Midgard 8.09.0RC released

 Lodz, September 29th 2008 -- The Midgard Project has released first
'Release Canditate' release of 8.09 "Ragnaroek LTS" generation of the
Midgard Content Management System. Midgard is a mature Free Software CMS
package targeted for mid-to-high-end web services.
About this release
Midgard 8.09.0RC "Ragnaroek LTS" release is the third release of Midgard
following the new time-based release process. Because of this,
versioning numbering of both Midgard and MidCOM have been synchronized
to follow a date-based pattern. Using old version numbering the software
included in this release would have been Midgard 1.9 and MidCOM 2.9. The
new release process has been created to align Midgard with the release
synchronicity model followed by free software projects like GNOME and
Ubuntu.

When finalized, the 8.09 "Ragnaroek LTS" will be a Long Term Support
version of Midgard for which bug fixes and minor feature improvements
will be supplied by the Midgard community for several years. It is
recommended that all Midgard users upgrade their installations to the
Midgard 8.09 series for stability, performance and maintainance reasons.
Upgrade from MidCOM 2.8 installations running with PHP5 has been made as
seamless as possible.

The version is targeted to ease transition from web services using the
deprecated Midgard 1.x APIs to the new Midgard2 architecture. Because of
this, the release provides both API versions. This means that the
release can be used to run both Midgard 1 applications like the version
2.9 of the MidCOM component framework, and Midgard2 applications like
MidCOM3.

Changes from Midgard 1.8 and MidCOM 2.8:

 * Midgard and MidCOM now follow an unified release schedule and roadmap
 * There is a new command-line database and website setup utility
 * There is a new Site Wizard web interface for website creation
 * PHP4 support has been removed in favor of PHP5
 * GObject attributes of Midgard objects are directly mapped to PHP
objects for performance reasons
 * Repligard package has been removed and replaced by new built in
replication API
 * The MidCOM framework uses autoloading to reduce memory usage and
processing time
 * Prototype Javascript framework has been removed in favor of jQuery
 * New Midgard logo and graphical guidelines have been deployed across
the system
 * Packages are built for several Linux distributions using the openSuse
Build Service
 * Classic Midgard API has been deprecated in favor of MgdSchema and
Query Builder, but is available via --with-legacy-api configuration
switch in midgard-php5
 * midgard-config command-line tool replaced with Midgard configuration
supported by pkg-config


In addition Midgard 8.09 provides new experimental ("Midgard2") features
for developers:

 * D-Bus signals from I/O events, and ability to pass D-Bus messages
through Midgard API
 * Event handling also available for languages without event support
(like PHP5)
 * New authentication and user management API
 * New API for objects' attachments and parameters
 * New API for binary blobs

Planned for next releases

 * First stable release of 8.09 ("Ragnaroek LTS"): October 6th, 2008
  * Long Term Supported Midgard version
 * First Midgard 9.03 ("Midgard2") stable release: March 2009
  * Targeted as general, replicated persistent storage framework
reaching further than just the web
  * Automated database MgdSchema management and table initialization
  * Language bindings for Python and Mono (.Net)
  * Support for different database back-ends like PostgreSQL, SQLite,
Oracle and MS SQL
  * Completely rewritten high-performance MidCOM model-view-controller
framework for PHP ("MidCOM3")
  * XMPP Peer-to-Peer replication
  * Removed Apache module
  * Redesigned and web server independent PHP extension (Apache and
Lighttpd support)
  * Development coordinated via Git instead of Subversion

About Midgard
Midgard is a capable open source content management package targeted for
mid-to-high-end websites. The Midgard community has always focused on
clean and manageable code, high security and multilingual support in the
toolkit.

Some feature highlights:

 * Modular system that allows construction of a site by creating a
directory hierarchy powered by different components
 * Powerful templating of all output in the system
 * Highly configurable content entry views
 * Full caching of generated pages and uploaded file attachments
 * "Double click to edit" on-site WYSIWYG editing
 * Comprehensive access controls
 * Content replication for clustered setups and staging/live publishing
 * Hosting multiple sites and organizations within one Midgard installation
 * Full-text search powered by SOLR


The components available for Midgard provide functionality ranging from
typical content-oriented websites to highly personalized web services
supporting features like geographical positioning and recommendation
mining. Several Midgard components include integration features for
synchronizing content from popular Social Web services like Flickr,
Jaiku and Twitter.

Midgard includes:

 * System library for persistent storage, replication and interprocess
communication
 * Apache module for HTTP request mapping
 * PHP5 extension for object-oriented data handling API
 * MidCOM MVC framework for PHP5
 * Content management tools and user interfaces
 * Additional components that may be installed using the PEAR package
management tool


Get started with Midgard today!
Licensing

 * Midgard and MidCOM are available under the [GNU Lesser General Public
License][0] (LGPL)
 * Some tools bundled in Midgard distribution are available under other
open source licenses like GPL and Apache Software License

System requirements

 * Linux, Unix or any POSIX server
 * Apache 2.x HTTP server
 * GLib 2 C library
 * PHP 5.x programming language
 * MySQL 5.x database
 * APC or other PHP byte code cache recommended
 * 1GB of RAM or more recommended (with MidCOM3 256MB is enough)

Find out more about Midgard

 * [Download page and changelog of latest release][1]
 * [Documentation wiki][2]
 * [Unofficial Midgard wiki][3]
 * [Trac bug and project tracker][4]
 * [Ohloh analysis on Midgard sources][5]

Midgard Community
Since 1999, Midgard has been worked on by an international team of free
software developers. Unlike many other open source CMS projects, Midgard
is not controlled by a single corporation, but instead the development
work is coordinated and shared by a cluster of organizations mainly
located in north Europe. All decisions and development directions in the
community are discussed openly, and the decisions are made in Midgard
Gatherings - events that are arranged twice a year.

Midgard is a large and mature code base that is being actively
developed. Copyrights to the Midgard software are owned by the community
members.
Contact the community

 * [Mailing lists][6]
  * [Users' forum][7]
  * [Developers' forum][8]
 * IRC: #midgard on irc.freenode.net
 * [#Midgard on Jaiku][9]

More information
Piotr Pokora, Midgard release manager
piotrek.pokora(at)gmail.com

Henri Bergius, Midgard spokesman
henri.bergius(at)iki.fi

The Midgard Project website
[www.midgard-project.org][10]

[0]: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html
[1]: http://www.midgard-project.org/download/8-9.html
[2]: http://www.midgard-project.org/documentation/
[3]: http://midgardwiki.contentcontrol-berlin.de/index.php/Mai...
[4]: http://trac.midgard-project.org/
[5]: http://www.ohloh.net/projects/midgard
[6]: http://lists.midgard-project.org/listinfo
[7]: http://www.midgard-project.org/discussion/user-forum/
[8]: http://www.midgard-project.org/discussion/developer-forum/
[9]: http://jaiku.com/channel/midgard
[10]: http://www.midgard-project.org/