I needed to upgrade php to 5.3 and when I did the “Zend Loader” for your files was lost. Question, WHY is there an encoder in the distro? When all the files are open source? Take that out please. I had to delete the freepbx and the /var/www/html files and then download 2.9 from the site and upgrade my php and mysql.
FIrst a few clarifications, almost everything in the Distro is Open Source, but there are a few instances that are not if you have a look at some of the FreePBX modules that can get installed.
The reasons there is an encoder is that there are commercial modules that are available (optionally) for FreePBX that would require that if installed.
As far as the problems with 5.3, I can’t give you an answer as I don’t work on that side of the Distro building. I can guarantee that when the Distro is ready to install 5.3 any issues will be worked out.
The Distro purposely restricts itself to the controlled yum repository that is managed by the developers involved. The reason that is done is specifically to avoid the sort of issue that you ran into. If your needs go beyond what is provided and supported by the Distro, then you are either on your own or you may need to consider another FreePBX Distro or rolling your own.
We are glad to hear the feedback such as what you have provided here and it is all internalized and fed into the plans, but it doesn’t always mean it will be acted on immediately. In this case, the current expectations are that we will roll to 5.3 coincident with the corresponding CentOS upgrade that includes it. The FreePBX code base includes a set of compatibility libraries that assure FreePBX itself can be coded against 5.3, but there has been no pressing need to upgrade the base PHP beyond what CentOS supports in the current version.
I hope that helps understand why we have what we have and the appropriate expectations as to what will be done moving forward.
Yes we have plans to move to Centos 5.6 in the future which I believe includes php 5.3 so we will make sure zend is compiled for it at that time.
Yes zend is installed on the PBX for any commercial paid or free modules that are available for you system.