Please check out our response to the recent reorganization here:
http://www.zenphoto.org/news/response-to-zenphoto-team-changeWe've officially parted ways with sbillard (amicably!), but we're only planning good things for the future of the Zenphoto project.
This thread is for a few more personal goodbyes, as we've worked with sbillard for over 6 years. Many of us on the core team were surprised by his departure, and the events that led to it. We don't really feel it was necessary or a positive choice on his end, but to each his own, as they say.
We believe that this will launch a positive change in the product and the team. Personally, I'm looking forward to removing feature complexity, and focusing on a slim and efficient core for managing your media and posts, as well as bringing Zenphoto up to modern web application standards in visual delight, UX, and feature design.
I'll let the rest of the team, and other contributors, post here with their last mementos and thoughts on Stephen's departure as well. Other than that, I hope everyone is looking forward to our future plans, which we will publish soon! The "real Zenphoto" will remain your de-facto media publishing platform, guaranteed.
Zenphoto
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We had been working on Zenphoto together for the last nearly seven years and Stephen did the major share of especially the core development. I do admit that I probably will never become the coder he is despite me being decades younger. He often helped polish things I started and I learned a great deal from him.
We all have our faults and disagreements or misunderstandings happen when people work together on something. However, describing Tristan as a kind of „dictator“ is wrong. He might have had problems letting Zenphoto go back in 2007 but that is understandable for any originator. On the said incident both sides had overreacted unnecessarily and Tristan regrets it. These things do happen in heated discussions. We all know that.
Stephen had openly posted on the forum to leave the project after that incident around three months ago. We tried to change his mind and had believed he had reconsidered meanwhile. At least he hinted at it some weeks ago. Therefore the fork came as a complete surprise. But that’s open source and anyone is free to do what he likes. No real problem with that.
It is disappointing that Stephen did not find it necessary to talk about his plans after all these years. So be it then. Good luck.
He has been a contributor since 2008. First as a user, then he developed 3rd party themes and plugin, then became part of the greater team as one of our French translators and as our "chief tester" helping to find many bugs.
Perhaps the threats were made in anger and certainly they were retracted later. However, there is an adage: Pay attention to things said in anger--the are also said without editing.
The plans were not discussed so as not to trigger the above threat.
Especially since the reason for it seems so trivial.
Being a complete novice when I started using Zenphoto (back in 2008), you guided me through my first steps in coding and I'm very grateful for that.
Sure, I often had to tiptoe my way through the process but then I'm used to grumpy teachers ;-)
As a non-coder I can't even fathom the work you've done for Zenphoto and I thank you for it.
All the best and have fun.
Fred
I leaving for personnal reasons, but I want to write some words for the future of zenphoto.
I respect the decision of Stephen, although I regret his leaving and his "rival project".
It seems to have huge disagreements between him and Tristan.
I do not seek to know the reasons, but according to me, it is important to have some conclusions.
If I may make a suggestion:
It would be good to all people around the project to see what works well and what works less in the team, and the project.
It would also be a good thing to share a roadmap, or wishlist to priorize it in future releases.
it's important to have a project manager and community manager to keep the project alive.
For example I wish to have :
- An auto installation and auto update feature
- A maintained plugin for a communication with social network (facebook, google+, ...)
- A maintained plugin for Lightroom publications to zenphoto - A lot of maintained themes (although they are not part of core code)
- A lot of new themes (with all new and responsive standards)
As told on the forum :
I have not always agreed with Stephen choices, and how he discussed with users (it takes a lot to argue to convince him, and often unsuccessfully).
I always think it is sorely lacking a community of themes developers (to create free themes and premium themes also) because it is very important to be adopted by users (themes are the top of the iceberg for newbies).
To motivate some other people, a good way is to have some development plan, a roadmap, and discuss it in a positive way on forum or github...
I wish you the best
http://www.zenphoto.org/news/new-team-member
You said "as well as bringing Zenphoto up to modern web application standards in visual delight, UX, and feature design."
Before I get too excited, does this mean mobile phone and tablet features will be added, like the ability to swipe between photos without having to reload entire pages, such as image.php each time? Are you talking about faster, more efficient queries, and responsive design?
Please understand I'm not criticizing the old, just anticipating the new with these questons.
clickem
New themes are planned as well. The photo swiping is a front end feature and can already be done (using the Cycle2 script that powers the slideshow2 plugin and the slides show itself). We can't promise if themes will have that. But you can always do your own theme. A slight problem with encapuslating image pages in JavaScript is always that linking individual images can be a problem here and the theme gets more complex.
For swiping to load the normal loading pages there is a plugin available without those animations though.
Your comment that "Even if we may not be able to full fill everything. " is VERY telling. This is basic up-to-date functionality, and you refer to it as if it is some futuristic dreaming request by one or two people.
This is a cute script, and I'm sure your die-hard user base will stick with it. But the internet has moved WAY past this script. Responsive design is NOT a passing fad, nor are the mobile phones and tablets that rely on it. Fast, lean sql queries are an important part of scripting, as well, as slow websites can no longer survive.
I think you need to pull your head out of the sand and look at the new Internet, and put your defensive narrow view of this script away and look at it in the bright light of reality.
Sure, it is a cute script, and appears to have a lot of colorful history. But unless you are only designing this for yourself and a handful of "me too" developers, the number of actual users won't exceed your developer population and their mothers.
I had hoped that you guys would evolve over time, but your attitude seems the same. It looks great to you, and you'll just keep repainting it over and over again instead of reevaluating it, and actually bringing it into the websphere of today. Your response and attitude remains the same: you like zenphoto, so that's all that matters. Everyone else on the Internet has to adapt if they want to look at photos on zenphoto. The sad truth is, most people won't, and you'll find yourself here all alone, telling yourself that you're right, and everybody else is wrong.
So sad for a script that once held so much promise.
Best of luck with your hobby.
Please keep in mind we do all this voluntary, are not paid for it and are not a company. Additionally we are not a huge team.
We will do the best we can to update things in the future. Things will become responsive and mobile friendly and such. And yes, themes - what you call "public interface" - are dated. But given our limited resources we can't do everything and not everything at once. Themes are just a part of Zenphoto and anyone can provide custom ones if the included - and dated - ones are not fitting.
We are an open source project which always means a bit "do it yourself".