While most of us are waiting for the final release of 2.4.0, I assume there are other things going on. What's on the horizon for XOOPS? Where are we going from here? What will be in 3.0 and how far along is it? What must we do with XOOPS to ensure it's as good or better than the competition?

I can't seem to find this kind of info nor any healthy debate about it, but this should be very relevant to most of the users here.

1) DJ is working on new architecture for XOOPS 3.0. At this time it's more of a research project for him, as far as I understand it, and once he is ready, he'll release an Alpha version. Due to his work load, this is not a fast as he would like it.

2) In order to be as good or better than the competition, we all need to get in the game!!! What it means? We have to start contributing - ALL of us who care about XOOPS:

a) We need people to test the beta releases, report bugs, but also try to come up with solutions.

b) if people are not good enough in PHP to contribute code, then the could get involved in writing documentation.

c) if you people don't have the time or skills to contribute to documentation, they can donate money to XOOPS, or offer a bounty for a specific feature, so somebody could do it for XOOPS

The bottom line of a successful Open Source project:

-engaged community where people contribute code, and where this happens in a fast paced way (==> speed of innovation)
- good documentation
- good support
- attractive and easy to use Website

We have a good support here (thanks to Ghia and other volunteers), and we are working on making our Website attractive and easy to use with the new theme developed by Eduardo (BitC3R0).

But we are lacking updated documentation, and the team is non-existent (not much feedback on our recent "Installation Guide" draft)

And we don't have enough developers actively participating in Core development. So if one or two of the key developers are not available (remember - they are doing it in their free time), things are coming to a still stand.

Discussions about future features do happen (like the last one about Smarty), or about ImageManager) but we need to focus on making things happen in the current 2.4.0 release, before we talk about more advanced features.

So my challenge to everybody:

1) please take an existing documentation, and update it (and join the Documentation Team)

2) download the XOOPS 2.4 RC and test, test, test it. And provide bugs and bugs fixes, so we can release it.

Once the XOOPS 2.4 is released, we'll focus on XOOPS 2.5, which will be based on PHP5 only. This will open a lot of different opportunities, incl. merging EXM into it. And it will be a good timing to do the Roadmap.

But we'll need more developers to get involved, who will say: I'm going to develop XYZ for the next release (e.g. new Image Manager, or any other feature from the XOOPS Wishlist, and then deliver on their commitment.