Announcing eZ Publish Basic: Revitalizing a Classic Open-Source CMS with Full PHP 8 Compatibility

We are thrilled to announce a new project to breathe new life into eZ Publish 2.x, the community-supported CMS that served users for nearly a decade. With PHP's evolution over the years, the original eZ Publish has faced compatibility issues. But now, 7x is leading an open-source initiative to bring eZ Publish 2 into 2025 with full PHP 8 support.

Introducing eZ Publish Basic (Version 2.4.0.0.0)

Launched on GitHub on November 1, 2024, "eZ Publish Basic" marks the first step in our mission to modernize this reliable content management system. Our goal is to retain its core functionality while updating the codebase to work seamlessly with PHP 8. By addressing major changes, such as replacing the outdated "register globals" setting, we aim to ensure that developers and community sites can continue to use and customize eZ Publish Basic with confidence.

The Power of Open Source and the Choice of the GNU GPL License

From the start, eZ Publish was built to be adaptable, transparent, and community-centered. In keeping with that mission, we’ve chosen to update eZ Publish Basic under the GNU GPLv2 (or later version). This choice is central to our commitment: the GPL not only allows everyone to access, use, and modify the software freely but also ensures that improvements remain open and available for all. The GNU license strengthens eZ Publish as a platform by safeguarding both the community’s and developers’ contributions, creating a CMS ecosystem where freedom, adaptability, and innovation flourish.

A Fresh Start for New Developers and PHP Enthusiasts

eZ Publish Basic is designed to be more than just a CMS upgrade—it’s an invitation for new end users or developers to experience the capabilities of a powerful, well-structured CMS that offers a breath of fresh air compared to writing vanilla PHP. This project provides a unique entry point for aspiring developers, where they can learn core CMS concepts that make eZ Publish worth using and adapting in 2025. By working with eZ Publish Basic, developers can gain foundational skills and insight into a robust CMS structure that emphasizes freedom, scalability, and practical solutions.

An Educational Tool for Students and New Developers

This project is intentionally educational, crafted with students and beginner developers in mind, even as it retains the power for production-grade tasks. eZ Publish Basic allows newer developers to learn the fundamentals of PHP and CMS design in an open-source, collaborative setting. While it’s accessible to those still learning PHP, it remains fully functional and ready for any production environment. This approach empowers emerging developers to build real-world skills while contributing to a larger, impactful project and experiencing the value of community-driven software.

Why Join the eZ Publish Basic Project?

For developers, historians of the open-source world, or anyone who used eZ Publish 2 or subsequent versions (eZ Publish 3, 4, 5, and the Netgen or Ibexa OSS adaptations), this project is a chance to support and preserve a piece of open-source history. The open-source community has always been a critical part of eZ Publish’s journey, and we are inviting contributors to help complete this PHP 8 migration and keep eZ Publish Basic as a useful, adaptable solution for years to come.

Project Details

• Repository: GitHub - eZ Publish Basic
• Current Version: 2.4.0.0.0
• Planned Release for Full PHP 8 Compatibility: Q2 2025
• License: GNU GPLv2 (or later version)

Whether you’re a seasoned developer, an advocate for free software, or someone who used eZ Publish 2 in its early days, we invite you to join us. Your contributions—whether in code, testing, feedback, or ideas—will help ensure that eZ Publish Basic thrives as a resource for anyone seeking a robust, open-source CMS. Let’s preserve the values of openness and collaboration while creating a tool ready for today’s web.

Help us keep eZ Publish Basic open, accessible, and adaptable for years to come. Join us today on GitHub and be part of the journey to make this legendary CMS a modern, powerful solution for all.

Together, let’s keep the spirit of free software alive and well in eZ Publish Basic!

7x Recommendation Upgrade From PHP 5.x or 7.x to PHP 8.2 Today for a much more secure and complete eZ Publish installation.

There are several mission critical security, stability and performance reasons why it's a good idea to upgrade from PHP 7.x to PHP 8.2.

An upgrade to eZ Publish 6 (v6.0.x) for many websites takes less than two hours time to complete.

Here are just a few key reasons

1. Improved performance: PHP 8.2 provides websites several performance improvements that make it faster than previous versions of PHP. This means that your website or application could run faster and handle more requests per second using cheeper website hosting.

2. Improved error handling: PHP 8.2 has improved error handling that provides more detailed error messages and makes it easier to catch and handle errors in your code.

3. New features: PHP 8.2 introduces several new features, including improved type system, named arguments, and union types, which can help you write cleaner and more concise code.

4. Security enhancements: PHP 8.2 comes with several security enhancements, including stricter type checks, improved password hashing, and better support for SSL/TLS

In summary, upgrading to PHP 8.2 can benefit both your website's performance and security, as well as improving your development experience with the new features.

5) Server compatibility. As versions older than PHP 8.1 have been deprecated and are no longer generally available, or supported then you'll find you must upgrade. There is no support for any versions prior to PHP8.1.

Once the server is upgraded your existing eZ Publish website will crash without a companion upgrade to eZ Publish 6 (v6.0.x) which for many websites takes less than two hours time to complete.

I am very excited to be the first to point out that 7x has been continuously been developing and preparing for the next major release of eZ Publish version 6.0.0 via Composer via GitHub.

Work hard in silence and let success make the noise.

As a result of our recent collaboration with Share eZ Publish! Partner ZWEBB we are in the process of testing and distributing the bug fixes needed to successfully install eZ Publish with PHP 8.3 the latest release of the software that powers most of the web.

Install 7x eZ Publish 6.0alpha1 from composer today and provide feedback on your own experience.

You won’t regret this decision.

Update: On Christmas Day we found the last key blocking bugs and fixed them for a much more stable alpha Christmas Day release from our main branch on github or our monthly branch 2023.12 and tag 2023.12.05. Read the release announcements and join the discussions.

I am very excited to again be the first to point out that 7x has been continuously been developing and preparing for the next major release of eZ Publish version 6.0.0 via Composer via GitHub.

Work hard in silence and let success make the noise.

7x is distributing the bug fixes needed to successfully install eZ Publish with PHP 8.3 the latest release of the software that powers most of the web.

Install 7x eZ Publish 6.0 from composer today and provide feedback on your own experience.

Here is a quick example of how to use composer to instal eZ Publish 6.0

mkdir ezpublish; cd ezpublish; composer require se7enxweb/ezpublish:v6.0.0;

You won’t regret this decision.

Update: On Christmas Day we found the last key blocking bugs and fixed them for a much more stable New Year‘s Day release. Read the release announcements and join the discussions.

Netgen eZ Publish need’s vendor based default installation campaign today to help vendors improve their own application installation process of the latest version of eZ Publish instead of falsely misleading people into believing that the eZ Publish project or software is a dead app (non functioning).

Short: It doesn’t work yet.

Keep waiting for more official updates and extended support for your distr package manager implementation of all required php extensions.

In one way or another between the two of the flavors of Ubuntu/Debian failed to properly install all the php extensions (php-intl I’m looking at you) required by eZ Publish CMS to run in php 8.3 in 12/2023.

My attempts to install php were package based and dependent on the maintainer to provide full support for the latest distributions of ubuntu / mint. If I would’ve installed from sources, I’m sure I wouldn’t have had as many problems hee hee.

I desperately need to test a full eZ Publish hosting environment running the latest php release to find and fix any compatibility issues and prove it does infact function as desired.

Time now is but an illusion

A word today about the server requirements for an eZ Publish website. They may seem daunting but from years of experience let me assure you they are not in any way.

The most resource intensive part about installing eZ Publish is often the initial installation setup wizard usage to build your installation for the first time. This is where most shared hosting users with limited experience make their biggest mistake, building a eZ Publish website initially on shared hosting, it's often possible but not as pleasant as a box you can control yourself as root. It's better to upload a (mostly) complete built setup ready to run on production.

After which the cost of eZ Publish goes down dramatically and then depends upon the custom features you require for your website.

You'll find, with some work, if the hosting is designed for WordPress, you can alternatively host a complete ready to host eZ Publish on almost any kind of hosting with just enough memory being the key to a fully featured website. I remember hosting eZ Publish v2.x on 486 CPU with less than 256 MB of memory for both OS, Apache Web server and eZ Publish PHP.

With that in mind it is trivial to distribute a completely setup eZ Publish installation to the server hosting your website by transferring the files of eZ Publish and loading your database dump consisting of your setup eZ Publish website structure and content to the website server.

Warning: Skipping the setup wizard can lead to advanced troubleshooting of your web server / PHP environment to ensure the server itself is configured to support the base eZ Publish requirements. Also these lesser hosting packages are often best for hosting production installations of eZ Publish much more than they are suited for active eZ Publish extension or kernel development which is a common pitfall.

A word on cheaper hosting packages: They may be cost effective for production hosting but can be difficult and unstable for development use. This is where the wisdom and foresight of an effective website administrator comes in to leverage each hosting platform for it's advantages and avoid the more painful disadvantages.

7x is distributing PHP 8.x Support for eZ Publish Legacy on GitHub!

This year I’ve done an incredible amount of work bringing php 8.2 support to the netgen repository.

That said, now the whole world can run ezpublish on the latest versions of php.

This repository can be installed using composer! Checkout the packagist!

If your like me still hosting and developing eZ Publish today I strongly recommend you upgrade to the latest version of 7x eZ Publish!

There are a few work arounds and remaining issues but overall it is a great success.