[TYPO3-dev] Common Category Framework - a look back in history...

[Stig Nørgaard Færch]

We have for some years now been waiting for a generic category solution 
for TYPO3. Many many hours has already been spent(in vein?) on different 
category extensions, and many hours has been spent on creating a 
category feature from ground up for specific extensions (tt_news, dam to 
name a few).
In spite of many discussions and all the coding efforts, we still 
haven't got a generic solution for TYPO3.

A look back:

I think this was the first real effort by Elmar Hinz, don't know why 
this wasn't accepted?:
A 3 year old project description:
http://t3flyers.wordpress.com/2006/09/14/tep-common-category-framework-ccf/
Better Trees (Elmar Hinz)
http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/trees/current/

Also Mads Brunn tried his way:
Categories (Mads Brunn (madsbrunn) )
http://forge.typo3.org/projects/show/extension-categories

Don't know much about this one, but also seems interesting:
Categorize everything (Ringer Georg (just2b), Uschi Renziehausen (uffi))
http://forge.typo3.org/projects/show/extension-categorize

This initiative currently to be widely supported, but lacks 
subcategories (tags):
Tag Pack (Jo Hasenau (cybercr at ft), Peter Kuehn (pekue), Benjamin Mack 
(benni) and more)
http://forge.typo3.org/projects/show/extension-tagpack

The latest initiative for generic solution:
Categorization (Rik Willems (actiview))
http://forge.typo3.org/projects/show/extension-categorization

Other initiatives:
Category-system (Juergen Kussmann)
http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/toi_category/current/
Content category (Michael Kuzmin)
http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/contentcategory/current/


Some say "the more the merrier", well I don't. Which one of these 
initiatives should I base my extension on? Which one these will be 
supported in the future? Well, Better Trees by Elmar Hinz and Categories 
by Mads Brunn are not actively supported anymore, but both seemed very 
promising. So was their efforts a waste of time?
It would be nice if there were some collaboration going on here. If that 
had happened 3 years ago, we would have had a really nice system for a 
couple of years now.
Also if the association could back up a specific initiative somehow?

Just my look back and thoughts on a common problem in the TYPO3 community.

/Stig