The Zend Framework project has a new post to their blog today officially announcing the roadmap for version three of the popular PHP framework.

The most often-asked questions we get around the Zend Framework project include: Where is Zend Framework heading? When will Zend Framework 3 be released? What changes and enhancements should we expect? Since inception, our goal for Zend Framework has been to further the art of PHP and ensure our users concentrate on the business logic of their application rather than wasting time reinventing the plumbing. The plumbing is Zend Framework’s job.

We have built an incredibly powerful framework with Zend Framework 2 that met its key goals of flexibility, consistency and testability. However, the world has changed since ZF2 was released, and the project needs to move with the times. With that in mind, we have gathered feedback from our users and core contributors to map the path forward. Zend Framework 3 will be an evolution from ZF2, concentrating on simplicity, reusability, and performance.

The post lists out a few of the things involved in this roadmap including separating components into individual, versioned projects and embracing the concept and functionality of middleware. If you'd like to get involved or just find out about the latest on this upcoming version, be sure you either join the zf-contributors mailing list or come to the #zftalk.dev channel on the Freenode IRC network.