FOSDEM

With three days to go until the event, maybe you can find some time to read our last speaker interviews.

• Pieter Hintjens (status of software patents)
• Ian Pratt (Xen)
• David White (Battle for Wesnoth)
• Garrett J. Woodworth (CakePHP)
• Charles Nutter (JRuby)

Charles Nutter will present at FOSDEM 2008 about JRuby.

Contents 1 What are your goals for FOSDEM? 2 How is life at Sun? 3 How do you see Java-the-language and JRuby coexist in the future? 4 Is performance the main focus of JRuby 1.1? 5 What are the longer-term goals? Are you already looking at Ruby 2.0? 6 The .NET equivalent of JRuby is called IronRuby. Do you follow their progress? Any comments about the .NET CLR versus the Java VM as a platform? 7 Do you cooperate a lot with the Ruby team? 8 Are there any ideas or improvements you feel the Ruby core developers should consider to copy from JRuby?

What are your goals for FOSDEM?

I would like to show how JRuby became probably the most advanced Ruby implementation yet available, while also showing that it would not have been possible without community involvement. I'd like to spur people to make contributions to other projects, since it's obvious to me no project can survive without those contributions.

How is life at Sun?

Sun has been great for me and for the project. I have access to experts on a vast range of software topics who are excited to work on new things. Our managers at Sun have also given us the freedom we need to keep JRuby moving forward and to cultivate a community. And I've learned from the inside how the "new" Sun under Schwartz really "gets it" about Open Source. I'm proud to work here.

How do you see Java-the-language and JRuby coexist in the future?

I want to make Ruby a first-class language on the JVM, with full integration with Java code, classes, tools, and libraries. We're not quite there yet, but we're very close now. I'd also like to see JRuby as a testbed for features and platform enhancements that will make it easier to implement high-performance dynamic languages on the JVM. That process has already started.

Is performance the main focus of JRuby 1.1?

That's the official word, yes. Since performance was one of the only real complaints about JRuby 1.0 and Ruby itself, we focused very heavily on JRuby 1.1's performance since last spring. And as a result, JRuby is faster than the stable Ruby 1.8.6 on almost all benchmarks, and faster or comparable to the development Ruby 1.9 in most. But there's a story behind the story. JRuby 1.1's compatibility has improved tremendously since JRuby 1.0, and we recommend everyone use the release candidates now. More work has been put into JRuby 1.1 than into several releases up to and including JRuby 1.0, and the performance and compatibility show that.

What are the longer-term goals? Are you already looking at Ruby 2.0?

Ruby 1.9 is the current development version of Ruby, and it has incorporated several new features. We've already implemented several of them in JRuby 1.1, and will add the rest post-release. We're going to continue tracking the main Ruby core development, while we also keep improving JRuby's runtime and Java integration capabilities. There's more work to do, but I think we'll be able to show another set of excellent enhancements for JavaOne, including full Ruby 1.9 feature support. Beyond that, beyond what may be "JRuby 2.0"...I think I'll move my focus toward improving the state of language support on the JVM platform in general, taking the same community focus to a broader scope.

The .NET equivalent of JRuby is called IronRuby. Do you follow their progress? Any comments about the .NET CLR versus the Java VM as a platform?

Well there's both IronPython and IronRuby. IronPython is pretty far along, but I don't know much about. IronRuby is still in its early days, and we'll probably not see IronRuby on Rails for quite some time. I talk with John Lam (lead developer of IronRuby) occasionally, but I don't track either project closely. In general, what I hear from friends of friends is that although some features of the CLR (.NET Common Language Runtime, ed.) make it attractive for language developers, both the IronPython and IronRuby teams have had to solve the same problems we've tackled on the JVM (Jave Virtual Machine, ed.). Based on my limited exposure, I'd be surprised if any CLR features made it vastly simpler to implement alternative languages... especially dynamic languages.

Do you cooperate a lot with the Ruby team?

Yes, more and more. I've actually talked with Matz (creator of Ruby) on several occasions about core Ruby features, and recently convinced him to remove a feature that I and others considered to be dangerous and counter-intuitive. And Matz has been completely open about the Ruby source and standard libraries, allowing JRuby and other Ruby implementations to borrow anything they need. Sun and Tokyo University will also be collaborating on upcoming research to add Multi-VM capabilities to Ruby, with the intent that all implementations should have a consistent interface for such features. I'm looking forward to working more closely with the Ruby core team.

Are there any ideas or improvements you feel the Ruby core developers should consider to copy from JRuby?

Most of the basic techniques we've used could apply directly to both Ruby 1.8 and Ruby 1.9, so I think there's a lot of benefit to be had.
Beyond that, the core Ruby implementation suffers in areas where we just lean on the JVM: JIT (Just-In-Time, ed.) compilation to native code, world-class GC (Garbage Collector, ed.), platform independence, and so on. Those are areas where JRuby's going to have more and more of an edge. I hope we can help the core implementation keep up.

Good luck in doing so!

Ian Pratt, founder of XenSource, will give a talk about Xen.

Contents 1 What do you hope to accomplish with your FOSDEM talk? 2 So you had a nice time previously at FOSDEM? 3 Last time, XenSource was not yet acquired by Citrix. What were the reasons to consider this sale? 4 What kind of open-source commitment do you expect from Citrix? 5 How does Xen's future look on Windows platforms? 6 Running software on virtualized hardware is becoming more common. Doesn't this imply that traditional operating systems have failed at their core responsibilities: isolation, security and hardware abstraction? 7 So is trend is going towards 'everyting virtualized'? 8 What's the difference between Xen and similar kernel virtualization systems? 9 Are you still involved in the acadmic world? 10 We'll provide a classroom and an audience for you at FOSDEM;-)

What do you hope to accomplish with your FOSDEM talk?

Hopefully I'll encourage a few folk to start using Xen, or take advantage of new features they might not have heard about before. Even better would be to get folk to join the Xen development team. I have also learnt about great ideas for new features from questions in previous talks.

So you had a nice time previously at FOSDEM?

Absolutely. It was great to actually meet some of the folk I've only ever conversed with by email or seen as names in changelogs. There was lots of fun stuff going on at FOSDEM, particularly the demos.

Last time, XenSource was not yet acquired by Citrix. What were the reasons to consider this sale?

I think we were doing pretty well as XenSource, but one of the challenges we faced is that it takes time to build a 'sales channel' to distribute software. Citrix already have a great sales channel, so the acquisition provided a great opportunity to take Xen to the mass-market.

What kind of open-source commitment do you expect from Citrix?

Citrix have been great in supporting the open source side of things, funding folk to work full-time on open source Xen, and also funding a full time Xen programme manager. The management understand the importance of a strong Xen community and the need for the project's independence from Citrix's own Xen products.

The change was always going to make some members of the community nervous (just like when we originally formed XenSource), but it's the same group of people and we intend to carry on just as before. One difference is that we now have 'xen.org' to provide a clear independent identity for the Xen project, and also the Xen Advisory Board to help govern the project.

How does Xen's future look on Windows platforms?

Lots of people use Xen to run Windows VMs -- after all, Windows arguably needs virtualization more than Unix OSes. I reckon that something like over 80% of the VMs running on XenServer are Windows.

Since Microsoft has agreed to make public the paravirtualization API supported by Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn) we're in the process of adding support to 'shim' this API to the Xen one. We expect to do a better job of virtualizing Longhorn than Microsoft's Hyper-V.

Running software on virtualized hardware is becoming more common. Doesn't this imply that traditional operating systems have failed at their core responsibilities: isolation, security and hardware abstraction?

Kind of. It's certainly the case that the 'best practice' that most enterprises use in deploying applications is to have one application installed per OS instance. Many application vendors will only support their application when it's the only thing installed, due to problems of configuration and performance interaction etc. This leads to the 'server sprawl' that many enterprises are experiencing, and hence banking on virtualization to solve.

The problem is that an OS provides a very high-level and broad interface to applications, and the application state is deeply entwined inside the OS. Providing strong isolation, both spatially (for security), and temporally (for performance) is tough for a conventional OS.

It is possible to build OSes that are designed from the ground-up to do this (see the Nemesis work at the University of Cambridge), but it's tough to do this while retaining the application APIs (Posix, Win32) that everyone uses. Without applications, no one is going to use your OS.

We started the Xen project after realizing that we weren't going to convince the world to use Nemesis, but we could provide many of the same benefits by building a hypervisor that runs beneath traditional OS instances.

So is trend is going towards 'everyting virtualized'?

Absolutely! The combination of OS paravirtualization and 'virtualization friendly' CPUs and IO devices means that the overhead of virtualization is getting smaller all the time. We're also seeing hypervisors becoming embedded into server hardware, booting from flash -- Xen is going to be a factory installed option on the majority of servers sold in 2008! I think in a couple of years time you wouldn't dream of running an OS on bare metal ever again.

What's the difference between Xen and similar kernel virtualization systems?

The hypervisor is the most privileged and trusted code in the whole system. You want it to be as secure and fast as possible. Xen is purpose-built to be a hypervisor. It contains just that which is necessary, and pushes functions that don't need to run at such high privilege into 'domains' (e.g. most device drivers).

Other approaches that try and add virtual machine monitor support to conventional OS kernels just don't provide the same security and reliability benefits. By not being purpose built they miss out on a whole lot of performance optimizations too.

Are you still involved in the acadmic world?

I still have PhD research students at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, which is definitely the fun part of being an academic. I haven't done much teaching in a while other than the odd guest lecture.

David White will present the game Battle for Wesnoth at FOSDEM 2008.

Contents 1 What are your personals goals for your FOSDEM presence? 2 What did you admire in the games "Master of Monsters" and "Warsong" that inspired Wesnoth? 3 Battle for Wesnoth runs on a surprising broad range of platforms. What are the implications of that in terms of hardware demands? 4 What does version 1.3 bring compared to v1.2? 5 Gamers traditionally tend abandon a game once it's completed. How does the Wesnoth project try to 'pull in' new contributors, and keep them active? 6 Which other parts of the game are you most proud of? 7 Do you still find time to write code yourself? 8 What's your favourite character in the game?

What are your personals goals for your FOSDEM presence?

I hope to share with others the technical possibilities in making an Open Source game. It'd be nice if the talk accomplished making others interested in contributing to existing Open Source games, or starting their own game project. :-)

What did you admire in the games "Master of Monsters" and "Warsong" that inspired Wesnoth?

Most of all, I think I saw that these games were relatively simple, and yet were very fun to play. I had many game ideas that involved very complex feature sets, but I realized that these games were both fundamentally very simple, and yet very enjoyable.

Battle for Wesnoth runs on a surprising broad range of platforms. What are the implications of that in terms of hardware demands?

Interestingly, I never intended for Wesnoth to run on a particularly large range of platforms. I wanted it to work on Linux, and on Windows. So, I coded it in fairly standard C++, using minimal dependencies. This has meant that it can run on most platforms that have a decent amount of memory and have a good C++ compiler.

Unfortunately, the design never attempted to constrain memory usage, and so Wesnoth doesn't run on many embedded devices. This is a shame in many ways, but I'd like to think it's still been a net benefit.

What does version 1.3 bring compared to v1.2?

The nice thing about Wesnoth is that every release since about 0.8 has always brought lots and lots of tiny little features and improvements that by themselves don't seem like much, but together add a much more polished feel.

1.3 adds much more flexibility using WML (Wesnoth Markup Language). There are also many new graphics, and tweaks to existing artwork. Our playtesting team has worked tirelessly to refine the balance of the game. We have also squashed many, many bugs. The number and severity of bugs in Wesnoth is probably at its lowest level ever. I think that when 1.3 is stabilized into 1.4, it will be the best stable release of Wesnoth ever.

Gamers traditionally tend abandon a game once it's completed. How does the Wesnoth project try to 'pull in' new contributors, and keep them active?

Well, I think whether gamers abandon a game or not depends heavily on the kind of game, and whether the game has dynamics and rules which can remain interesting and challenging over a long period of time.

Originally, Wesnoth had just one mode of play: a single campaign. In this state, most players would indeed abandon it after completing it. However, now there are many features which keep a player engaged.

Wesnoth allows contributors to create new content -- campaigns, scenarios, and so forth -- for Wesnoth fairly easily. This means that there is a wide range of campaigns available for Wesnoth. Even after completing the standard game, there are hundreds of hours worth of campaigns to play, should a player remain engaged for that long.

Additionally, many players who have completed a campaign or two become interested in creating their own campaign. Wesnoth has developed a flexible language, WML, which allows people to make their own content.
Importantly, WML is well-documented, thanks to the tireless effort of many contributors, and there is a great community which supports WML development.

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, there is a vibrant multiplayer community for Wesnoth. Many players spend countless hours perfecting their skills playing against other players. The multiplayer developers have done an excellent job of creating maps which are well-balanced and fun for all five of the standard factions. There are also many interesting user-contributed multiplayer scenarios.

All-in-all, the amount of content available for Wesnoth is quite amazing.

Which other parts of the game are you most proud of?

I think what I'm most proud of is the community that has developed around the game. It is an intelligent, fun, vibrant, creative community.

I think I'm also very proud of how many developers have learned something from Wesnoth, rather than it being a mindless time sink. We have developers who have improved their art skills, developers who have improved their coding skills, and developers who have simply learned more about how teams produce software.

In terms of what's actually in the game, I think I'm most proud of how extensible Wesnoth is, and the amount and variety of content that can be created for the engine.

Do you still find time to write code yourself?

Sometimes, though not that often. Since I began working on Wesnoth, I've relocated twice (from Australia to Texas, and then from Texas to California), gotten married, and had a son. I've also gotten involved with other projects, and work is always busy.

All these things eat into one's time. Of course, the biggest thing is that after some amount of time one feels that newer contributors have the freshest ideas, and it's simply best to help Wesnoth in a 'consultant' type role.

What's your favourite character in the game?

Well, I think I would have to say Li'sar is, since I named her after my wife. :-)

Garrett Woodworth is the project leader of CakePHP.

Contents 1 Which effect do you hope to reach with your audience? 2 Cake sees its community as one of its major assets. In what ways does the project support its community ? 3 Conferences... We like that :-) What skills should an ideal Open Source project leader have? 4 Do you see other PHP frameworks as competing for mindshare? 5 How does Cake differ from Ruby on Rails architecturally? 6 Are there PHP5 features that you'd like to use but can't due to PHP4 compatibility? 7 What exactly are the activities of the Cake Software Foundation?

Which effect do you hope to reach with your audience?

I hope to show how CakePHP can make application development easier and more enjoyable. I would expect that attendees walk away with an interest in understanding more about CakePHP and seriously consider CakePHP as the framework for their next application.

Cake sees its community as one of its major assets. In what ways does the project support its community ?

Since 2005 we have maintained free support channels through the CakePHP google group and #cakephp irc channel. We have watched these grow tremendously. In addition, we have over 3000 developers using CakeForge to build their open source applications and share them with the world. A little over a year ago we opened up the Bakery where the community could share code and tutorials about CakePHP. The Bakery now contains close to 500 articles all dedicated to helping the community better understand and benefit from CakePHP. Finally, 2008 will bring the first user conference for the CakePHP community.

Conferences... We like that :-) What skills should an ideal Open Source project leader have?

A lot of patience. Dealing with personalities in an open source team can be very different from work or family, as everyone contributes for different reasons. To maintain a successful project, the leader must balance the goals of the individual developer with the goals of the project. Above all, logic and reason must prevail, and if those are missing or clouded by ego or emotion, an open source leader does not one make.

Do you see other PHP frameworks as competing for mindshare?

Sure, and competition is a good thing. Competition makes everyone better. We all make choices everyday and choosing a framework is not done without thought. We are very different beasts and have different approaches to solving problems.

How does Cake differ from Ruby on Rails architecturally?

To do a complete comparison, you would have to look at the differences between Ruby and PHP. However, CakePHP borrows many of the conventions established by Rails. Since both frameworks rely heavily on these conventions, you could say that architecturally the differences are narrow. CakePHP breaks away from Rails when it comes to extending each framework for the needs of a particular application.

Are there PHP5 features that you'd like to use but can't due to PHP4 compatibility?

In some places we have made PHP5 functionality available to PHP4, like __construct() and __call(). This makes the transition from PHP4 to PHP5 seamless for developers. We are even providing an interface for unicode support, so we can handle unicode now and be ready for PHP6 when it is released.

What exactly are the activities of the Cake Software Foundation?

Promote development related to CakePHP. The Foundation handles the supporting websites, organizes CakeFest, maintains servers, and does whatever it can to make CakePHP a great platform for developers.

Curious about who speaks at FOSDEM 2008? Here they are... Wanna count them?
Press the read-more button to see the list.

Today we introduce some more speaker interviews. Enjoy interesting conversations with:

• Kurt Pfeifle and Simon Peter (klik)
• Mark Finkle (Mozilla Prism)
• Matthias Rechenburg (openQRM)
• Andrei Zmievski (PHP6)
• Steven Knight (SCons)

Mozilla Platform Evangelist Mark Finkle will present at FOSDEM to (so we guess) 'evangelize' the audience about Prism.

• 1 What do you hope to be the effect of your talk?
• 2 How does a typical day of a Platform Evangelist' look like?
• 3 Usability is a major goal of Prism... Does this involve doing usability testing as well?
• 4 Is Google Gears a part of Prism?
• 5 The Gears announcement was a bit of a suprise. Can we expect even some similar 'shocking' announcements in the near future?
• 6 Which technologies in Firefox 3 could be considered as 'Prism-enabling'?
• 7 Are there plans to extend the integration with the desktop systems on which Prism runs?
• 8 There is currently a lot of attention for 'Rich Internet Applications', which claim to go beyond the capabilities of Ajax and the DOM. How does this RIA concept fit into Prism?

What do you hope to be the effect of your talk?

I'd like to see some open discussion on desktop enabling web applications. Is it good or bad? How can it become more useful to end users?

With Firefox 3 (Gecko 1.9) nearing completion, I'd like to make sure the people are aware of what new features are coming and what they can expect from the new user interface changes.

How does a typical day of a Platform Evangelist' look like?

I spend a lot of time working with people building extensions and XULRunner applications. I (along with others) provide support in the way of code examples and reviews, tutorials and sample projects. I also try to keep the development community informed of new features and changes to existing features. I act as an extension and application developer advocate inside Mozilla.

Usability is a major goal of Prism... Does this involve doing usability testing as well?

We have done no formal usability testing on Prism yet, but any UI in Prism has had some input from the Mozilla User Experience group. We are working on the basic feature set at the moment. We also try to keep the UI in Prism to a minimum, letting the web application "own the stage".

Is Google Gears a part of Prism?

Google Gears is an extension and is not shipped with Prism. Trunk versions of Prism support extension add-ons and, therefore, support Google Gears - but not without some tweaks. Google Gears does not currently recognize Prism. We are planning to work with the Gears group and submit a patch to allow Gears and Prism to work together.

The Gears announcement was a bit of a suprise. Can we expect similar 'shocking' announcements in the near future?

I don't know of any :)

WebRunner, a former version of Prism, seems to be preinstalled on gOS and I think Prism may be packaged with Ubuntu (Hardy Heron).

Which technologies in Firefox 3 could be considered as 'Prism-enabling'?

I think those can be divided into 2 groups: XUL platform and Web platform.

Prism will get a nice deployment boost with Firefox 3 supporting XUL applications as a XUL runtime. That means we can ship a Prism extension to Firefox3 that don't require a XULRunner download.

Many of the new web content features in Firefox 3 (and the underlying Gecko platform) will make Prism a better web application platform. Examples included offline storage and events, native methods for getElementByClassName and JSON parsing, cross-site XHR (XmlHttpRequest, ed.) and web protocol handlers.

Are there plans to extend the integration with the desktop systems on which Prism runs?

Yes, we are adding some components to Prism that will allow icon creation from favicon (all platforms), running on system trays (windows) and badging the dock icon (mac).

There is currently a lot of attention for 'Rich Internet Applications', which claim to go beyond the capabilities of Ajax and the DOM. How does this RIA concept fit into Prism?

Prism is a platform for desktop enabling web applications. Currently, this means we introduce no new APIs to the web application itself. The web application uses the same APIs that make web apps great in a traditional browser, plus whatever plugins / extensions have added.

Visit FOSDEM 2008 and Matthias Rechenburg's talk in particular to learn more about openQRM.

• 1 What's your personal goal for your FOSDEM presentation?
• 2 What is the link between QLusters and openQRM?
• 3 And you are able to work full-time on openQRM?
• 4 What kind of functionality can openQRM automate for such virtual systems?
• 5 So openQRM is actually used a lot in combination with virtual systems?
• 6 What are the advantages of being Open Source in the systems management software market?
• 7 Do you feel that openQRM still lacks some features?
• 8 Are you still involved in OpenMosix as well?

What's your personal goal for your FOSDEM presentation?

My goal is to show how openQRM can help the IT-department to manage their data-center especially when it comes to "mixed" environments with physical and virtual systems. Since the openQRM platform is implemented with a pluggable architecture I would also like to encourage developers and system administrators to write new, custom plugins and to see how easy it is to integrate third-party tools within openQRM.

What is the link between QLusters and openQRM?

Qlusters is the sponsor and support company behind the open-source project openQRM.

And you are able to work full-time on openQRM?

Yes indeed...

What kind of functionality can openQRM automate for such virtual systems?

openQRM can automate the provisioning, deployment, administration, monitoring, migration and high-availability for virtual machines in the same way as for physical systems. Via an generic partition-layer it conforms different virtualization technologies and supports appliance-based, rapid deployment including fast-cloning of servers using modern storage technologies.

So openQRM is actually used a lot in combination with virtual systems?

Yes it is, especially with Xen-based systems.

What are the advantages of being Open Source in the systems management software market?

The advantages for openQRM being open-source is that it raises the acceptance and the number of potential users. We are trying to fill the gap for a complete IT infrastructure framework which let system administrators manage their data center using a single-management console.
Of course it also helps to agree to certain data-center standards using the feedback from the community.

Do you feel that openQRM still lacks some features?

Next to VMware, Xen, QEMU and Linux-VServer we (the openQRM-Team) would like to add support for more virtualization technologies like Virtualbox, openVZ and Virtuoso.
This is definitely on the roadmap for the future versions.

Are you still involved in OpenMosix as well?

Yes, but since the openMosix project stopped its active developement there is currently not very much to be involved with until someone picks it up again :-)

Andrei Zmievski will enlighten the FOSDEM 2008 audience about PHP6 and its Unicode and internationalization features.

• 1 Your talk at FOSDEM 2008 will revolve around Unicode and internationalization support in PHP6. Why exactly is that?
• 2 PHP5 has a bit of a slow uptake problem: users are not switching to it fast enough. Do you think PHP6 could bring enough benefits to accelerate upgrades?
• 3 You are involved in the development of PHP-GTK. What is the status of that project?
• 4 Do you feel that 'web development world' PHP benefit form the stuff that's happening around PHP-GTK?
• 5 So do you think PHP will become a popular language for non-web development work?
• 6 In which direction is PHP evolving as a language?
• 7 Do you have any comments about the Open-Sourcing of the Zend Framework?
• 8 Smarty, one of your other projects, is quite popular and is enjoyed by many PHP enthusiasts for its simplicity. However not all PHP coders know the benefits of a templating framework. What is, to you, the advantage that Smarty can deliver?

Your talk at FOSDEM 2008 will revolve around Unicode and internationalization support in PHP6. Why exactly is that?

I hope to convey how important it is to develop new sites and applications with global audience in mind and how PHP can help with this development. I expect only an open mind from the attendees.

PHP5 has a bit of a slow uptake problem: users are not switching to it fast enough. Do you think PHP6 could bring enough benefits to accelerate upgrades?

People switch to new versions when they feel that the benefits of the upgrade overweigh the drawbacks of migration. PHP 6 is no different in this matter. If people need good Unicode support, they will start adopting PHP 6, so our goal is to educate people and make them aware of what good Unicode support means for them.

You are involved in the development of PHP-GTK. What is the status of that project?

PHP-GTK 2 is very close to final release. It has been in beta for some time, and so far there have not been any major problems with it. I hope that we can make the release within a month or two. We also now have a way to support new Gtk+ 2.x versions without much manual work, so hopefully the future releases will be more frequent. There are still some big and very cool pieces that we'd like to support, like the ability to implement native widgets in PHP, support for Gnome objects, and much more. These have to come after the version 2 release though.

Do you feel that 'web development world' PHP benefit form the stuff that's happening around PHP-GTK?

I believe so, and in fact it already has. When I started working on PHP-GTK, PHP was at version 4, and I had to push its object-oriented support to the limit, frequently running into problems with implementation. I had long talks with Zend folks about how to rewrite OO support in a better way and they did listen. So PHP 5 owes a lot of its OO features (internal and external) to PHP-GTK, I'd like to think.

So do you think PHP will become a popular language for non-web development work?

Yes, I hope so. I think it already made some progress. Look at PHP-GTK, for example - there are many professional applications written in it, from point-of-sale systems to health records management. PHP CLI (command line interface) is also gaining ground for scripts, daemons, and other such applications. One problem though is that because PHP was built around processing short-lived requests, there are still issues with it running long-lived scripts, but hopefully the new garbage collection will solve this issue completely.

In which direction is PHP evolving as a language?

PHP is always evolving towards what its users need it to be. It's really a glue language, in a sense that it provides a language and support structure for a bunch of technologies, from LDAP to Web Services to database access. So when people ask, where will PHP be 3 years from now, it's a bit like asking, where will Web be 3 years from now? I don't know, but I'm sure PHP is in the midst of it somewhere.

Do you have any comments about the Open-Sourcing of the Zend Framework?

Not much to say except that I think it's a good move.

Smarty, one of your other projects, is quite popular and is enjoyed by many PHP enthusiasts for its simplicity. However not all PHP coders know the benefits of a templating framework. What is, to you, the advantage that Smarty can deliver?

Smarty is a templating engine, not a framework per se, but it can serve as a View part of an MVC framework (and I think it has actually). Templating works well in larger teams, where people who have to work on presentation layer (templates) are not necessarily the same as the developers. The same can be done with straight PHP of course, since PHP is a templating language, in a sense, but I think Smarty (and other template engines) make it a bit easier for those who are not developers.