Lukas Smith has written up the FAQ for the emPHPower movement and has posted about them on his blog:

Well unfortunately due to timing issues the emPHPower BoF at OSCON fell through. So it goes. In preparation for the BoF I have however taken the time to write down an FAQ. So the submission of the OSCON BoF was at least a kick in the butt for me to get this done. Please have a look and let me know if anything is unclear or unanswered.

The FAQ includes answers to lots of questions including:

• How to I get involved?
• What is the target audience?
• Will emPHPower compete with existing community efforts?
• What is the purpose of the membership fees?
• Why should companies not be allowed to sponsor emPHPower directly?
• Who decides on what emPHPower does?

Sebastian Bergmann has poted about a new something that he'll also be doing at this year's OSCON - leading a discussion about the emPHPower initiative.

As the PHP community grows however, it becomes harder and harder for people to come together from the various corners of the community. [...] That being said, maybe there is still something we could change for the better? PHP contributor Lukas Smith has formulated his vision for such an effort in the form of an organization that would serve as a mediator and catalyst between all the members of the PHP community under the code name emPHPower.

The session will be happening on Monday the 21st from 7-8pm.

Lukas Smith has posted a quick emPHPower update to his blog today concerning recent thoughts and progress he's made on the initiative.

I hope this all will lead to a few people to step up and really start getting involved deeply in emPHPower. Aside from this Sebastian has handed in a BOF session on emPHPower for OSCON. I hope this one will work out.

A spot has also been set aside at the upcoming Zend/PHP Conference & Expo's unconference for someone to speak on the subject and to get a feel for things from the business perspective. Lukas has also been working up more details about the effort and has set up a mailing list to help with collaboration.

Lukas Smith has posted a "stream dump" of some of the thoughts he's had lately about the status of the emPHPower project including its organization and the potential popularity of the group.

I think the general idea of establishing a communication hub for core developers, end users and companies has been received with sufficient enthusiasm to start working on some of the boring details. The next logical step seems to be to start to fleshing out how the organization behind this communication hub should be structured. I want to leave as much power as possible with the individual members, which is one of the main reasons why I do not want companies to be come members.

He focuses on what he calls the "bootstrapping process" - the formation of the initial core group, opening the organization up for signups from the community, the creation of a constitution and the role of the core PHP developers in the group.

Furthering his emPHPower effort, Lukas Smith has issued a callout to all speakers at conferences and bloggers/user groups around the world to try to integrate(or just talk about) the emPHPower movement somewhere in to their community.

In this case the opportunity is that I am (or the community) is forced to find someone else to step up and spread the word. So I am hereby calling out to the community and speakers at North American conferences to try and integrate emPHPower discussions as "official" birds of feather or lightning talks.

As mentioned, his call also includes a suggestion for all PHP user groups out there:

Actually lets make this call a big larger, I call out to all the PHP UGs in the world to talk about emPHPower and blog about their views, concerns, ideas. If you are a member of a large PHP project, also consider to get feedback from its user community.

If you're wondering what the emPHPower movement is all about, check out the group's main site for full details.

In a recent post to his blog, Lukas Smith talks about some of the recent advancements and ideas surrounding his emPHPower PHP evangelism organization (in particular a discussion at this year's International PHP Conference.

The fact of the matter is that today they [Zend] are stuck with a job they never asked to take over: They are the only PHP evangelism organization. So if you want to get some material on how to "sell" PHP to your Java loving IT department, Zend is the only real option to turn to. So we have to thank them for filling this void for now.

emPHPower is looking to replace that with a more diverse range of developers and companies that can provide details on a wide variety of PHP-related topics (including using PHP in the enterprise and the best open source solutions for different needs). He's looking to work with more of the regionally-focused PHP sites (user groups?) to help get things up and running in the beginning and then branching out to "the masses", possibly via other means.

Lukas Smith, originator of the emPHPower idea (a network of like-minded PHPers looking to further the language's presence in the online world), is asking for a little help with getting the project mentioned somewhere at this year's OSCON 2008.

Now the key thing is to have someone there to spearhead the thing. I cannot afford to go unless some sponsor steps up and fly's me down there and points towards a bridge to sleep under and manages to squeeze me by the guards at the door. So maybe someone else is interested in bringing up this topic at OSCON to collect some feedback, ideas and comments. Any takers?

If you're willing and want to check out more about the community effort, head over to their web page and get all the details.

Doug Hill has posted his response to Lukas Smith's emPHPower movement:

I have been a member of a much smaller organization which adopted a similar mission. The reputation and livelihoods of this group had been damaged by years of infighting, bad legislation and no clear vision of of the future, not all of these are problems we face in the PHP community but the concepts behind organization are the same.

He notes that, being part of such groups previously, there are a few dos and don'ts to follow, specifically when it comes to community involvement.

In a moment of divine inspiration (well, at least a thought that passed through his head at the bus stop), Lukas Smith has thought up and is proposing a group to help promote and advocate PHP, one he calls emPHPower.

emPHPower should be a mediator between various (potential) participants in the PHP world. As such emPHPower could serve as a mediator between the PHP.net developers and its user base, between corporations and PHP.net, between corporations and grass roots organizers etc. [...] There are is fundamental concept that I see in this vision: emPHPower is a mediator and catalyst that empowers members of the community to follow their own ideas.

He talks more about the actual "doing" of his ideas and mentions things like the project's budget and where it would come from - the possibility of member fees (based somehow on cost of living).