In this new post from Marco Tabini today, he gives his take on the Zend Frameworks and "why you should be scared".

What I find really interesting about the flurry of news and postings that have come about is the fact that they have missed what I think is a rather important point. There are some people who are genuinely worried about the PHP Collaboration Project because they think it unwise to place so much power in Zend’s hands. Some others are more covertly worried about Zend taking business away from their existing frameworks and prefer to attack them directly. Of the two, I think the latter are actually on to something, although they fail to see the big picture.

The reason we should be worried about the Zend framework is not the fact that Zend makes it. Rather, we should be thinking about what the framework signifies for the PHP world—the fact that PHP software is being commodified.

He continues, stating that while this framework might be headed more towards a selling point on a list, there's still enough force behind PHP to keep it alive, even without commerical application support. And, as Marco mentions:

It will mean that the PHP market will move more and more into professional services. This, of course, will also spill over into other aspects of the community, like training and information - I really don’t think anyone is safe where this transformation is concerned.

In this new post from Marco Tabini today, he gives his take on the Zend Frameworks and "why you should be scared".

What I find really interesting about the flurry of news and postings that have come about is the fact that they have missed what I think is a rather important point. There are some people who are genuinely worried about the PHP Collaboration Project because they think it unwise to place so much power in Zend’s hands. Some others are more covertly worried about Zend taking business away from their existing frameworks and prefer to attack them directly. Of the two, I think the latter are actually on to something, although they fail to see the big picture.

The reason we should be worried about the Zend framework is not the fact that Zend makes it. Rather, we should be thinking about what the framework signifies for the PHP world—the fact that PHP software is being commodified.

He continues, stating that while this framework might be headed more towards a selling point on a list, there's still enough force behind PHP to keep it alive, even without commerical application support. And, as Marco mentions:

It will mean that the PHP market will move more and more into professional services. This, of course, will also spill over into other aspects of the community, like training and information - I really don’t think anyone is safe where this transformation is concerned.