After a long period of dormancy, a new version of PriadoBlender has
been released. The open source development tool for PHP allows Windows
developers (and other platforms in the future) to build stand-alone
applications using the powerfully simple PHP language.
(PRWEB) November 2, 2004 -- After a long period of dormancy, a new version of PriadoBlender hasm been released. The open source development tool for PHP allows Windows developers (and other platforms in the future) to build stand-alone applications using the powerfully simple PHP language.
J Wynia, the project coordinator and founder, started the project out of personal need. After writing a series of utilities for processing email lists, J was looking for a way to distribute these scripts without needing to provide complete PHP installation just to use those scripts. He went looking for a solution and, not finding one, started the project.
The resulting product: PriadoBlender takes PHP scripts, and "blends" them with the PHP interpreter itself, outputting a stand-alone EXE executable. That file, along with the supporting DLL's can be packaged as a ZIP file and distributed to users.
Mark Poole has recently joined the development effort as the Lead Developer to coordinate this and future releases. Mark was a user of the software before deciding to join the project.
According to Mark, "It worked well for me, but I noticed that the project had had no new developments in a while. It was then that I noticed J Wynia calling for 'someone pick the ball up and run with it', so that is exactly what I did."
The new version features an architecture that's less reliant on external libraries, including the previously critical MMCache module. That module had required that the output applications users built were required to license the resulting EXE file under the open source GPL license. The new release removes that restriction and allows users to follow the more liberal PHP license on their resulting EXE files. That license is different in one crucial regard: it allows commercial use. This means that PHP developers can build stand-alone commercial applications using their favorite language.
Because PriadoBlender itself is open source and free, users can get started with no up front financial investment. In addition, they can improve the product themselves by contributing to the code base.
Mark Poole puts it this way, "Contributing to open source is something that I enjoy doing. I like being a part of a community where people have different talents and skills that they can add to the project. I also believe that an open source project can end up as good, if not better than a commercial project, because again you can have many more people working on the project contributing their own skills and talents to keep making it better and better. These are some of the reasons that I decided to work on PriadoBlender."
PriadoBlender is sponsored by Pragmapool, Inc. Pragmapool sells other development tools, including the Sokkit web server toolkit (www.sokkit.net). They provide PriadoBlender for free in an attempt to ensure that the PHP community has the tools they need to help the adoption of the language increase.
###
|
