There is a mini-debate going on over on Davey Shafik's weblog about a possible aversion that Zend might be having to PEAR.

After some discussion with one of the people @ Zend today, regarding their new PHP 5 Competition it has emerged that Zend is explicitly disallowing the use of PEAR packages in entries. (this is not in the rules yet as of the time of writing, apparently a FAQ is being released that will answer this question).

Now, I for one, see this as just their attempt for people to actually work at their code, and not just piece it together, but I can definitely see how it could be seen as Zend taking a more negative approach towards the PEAR packages. I know that there has been a debate (more than just this) on the validity of PEAR and what kind of use it really is for developers these days - and I don't think there has been any kind of consensus on what to do about it. I know I, for one, prefer not to use these packages simply because I'd want to know how all of it worked, and investigating that would take just as long as to write it.

What are your opinions on PEAR and what should be done with it? Do you use it very much? Is all that it's lacking a standardization system?