During the past days, there have been some questions or confusions concerning XOOPS core development plan raised in the XOOPS community.
Along with the release of XOOPS 2.0.17.1 final, I am able to get some time to write down something, hope to make some things clear.

One of the discussed topics is for XOOPS core development roadmap.
During the process of XOOPS Core Dev Team establishment and the release of XOOPS 2.0.17/2.0.17.1, the Core Dev Team has made a brief roadmap:
* Keep bug fix in 2.0.18, in October
* Merge 2.0.* and 2.2.* into 2.3/2.4, Q4 2007
* Start 3.0, Q1 2008
* Work on 4.0, Q2/Q3 2008
The roadmap is available at http://xoops.wiki.sourceforge.net/CoreRoadmap

Concerning XOOPS 3.0 development, there are some rumors and misunderstandings being spread, that need fixing.
Some say that the development of 3.0 is closed to the community and is handed over to a private company.
This appears as an excuse used by some people, as I can not understand how this rumor came about.
In March, I came back too China for organizing an open source conference, where XOOPS was invited to give a speech, together with Google, SUN, Oracle, MySQL etc.
After the conference, I was contacted by some friends to provide technical advice for a Beijing based company.
I recommended the Xoopsphere code and promised to build a development team for them.
As a return favor, they would like to share their code with us, if the Xoopsphere fits their requirements; which I feel is a very good idea, which will benefit both our companies.
In this way, whilst the XOOPS Core Dev Team is focused on 2.0 and 2.4, they can pick up the Xoopsphere code and improve upon it.
Once the XOOPS Core Dev Team finishes with the 2.4 release and gets ready for 3.0 development, which is expected by the end of 2007 or early 2008, they will hand over their code back to the Core Dev Team.
So before the XOOPS Core Dev Team starts development on 3.0, there will be an improved code base available for all.
However qualified developers and designers are on a very high demand and their development is much delayed due to lack of resources. Thus I tried to find some more from the XOOPS community and bridge these gaps.
It is very sad; this has only brought about unexpected misunderstandings and quarrels.
We can let this company go by themselves?
Else if this company is happy with the Xoopsphere architecture, we could have more development resources based on their work for the XOOPS project; otherwise, if they give up XOOPS, the XOOPS Project has still no loss.

To fix some of the other rumors, like Skalpa is now working for a company in China with my assistance and I am preparing for his return once XOOPS 3.0 is ready, is untrue and I feel very sorry for Skalpa, who is still very disturbed by such ridiculous rumors, even after he has left this project.

For the XOOPS 3.0/4.0 roadmap, since it will be based on Skalpa's previous work, I don't expect much change from the roadmap he made for Xoopsphere. However, there will be some changes according to the new technical progress and user requirements.
Anyway, the XOOPS 3.0 Roadmap will be available from the Core Dev Team, before we move forward for development.

As an open source project, the XOOPS development is always open to the community. Anyone can contribute to the development by submitting bug fixes or code improvements, or by joining the Core Dev Team to provide successive development.
For those who want to join the XOOPS Core Dev Team, find our "calling for team members" article published a couple of months ago on Xoops.org and also in the core dev forum at http://sourceforge.net/projects/xoops/

The Core Dev Team looks forward to your advices on any aspect of development to keep XOOPS as a top web CMS.

In a couple of days, after preparing the new development branches and setting up new development plan, I am going to share my opinion with you on the overall XOOPS organization.

D.J. (a.k.a. phppp)

Great that you made it clear !

Quote:

Would appreciate it if you could have a look at the thread on improving XOOPS governance, there are many constructive ideas in there, and I hope we could initiate an open discussion with the Council's involvement on this subject before any further reorganization takes place. I have asked kcm0az to raise the issue for the council's consideration.

Great works!

Very good explanation phppp.
I hope that now everything is clear and once again everyone could focus on improving the XOOPS experience.

Thank you DJ for these precise details, by hoping that our contradictors will put themselves at work and finally will look at the code of the 2.3

Kris

I'm a little confused about the version numbers.

After the merge of 2.0/2.2, is there going to be a public release of the merged version? If so, what will be the official version number (2.3 or 2.4)? Or is this just a merging of code for development purposes only (with no public release)?

What is the difference between 3.0 and 4.0? On the general roadmap, it states that 4.0 is the official release of the 3.0 version. Why are there two different version numbers? Is 3.0 an internal version number and 4.0 the public version number?

I apologize if this was discussed previously. I think it was, but I don't recall the details.

Quote:

That will be the public release of the merged version.

I'll let DJ answer your other questions.

Thanks for the update - it is very useful!!!

I wish, this would be published earlier, as it would kill the rumors right in the beginning before they got out of control. To be honest - there is some room for improvement in TIMELY communication back to the community and, while avoiding useless arguing, presenting statements of directions.

I hope, this will put many of the FUD rumors and speculations to bed, and we'll get XOOPS community to be more productive again.

Thanks for the explanation phppp. This clears up a lot!

I like the new dynamism in XOOPS core development and I hope XOOPS Mexico & Brasil will be able to share their new code with you.

I regret the way this has sparked into a new feud. I would like for the rants made in the XOOPS section of the News module on xoops.org (eg. posts by XoopsCouncil & Foundation) to be moved to another section or to be removed altogether. This is highly unprofessional and scares off new users and developers!

In the future any disputes between Council, Foundation and Teams should be solved in a private forum.