New from Robert Peake's weblog today is this new post with a question "Is it time for a PHP Foundation?".

Browsing through the list of sponsors for Google's summer of code, I noticed that while ventures written in PHP like Mambo showed up, there was no representation at all from Pear, Pecl, or PHP itself. The Perl Foundation, by contrast, had a number of interesting project ideas they were willing to sponsor. This got me thinking: is it time for something like "The PHP Foundation?"

He notes that PHP really doesn't have anyone to "champion the cause", getting PHP more out there to the masses. Yes, Zend has done their fair share in making PHP what (and where) it is today, but PHP still has more of a "hobbyist" image for a lot of the online community.

But it seems clear that if PHP is going to compete successfully with ASP, JSP, Websphere, ColdFusion and the like, it needs advocacy. Not camaraderie, more discussion forums, or mailing lists -- but a formal organization advocating PHP in the enterprise without any commercial agenda of its own. It needs something like, "The PHP Foundation."