Francisco Burzi, describes the history of PHP-Nuke as follows:
PHP-Nuke is a free software, released under the GNU GPL License, version 2.0. PHP-Nuke is the result of many years administrating a news site called Linux Preview. First, around August 1998, I wrote my own code in Perl called NUKE and used it for about 1 year, then my site grew big, so I needed a more powerfull system and decided to use Slash, the same used in the Slashdot site. It’s good, but you realy need to know Perl to modify it, need too many modules, need to load a damn daemon that sucks all your CPU power. My Pentium III just appears to be a 386 each minute the daemon make its work.
Well, then I discovered Thatware, a good project to have a news site under PHP. I learned PHP in less than a week and began modifying it. There are too many mods to mention, it was practicaly a rewrite. I added some cool stuff, deleted some others and after more than 380 hours of hard work in 3 weeks! PHP-Nuke was born.
On August 17, 2000 I sold LinuxPreview.org to LinuxAlianza.com and now I have all the time to dedicate to the development of PHP-Nuke.
From January 2001 to January 2002, PHP-Nuke has been financially supported by MandrakeSoft, the folks that made Mandrake Linux. This gave me and PHP-Nuke a lot of oxygen and made possible a lot of stuff.
Now, I’m alone with this killer project. There is a lot of help from the people that use and develop modules and themes. Now, phpnuke.org is a big site with a lot of users and helpful information for any user around the world. There are also strong users community sites in almost any language you can imagine. Just go to phpnuke.org and enjoy this great community!
PHP-Nuke
Founder: Francisco Burzi
Initial Release: June 17, 2000
Written In: PHP
Purpose: PHP-Nuke was created as a web portal system (web 2.0) that allowed users to build dynamic websites focused on ease of use , content based management. It’s a pioneering open-source Content Management System (CMS) created by Francisco Burzi in 1998.
Key Features:
- Modular architecture (e.g., news, forums, downloads, links).
- Simple administration panel for non-technical users.
- Multi-language support.
- MySQL as the primary database backend.
Evolution and Criticism:
- PHP-Nuke gained significant popularity early on due to its ease of setup and wide functionality. It was a fork of the Thatware news portal system.
- PHP-Nuke became a significant force in the early days of web development, inspiring many other CMS platforms. Its modular architecture, where developers could create and add new functionalities (modules),
- However, it faced criticism for security vulnerabilities, frequent bugs, and the introduction of paid licensing in later versions, which alienated parts of the open-source community.
Decline:
Over time, security vulnerabilities and a lack of consistent development led to a decline in PHP-Nuke’s popularity. However, its influence is undeniable. Many popular CMS platforms today, such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, owe a debt to PHP-Nuke’s innovative approach and modular architecture.
By the mid-2000s, newer CMS platforms like Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal offered more robust and secure systems, leading to PHP-Nuke’s decline.
A web newbie since 1996