Exponential Community #

Exponential is made by its community. The Exponential Community is everyone who uses, contributes to, promotes and develops software using Exponential worldwide: site owners and editors, developers and designers, agencies and hosting partners, trainers and students, and the two organizations that hold the project together, the Exponential Foundation and 7x.

This book is the map. It says where the community meets, where to get help and how to ask for it, how to contribute code, translations and documentation, how the project releases and decides, and which public websites belong to the project. Every channel and site named here was checked to exist when this page was written (November 2026). Each section links to the detailed help pages instead of repeating them.

Contents #

1. Where to start
2. Who the community is
3. The community websites
4. Where to talk and get help
5. Reporting a bug well
6. Reporting a security problem
7. Contributing code
8. Translations
9. Documentation
10. Extensions, designs and packages
11. Your role in the community
12. Releases, the roadmap and decisions
13. Recognition and copyright
14. Supporting the project
15. Exponential elsewhere on the internet
16. Questions

1. Where to start #

2. Who the community is #

Exponential Community members use, contribute to, promote and develop software using Exponential worldwide. You belong as soon as you do one of the four; you do not need to do all of them (What the community is).

Two organizations hold the project together (COPYRIGHT.md):

• The Exponential Foundation (https://foundation.exponential.earth), the nonprofit that operates the project for its users and community, and the steward of the software's rights, license and history.
• 7x (https://se7enx.com), known as Brookins Consulting before 2022, the company that leads the development, maintains the code, reviews and merges the contributions and supports customers.

Around them are the contributors, the partners and agencies that build sites with Exponential, the hosting companies, the trainers, and the users. How they relate is described in Partners, community and ecosystem.

The code itself is much older than the name. It began as eZ publish, written by eZ Systems AS from 1999; that product was discontinued, and its legacy kernel was continued and renamed Exponential. The whole story is in the History of Exponential.

3. The community websites #

These are the public websites of the project, run by the Exponential Foundation and 7x. Each was checked over HTTPS; "Runs on" names the software only where the site itself says so (its generator tag or X-Powered-By header).

The project #

Documentation #

Distributions, packages and downloads #

Demos #

7x #

Some of these sites answer at further addresses as well (for example the older *.ezpublish.one names lead to the same sites); the addresses above are the ones to use. Short links such as https://issues.exponential.earth and https://github.exponential.earth lead to GitHub.

4. Where to talk and get help #

All of these are free. Community channels describes each one in detail, and Getting support says which to try first. The guide Getting Support also shows how to ask the communities of PHP, the database and the web server, and when to hire 7x.

For a question that needs a long answer, prefer the forums: a chat scrolls away, a forum thread stays searchable. Nobody promises an answer time in the free channels; paid support from 7x exists for when you cannot wait (Getting support).

How to ask so you get an answer: Asking a good question.

5. Reporting a bug well #

1. Check that it is a bug. Search the issue tracker and the forums first. Some behavior is deliberate, and other installations depend on it (CONTRIBUTING.md calls this a negative feature; see Getting support: negative features).
2. Use the right tracker. Software errors go to se7enxweb/exponential (or to the repository of the extension); problems with the websites or the community go to exponential-community.
3. Say what you run: the Exponential version (./console --version), the PHP version, the database, and the engine that serves the site (Velocity, Apache or nginx with PHP-FPM).
4. Give the steps: what you did, what you expected, what happened instead, and the error reference shown on the error page (Finding an error by its reference).
5. Leave out passwords, secrets and personal data.

Filing a bug has a template and examples.

6. Reporting a security problem #

Never report a vulnerability in a public issue, discussion, forum or chat. Send it privately to [email protected], as the Security Policy says: with the version, the PHP version, the engine and database, what an attacker can do and how to reproduce it. You can expect a first answer within one business day. An accepted issue is fixed on main and released with the next 6.0.x version.

7. Contributing code #

The rules are in CONTRIBUTING.md; in short:

• Fork, branch, pull request. One focused change per pull request, with tests that fail without it.
• Commit messages start with what the change does: Added:, Updated:, Fixed:, Removed: or Renamed:. The commit-msg hook (make hooks) and CI check it (the quality checks).
• Coding standards: PSR and the project's coding standards; new kernel code uses the exp prefix; administration templates follow Styling the administration.
• Keep the manifest current (make manifest-fix) and run the tests before you push.
• The CLA. A contribution to the core kernel is merged once its author's signed Contributor Licensing Agreement is on file; you sign once. Your own extensions and sites are not affected (CONTRIBUTING.md, Copyright assignment, The CLA explained).
• Review. Expect several review rounds, and squash and rebase your pull request onto main while it is open. The maintainers merge the contributions they receive: a pull request is reviewed, extended where it needs more (tests, documentation, the other designs), and merged; it is not turned away.

Your first contribution, step by step: Your first contribution and Contributing code.

8. Translations #

The administration is translated into 156 languages (see Languages for how complete each one is), and the help center is written in English with a complete German translation. Ways to help:

• improve the interface translation of your language (share/translations/<locale>/translation.ts);
• review machine-assisted translations and fix what reads wrong;
• translate help pages: they are free documentation under the GNU FDL (Free documentation).

Contributing translations explains where the files live and how to work with other speakers of your language.

9. Documentation #

The help center is built from Markdown files in the repository (doc/eng-us/, doc/ger-de/), so documentation is contributed like code: a pull request. Contributing documentation and help pages explains the conventions.

If you write an extension, document it where the help center finds it: README.md and INSTALL.md at the top of extension/<name>/, every other page as Markdown (.md) in extension/<name>/doc/, in English (Documenting an extension).

10. Extensions, designs and packages #

• Share what you build. An extension you publish yourself is yours, under the GPL; giving it back makes it usable by everyone (Giving extensions back, Sharing extensions and themes).
• Where extensions live: in their own GitHub repositories, installed with Composer from Packagist, listed on Exponential Projects.
• Packages for the setup wizard come from the package server; their sources are the -ezpackage repositories of the se7enxweb organization (Distributions of Exponential).
• Design and accessibility: Designers: start here.

11. Your role in the community #

The help center has a start page for many roles. A few of them:

Helping others is a contribution too: answering questions, mentoring, welcoming newcomers (Helping others).

12. Releases, the roadmap and decisions #

• Releases. Exponential 6.0 is the maintained line; fixes are made on main and published with the next 6.0.x release. A published tag is never changed: a fix reaches you as the next release (Security Policy, Updating Exponential 6.0). What changed in each release is in the changelogs under doc/changelogs/ and in the branch history.
• The roadmap lives on Share Exponential: the official roadmap at https://share.exponential.earth/roadmap and the community roadmap of feature requests at https://share.exponential.earth/community-roadmap (The roadmap).
• Decisions. 7x leads the development and reviews and merges the contributions; the Exponential Foundation operates the project and decides on Code of Conduct matters (COPYRIGHT.md, CONTRIBUTING.md). How the community takes part: How it works.

13. Recognition and copyright #

• Credit goes to contributors in the changelogs, in the commit authorship, and on the recognition pages.
• Copyright. The copyright of Exponential is held by the Exponential Foundation and 7x together, and the notice of the original developer, eZ Systems AS, stays in every file that contains its code (COPYRIGHT.md, Copyright and copyleft). Credit is not a copyright claim.
• The license is the GNU GPL, version 2 or later; the documentation is free under the GNU FDL (README-LICENSE).

14. Supporting the project #

You can support the project without writing code: become a partner, donate, take a sustaining support subscription, or sponsor new development (Give and donate, https://sponsor.se7enx.com). Telling others about Exponential counts as well (Advocates: start here).

15. Exponential elsewhere on the internet #

Social media #

These accounts are the ones the footers and community pages of exponential.earth, se7enx.com, Share Exponential, Exponential Projects and the documentation link to, and the GitHub profile of the se7enxweb organization names. Follow them for news; ask questions in the channels of section 4.

Sites by 7x that feature Exponential #

7x also runs public sites of its own that are built with the legacy kernel or Exponential and write about it in their content. They are not part of the project's documentation or support, but they are places where Exponential appears in public.

16. Questions #

Related pages #

• History of Exponential (1999 - 2026)
• Distributions of Exponential
• Exponential Competition: how Exponential compares with the other ways to run a website
• Community channels
• Getting support
• Getting Support: from helping yourself to the PHP ecosystem, the Foundation and 7x
• Contribute to the project
• CONTRIBUTING.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, SECURITY.md