With their announcements of their new Framework and PHP Collaboration Project, Zend has really stirred it up in the PHP community. In fact, I haven't seen this much fervor since the New Kids on the Block came to Ohio. So what's all the hubbub really about? There are a few issues that have some developers a little nervous, while others see these efforts as a very Good Thing™.

Specifically, the Zend Framework controversy revolves around a few key issues:

• CLA Licensing (Contributor License Agreements) similar to Apache's, which requires contributors to fill out a form prior to contributing, basically for any future legal disputes that might occur and to ensure that no code that is being submitted infringes on anyone's Intellectual Property rights.
• The standardization of PHP code libraries and potential involvement of PHP core development by commercial entities
• The need (or lack of need) for another framework

I've taken the liberty of compiling a list of blog posts by some of the more outspoken PHP experts, so if you're interested in what everybody has to say, you can check them out. Keep in mind these are just opinions, and the Framework most likely won't be released until after the first of the year... so a lot can happen between now and then.

• Andi Gutmans (a great background on the specifics of the framework itself and why things are being set up the way they are)
• Alan Knowles (probably not for him, but perhaps the solution for someone else)
• Chris Shiflett (seems to be optimistic about its development and place in the PHP community, and has a "wishlist" of things he'd like to see)
• Robert Peake (also chimes in with his wishlist for the framework)
• Lukas Smith (a bit concerned about the implications of the new framework on the future of PEAR)
• Chris Cornutt (expresses concerns about the involvement of corporate entities)
• Ben Ramsey (optimistic about the future of the framework and what it will do for PHP)
• Greg Beaver (in favor of the new framework)
• Wez Furlong (another great explanation on why things are the way they are with the framework)

To learn all about the new framework from the horse's mouth, go to http://www.zend.com/collaboration/framework-overview.php.

Ilia Alshanetsky is asking PHP developers to download this last and final release candidate to test for bugs prior to the impending stable release. Although there is nothing official on the php.net site, in a recent blog post, Ilia lets us know that it's out there and offers links to downloads: http://ilia.ws/archives/88-PHP-5.1.0RC4-is-out!.html.

Secunia is reporting two new security alerts in PHP-Nuke (both are as of yet unpatched.) They involve potential SQL injection and cross-site scripting and you can read more about them at http://secunia.com/advisories/17315/ and http://secunia.com/advisories/17296/ (filter input, people!).

This latest release from the phpBB team fixes a 31 bugs, makes 2 other changes to the code, and patches 11 security holes. Definitely worth your while to upgrade. For the complete list of changes and to download, visit http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=336756.

Cake takes another step forward with its latest release. Changes include:

• Better Scaffolding
• Output Types
• Standard Components (ACL,Session,etc.)
• Associations
• Evolved Directory Structure and API to make your life easier

For a full changelog, see http://cakephp.org/pages/changelog and to download the latest and greatest, go to http://cakephp.org/downloads/index/release.

I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't include what's new at PEAR and PECL. Recent PEAR releases include:

• HTML_Template_Flexy 1.2.3 - An extremely powerful Tokenizer driven Template engine
• HTML_Template_IT 1.1.2 - Integrated Templates
• Image_Canvas 0.2.3 - A package providing a common interface to image drawing, making image source code independent on the library used.
• Text_CAPTCHA 0.1.6 - Generation of CAPTCHA imgaes
• HTML_Table_Matrix 1.0.9 - Autofill a table with data
• HTML_AJAX 0.2.4 - PHP and JavaScript AJAX library
• HTML_Table 1.6.1 - makes the design of HTML tables easy, flexible, reusable and efficient.
• Structures_DataGrid 0.6.3 - A tabular structure that contains a record set of data for paging and sorting purposes.
• Log 1.9.2 - Logging utilities
• Net_Geo 1.0.1 - Geographical locations based on Internet address

And for PECL, we had:

• filter - Extension for safely dealing with input parameters
• gnupg - wrapper around the gpgme library

As always, you can download or learn more about these packages at http://pear.php.net and http://pecl.php.net.

See you next week with more news and tidbits from the PHP world!