I was working on a couple ideas for a new video this week. One involved touching on a feature that we’ve previously touched on, that would show off some more advanced functionality. The other is a new feature that we haven’t shown yet, but we’re working on making a couple changes to the way it looks so I thought it better to wait.

Then, of course there is a huge new feature that I’m anxious to share.. but I can’t, just yet. Actually there are several, but one really big one that’s sure to cause some stir. Some good stir.. and it’s been in the works for a really long time.

Still, I wanted to post something.. so here are the system requirements for v3, and a question for you.

Minimum Requirements

1. PHP version 5.1.3
2. PDO, pdo_mysql, curl (version 7.10.5), and openssl (version 0.9.6) PHP extensions
3. MySQL version 4.1
4. Apache, IIS, or LiteSpeed Web Server
5. ionCube PHP loader

Recommended Requirements

1. PHP version 5.2 or later
2. PDO, pdo_mysql, curl (version 7.10.5 or later), openssl (version 0.9.6 or later), ldap, mcrypt, gmp, json, imap, libxml, and simplexml PHP extensions
3. MySQL version 5.0 or later
4. Apache, IIS, or LiteSpeed Web Server
5. ionCube PHP loader
6. memory_limit set to 32 MB or greater

You’ll notice the only loader listed is ionCube, and that brings me to the question. Do you have need for a Source Guardian version? Do you prefer it over ionCube?

The vast majority of installations are using ionCube, and most servers that would have Source Guardian have ionCube too. If there are those that really need a Source Guardian encoded version, we could continue to make those builds, but prefer to drop it in favor of streamlining our build process and simplifying downloads. A common question we get is, “Which version do I need?”. Since I don’t need to use my toes to count the number of files we’ll actually be encoding for v3, our build process should be much simpler.. even better if we can just stick to ionCube.

If you have an opinion, please email me, paul [at] blesta. com

The goal is for another video next week and I’m trying to convince Cody to do more developer commentary. Maybe he can touch on the Plugin system, it’s incredible.

Ok, back to work. Thanks for being awesome.