The OPN history

Actually the roots of OpenPHPNuke are PHPNuke version 4. Over time MyPHPNuke (MPN) was derived from PHPNuke, and the MPN code became the cornerstone for OpenPHPNuke. So OpenPHPNuke is no longer truly connected to the PHPNuke roots except for the similar name.

If we were to write an OpenPHPNuke chronicle it might start out like this: "On a mild day in may 2001 the basis for OpenPHPNuke was layed by accident ...". However, nobody remembers whether it really was a mild day in may. It was decided though that a German support site for MyPHPNuke - www.mynuke.de - was to be founded and the plan was immediately put into practice: the homepage was online a few hours after. This step had become necessary because the existing support site http://www.hhombergs.de could no longer be administered by Heinz Hombergs who had to put more effort into his job. Then came what often happens: the euphoria ebbed off and 3-4 days later only a few “founding fathers” were left. Later new eager colleagues joined the group, but they turned out to be mainly and increasingly critical regarding the existing MPN structures, they all wanted more weigth in the decision making processes. Numerous ingenious modules were produced by those more critical voices which was met with recognition from the international MPN users. Then, for the first time, some of our coders were admitted to the official team. But sadly those coders were only used up and again did not have a true weight when it came to decision making.

Pretty abruptly the MPN Headquarter decided to stop developing MPN any further than 1.88 and start a new project, OOPS, instead. All those who had been critical of the former MPN policy were sure that this was a turning point: we wanted to continue the history of MPN. The dynamic forces were the German team as well as some international MPN coders. Among those are some who turned their back later to work on their own projects with great success. The group then came to agree that a new, revolutionized MPN version 1.9 was to be built which could meet modern expectations. After many chats, discussions and mails the first developers’ site was finally done. And again we encountered problems. The "1 person MPN headquarter" stepped forward and prohibited any further activities in the name of MPN – although the majority of our coders had been part of the official team and although a „co-owner“ (there were two owners) supported our efforts – probably because the headquarter felt threatened by an improved system. In order to solve the problem once and for all we appointed a chat-meeting with the second owner and there we learned that he had transferred the rights on the name “MPN” to the other headquarter person without us knowing it. We sensed his regret between the lines but had to accept his decision – and here was the next problem. A new name. Several names were discussed – dischanuke for example – but then Alex came up with a more suiting name and we all agreed.

OPENPHPNUKE
Back then we could not have forseen how efficient OpenPHPNuke would be. If you take a closer look you will see that OPN is very innovative. This has become possible because the entire system has been revised. The HTML was largely adapted to present web standards, the separation of content and layout was initialized. Many modules are already XHTML valid. This is an ongoing process, and due to the enormous amount of code it will take quite some time. Several other systems hide PHP-warnings (which have a negative effect on the webserver) but with OPN they are mercilessly revealed as BUGs. Thereby, error warnings can be extinguished by and by so that OPN’s performance increases steadily.

Three Coders are working to get the first release ready since december 2001, 30 active betatesters support them in the effort. (Unlike other systems the beta test was not public – this provided our coders with silence and quietude required for high quality code.) All over the web the NUKE community was already interested and waiting for the release. And rightly so, for OPN is very promising. We are bound to meet all your expectations. OPN comes along with new functions for Content Managment, so that everybody will be able to put her/his ideas into practice.
Note: The variety of possibilities will require that you plan your content even more carefully.

Enough now. All of us who are involved in the developing process hope you will enjoy this piece of free software.
 
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