Zenphoto development team change

[The Zenphoto team]

Some of you may remember several months ago that I had a disagreement with the management of Zenphoto.org and said I would no longer be a part of the organization. I did modify that position slightly out of concern for Zenphoto users. I agreed to stay on through the release of the 1.4 6 version of the software.

Well, that event has happened. I have not seen a change in the situation which would inspire me to stay with the organization, so as form now I dissolve my association with them. This means that I will not actively develop or support software provided by Zenphoto.org. But it does not mean that I am abandoning the software.

For those who do not know the history of Zenphoto you can read about it here: http://www.zenphoto.org/pages/development. I would like to help you read between the lines of this document. By September 2007 the initial development group had for all intents and purposes abandoned the software. They had made a good start, but failed to follow through.

There were several users who wished the software to become more relevant to current needs. Individually and in concert they made enhancements to the base. I was one of those users. Unfortunately with the lack of participation of the originator there was no "home" for these enhancements. So one of the new group took it upon himself to manage a "community build" so that others could share in these enhancements.

Initially the originator vehemently resisted this community build. Even though he did not have the time or inclination to continue the software he seemed to feel that no one that followed could live up to his "standards". But eventually he capitulated and allowed us into the "fold".

But I guess that the need for control remained. We had a falling out over an incident with the website and I was threatened with expulsion from the group. Rather than live under this Damocles Sword I chose to voluntarily terminate my participation.

This does not mean that I lost interest in the software nor that I wished it to stagnate. As I mentioned above I have stayed on to insure the successful release of Zenphoto 1.4.6. I have also forked the software at this level to the ZenPhoto20 organization: https://github.com/ZenPhoto20/ZenPhoto20

Here you will find the continuation of the work I have done over the last seven years. I have updated the philosophy of the releases slightly. Fifteen of the "unsupported" Zenphoto plugins are now includes as an integral part of the software. These are typically "how-to" examples so are not necessarily useful for a live site. Also included are four themes from the "unsupported" repertoire. My intent is that anyone can offer their works for inclusion with the distribution. If the coding looks like something that I can keep current with changes to ZenPhoto20 they will become part of the release. I will keep them up-to-date with changes, but I will not necessarily be able to enhance or test them.

I am also hoping that the translators who are currently still active will pay attention to ZenPhoto20. Of course I would love have someone re-activate some of the abandoned translations or to add new ones.

I have also created a Google Groups support forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/zenphoto20