The REAL story on PHP 6 and PEAR

I just had a conversation with Ilia Alshanetsky on IRC and he provided this important information regarding the problems with PEAR and PHP. I asked his permission to post a summary to dispel recent FUD. 1) PEAR was removed from php-src because it has been impossible to maintain and too often delays the release of PHP. [note: Particularly difficult has been maintaining the windows build] 2) Ilia feels that if PEAR were 1 file or at most 2 files, with one rarely changed file (think pear.sh and PEAR.phar) this would be acceptable to him, and may be acceptable to other internals developers. Again, maintenance is the issue. [my take on this: The release must be easy and simple to maintain and NEVER delay a PHP release] 3) the quality of the PEAR installer was never a reason for removing it from php-src/ Let's now move on with our lives. I have a few suggestions for worried developers. 1) familiarize yourself with the internals of pear-core/ and sign on as a developer on PEAR 1.4.x. It's never too late to join the party. 2) familiarize yourself with the way PHP_Archive and go-pear.phar works as I noted on my blog, and take a look at the scripts for creating .phars that are in pear-core/ 3) familiarize yourself with the Chiara_PEAR_Server package available at pear.chiaraquartet.net and assist with the development and transition to a PEPr proposal. All of these steps will bring PEAR 1.4.0 closer to fruition and ultimately make it possible for PEAR to be bundled with PHP 6. Until this point, consider PEAR a snowball in hell - it will melt rather quickly and messily. Greg