[TYPO3-english] TYPO3 6.0 at the corner? How is it possible

[Roberto Presedo]

Hi guys,

after reading all the posts related to this topic, I wanted to share
my thoughts too  … But first of all : what a passionate debate !! As
far as I remember, it's been a long time since the TYPO3 community had
not shown such enthusiasm … And this shows one thing … even if we all
feel that TYPO3 was in a kind of "waitingOnPhoenix" mode, many of us
are still really attached to it, and even when Phoenix will be
released, leaving TYPO3 will be a long process (if this ever
happens)...

But let's talk about this "v6" story… I think that TYPO3v4
(hereinafter simply called TYPO3) is actually a great product, but
whose development is not sufficiently emphasized. We are using v4
since april 2006 (!) and we all agree that the version 4.0 and version
4.6 are technically, visually and in a usuable point of view really
different (two different worlds) … and keeping using this 4.x
versioning doesn't help when we try to demonstrate that TYPO3 is an
active community based CMS - I'm not talking about number of releases
or number of commits ... I'm talking about "outside" public. Thus, the
need for highlighting the updates of TYPO3 by presenting the major
evolutions is quite obvious ...

I can understand the confusion that could arise from the use of "V5",
while this appelation was previously related only to Phoenix … I'm
less convinced by the fact that clients may be confused by the missing
5.0 version (I'm pretty sure it's easier selling any software by
saying  "We will use the latest version of TYPO3" instead of "We will
use TYPO3 v4.6.4" … but IMO this is not the most important point here
as there is a simple way to hide all this "technical/developper" specs
by simply using "codenames" when it comes to talk to clients, when we
want to promote TYPO3.

Apple (and it's not the only example) does it since the beginning of
OS.X … and when they sell a computer, they say "it comes with Leopard"
not "It comes with MacOSX 10.6" … I mean, I don't want TYPO3 to be
reduced to a simple commercial item… But, what I try to explain is :
customer doesn't "need" to know which numbered version he's gonna get…
It can be TYPO3 "Whatever" … Behind this codename, we can use TYPO3
v6.0.0 without fear of "loosing" people… Here, the real challenge
would be to agree on a theme of codename (pets, danish villages - to
pay tribute to Kasper, historical figures, …) :)

Then about having a Phoenix v1.0 project (hereinafter called [some new
name]) I am a bit worried about the impact that its TYPO3's
separation can have when we'll have to move from TYPO3 to [some new
name]. Like Xavier says in his post "So, while it never was really
official, it became clear that the 5th point of the Berlin Manifesto
(ed : "Migration of content from TYPO3 v4 to TYPO3 v5 will be easily
possible") would not be met." And that's the main problem.. As part of
a web agency which main activity is building websites based on TYPO3,
we'll face a problem when we'll have to sell the "migration" from
TYPO3 to Phoenix… As this is not going to be an easy and smooth
operation, customers will be tempted to ask themselves : "Well, do I
move to Phoenix, or do I take a look to the others solutions of the
market… Because after all, this means to start everything from
scratch."

[some new name] must have his own release strategy, and as it will
grow at his own rhythm, we must separate it from TYPO3 if we still
want to work with TYPO3 and release new version with big new features.
And that's why having a separated [some new name] 1.0 version makes
sense. But we must keep in mind that the migration from TYPO3 to [some
new name] must as easy as possible. This can (must) even be a future
big sponsored task. Otherwise, this situation can simply and sadly be
resumed by this sentence I've read on Twitter "@robertlemke: For a
limited transition period, there will be two CMSes maintained by the
TYPO3 community."

I hope you do not get too bored by my message, and even if this
discussion goes in all directions (sometimes way too far), it is
important, and even vital for the future of TYPO3 to have a clear
strategy that doesn't softly kills TYPO3.

Best regards

Roberto Presedo
@rpresedo