is a responsibility for this group/movement.
Perhaps this has to do with the growth of Zend as a company. People come and go, suits come and go. I would love to see some more OpenSource spirit at Zend.
UPDATE: The press release can be found at the website of Haffa & Partner, the German press agency for Zend.
It’s better than „The Creators and Ongoing Innovators“ :)
They have this bad habit of making it sound like they do more for PHP and that they are the only ones that do anything for PHP and always for get about the community. It would be nice if someone could write a more accurate definition than what Zend keeps claiming.
Where can we find this press release? Pointing to a source is always a good thing ;-)
Thanks for your note, I added a link to the original press release.
I agree with you Björn, PHP is not for Zend, Zend is for PHP.
would there be a PHP if there weren’t a Zend? doubtful.
PHP would be minus the Zend Engine I and II.
or in other words, it wouldn’t really exist (considering php3 was also written by them)
PHP3 wasn’t written by Andi&Zeev but Andi&Zeev contributed big parts. It’s a difference. PHP is an open source project driven by quite a lot people. Zend’s marketing often reads like there would only be Zend but there are many others like Rasmus Lerdorf, who started it all, Marcus Börger, who did some parts at engine level, Wez Furlong, who for example wrote big parts of the stream library, just to mention a few (see PHP credits for more…)
There is a huge difference between the engine and PHP. PHP6 could very well be based on Parrot and have no Zend engine at all. PHP can survive without Zend, the reverse is not true.
While that’s true (although unlikely), Zend’s involvement in PHP goes far beyond just the engines. PHP’s theme was very much affected by Zeev and Andi, so even if the engine was replaced – as long as the language is the same, their key contribution is still in there.
I don’t see any problems with „architects of PHP“, because Andi & Zeev are (were?) the most active contributors and *architectors* of ZendEngine and all other stuff in PHP (take a look into every extension and see their names in credits, or even just open cvs.php.net and look at CVS logs).
But „creators of PHP“ sounds much worse, of course, ‚cos it’s actually not true.
According to this: http://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php
Andi and Zeev pretty much wrote PHP3, along with Rasmus. Doesn’t that make them the architects of PHP?