There's a movement stirring in a part of the PHP community (the PHP-FIG group) that wants to bring back the idea behind the "GoPHP5" movement years back. This time, though, their focus is a bit different - it's not switching to PHP5 they want, it's pushing towards PHP 5.5.

We all know that PHP 5.3 is about to lose even security support in the first half of next year. PHP 5.3 is still the most widely used PHP version, with the completely unsupported 5.2 a strong second [and] 5.4 hasn't even reached 10% yet, and 5.5, which is current stable, barely registers. [...] The last time this big of a chicken-and-egg issue existed was around moving to PHP 5.x at all, which took *for frickin' ever* to supplant PHP 4. [...] I believe it is time to discuss round 2 of that effort. I also believe that it would be good for FIG to play a leading role in such an effort if possible.

There's been some varied feedback on the thread both for and against. Overall, there's a lot of support for the idea, but there are a few "hitches" in the plans - mainly the lack of support from the linux OS vendors to bump up their versions. The projects themselves are receptive, many noting that they've been planning the first steps to this already - a move to PHP 5.4 only.

The highly controversial GoPHP5 project has come to his finishing mark (actually February 5th) and has been claimed a success by Robert Douglass, one of the creators of the project:

Congratulations are in order. Since the launch of GoPHP5.org, over 100 software projects and over 200 web hosts have come on board to support the adoption of PHP 5.2. As opposed to just a few months ago, it is now easy to find a hosting solution that supports PHP 5, and software developers can turn to the attractive new features that PHP 5 offers without the need to worry that they are leaving their end users without options.

He gives credits to Larry Garfield and Marc Delisle for their hard work towards making the project a success and notes that the project can stand as a successful effort that the community pulled together on to make development and the platforms we build on that much better. Be sure and check out the long list of projects and hosting companies that made the move to PHP5.

With all of the push to move to PHP5 these days, some people are asking more questions of some of the most common PHP applications as to how they plan to proceed. Nick Halstead asks his question on his blog today - should the community boycott WordPress?

Technology moves forward and PHP will long term lose its dominant position unless it gets everyone to move along with it. [...] Frankly I use WordPress because it has the best plugins but it is no coding wonder and Matt [Mullenweg]'s energies would be better placed helping to move it to PHP 5 only.

The reference there is to a post from Matt (from the WordPress project) going after the community a bit for trying to force a move to PHP5 and that it's "not a big deal" like some are making it out to be. Nick feels that, if it's the case that Matt doesn't even see the move to PHP5 as a big deal, maybe WordPress shouldn't be the one of the blogging tools of choice.

With all of the push to move to PHP5 these days, some people are asking more questions of some of the most common PHP applications as to how they plan to proceed. Nick Halstead asks his question on his blog today - should the community boycott WordPress?

Technology moves forward and PHP will long term lose its dominant position unless it gets everyone to move along with it. [...] Frankly I use WordPress because it has the best plugins but it is no coding wonder and Matt [Mullenweg]'s energies would be better placed helping to move it to PHP 5 only.

The reference there is to a post from Matt (from the WordPress project) going after the community a bit for trying to force a move to PHP5 and that it's "not a big deal" like some are making it out to be. Nick feels that, if it's the case that Matt doesn't even see the move to PHP5 as a big deal, maybe WordPress shouldn't be the one of the blogging tools of choice.

As mentioned in several places (including over on digg.com), the GoPHP5 project has launched their website to help everyone keep tabs on how the push towards PHP5 is going - GoPHP5.org.

The PHP developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward, together. Therefore, the listed software projects have all agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, any new feature releases will have a minimum version requirement of at least PHP 5.2.0. Furthermore, the listed web hosts have agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, they will include PHP 5.2 (or a more recent version) in their service offer.

Included in the site are a list of web hosts that support the GoPHP5 project, software projects that have committed themselves to "being PHP5" by the deadline and - front and center - a countdown timer for how long they have left.

Other sites mentioning the GoPHP5 site/effort:

• Alexey Zakhlestin's blog
• the Syntux.net Blog
• this new post on the Symfony blog

As mentioned in several places (including over on digg.com), the GoPHP5 project has launched their website to help everyone keep tabs on how the push towards PHP5 is going - GoPHP5.org.

The PHP developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward, together. Therefore, the listed software projects have all agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, any new feature releases will have a minimum version requirement of at least PHP 5.2.0. Furthermore, the listed web hosts have agreed that effective February 5th, 2008, they will include PHP 5.2 (or a more recent version) in their service offer.

Included in the site are a list of web hosts that support the GoPHP5 project, software projects that have committed themselves to "being PHP5" by the deadline and - front and center - a countdown timer for how long they have left.

Other sites mentioning the GoPHP5 site/effort:

• Alexey Zakhlestin's blog
• the Syntux.net Blog
• this new post on the Symfony blog

The Hiveminds Magazine has pointed out a new effort that's been kicked off today to try to get the PHP community (and providers) to finally make the leap and drop PHP4 support all together:

The idea is to make a unified, concentrated effort to drop PHP4 support and drive PHP5 adoption in the year 2008. Think of it. All CMS, forum and framework projects going completely over to PHP5 on a set date! This would be like a bomb dropping on the web hosting world and cause ripples throughout the open source world.

They point out some of the projects that are leaning either way from ezPublish hanging on to PHP4 and apps like Drupal that have embraced PHP5. In fact, it's the Drupal group that's written up the proposal on how it would all go down - the "Go PHP5 Effort".

It is a dangerous cycle, and one that needs to be broken. The open source PHP developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward, together. Therefore, the listed open source PHP projects have all agreed that effective 5 February 2008, any new feature release will have a minimum required PHP version no older than PHP 5.2.0.

There's tons of comments to the proposal in both parties (and some in between noting that there are already several PHP4 applications that run quite happily on PHP5).

The Hiveminds Magazine has pointed out a new effort that's been kicked off today to try to get the PHP community (and providers) to finally make the leap and drop PHP4 support all together:

The idea is to make a unified, concentrated effort to drop PHP4 support and drive PHP5 adoption in the year 2008. Think of it. All CMS, forum and framework projects going completely over to PHP5 on a set date! This would be like a bomb dropping on the web hosting world and cause ripples throughout the open source world.

They point out some of the projects that are leaning either way from ezPublish hanging on to PHP4 and apps like Drupal that have embraced PHP5. In fact, it's the Drupal group that's written up the proposal on how it would all go down - the "Go PHP5 Effort".

It is a dangerous cycle, and one that needs to be broken. The open source PHP developer community has decided that it is indeed now time to move forward, together. Therefore, the listed open source PHP projects have all agreed that effective 5 February 2008, any new feature release will have a minimum required PHP version no older than PHP 5.2.0.

There's tons of comments to the proposal in both parties (and some in between noting that there are already several PHP4 applications that run quite happily on PHP5).