Story: a code base kept alive
This page is for journalists who write the general-interest story: what happens to software when its creator moves on. Exponential is a documented answer.
Contents
The story in one paragraph
The code was developed from 1999 by eZ Systems as eZ Publish, a product that its creator discontinued after almost 18 years; its last releases are listed until September 2021. "Exponential has made it beyond it's end of life in 2021 and survived" (README). 7x, which as Brookins Consulting had worked with the software since its first versions, launched its project in December 2023, released 6.0.0 on 1 January 2024 and fourteen more releases by June 2026, moved the code to PHP 8.0 to 8.5 and renamed it Exponential in August 2025; in March 2026 a nonprofit, the Exponential Foundation, was founded for it (The history for long-form stories).
Facts you can print
| Fact | Source |
|---|---|
| Copyright years from 1999 (eZ Systems) and 1998 (7x and the Foundation's notice) | COPYRIGHT.md |
| Oldest commit 2 September 2002; more than 27,000 commits (18 October 2026) | Exponential by the numbers |
| Last release of the old line: v2019.03.6.1, 3 September 2021 | Who is 7x?, timeline |
| 15 releases of the 6.0 line from January 2024 to June 2026 | The 6.0.x releases at a glance |
| PHP 8.0 to 8.5 (PHP 7.4 usable without support) supported | Story: current PHP |
| "The platform originally known as eZ Publish reached end-of-life in 2021. We kept going." | se7enxweb GitHub profile, quoted on Who is 7x? |
What not to claim
| Do not say | Say instead |
|---|---|
| "Rescued from eZ Systems" | Continued under the GPL; no dealings with eZ Systems are documented |
| "Never stopped" | The original line ended in 2021; 7x launched its project in December 2023 |
| "Thousands of legacy sites saved" | No usage numbers exist |
Angles and headline ideas
- "The CMS that refused to die" (the se7enxweb profile's own phrase: "the PHP CMS that refused to die"; quote it as theirs).
- "What open source means when the vendor leaves."
Related pages
- Story: open source and licenses
- Timeline for reporters
- Talking points: longevity and history
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Become an Exponential Partner
Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster.