All projects need to have a plan for where they want to go and ImpressCMS is no different. In the past, we have had several versions of roadmaps that quickly got out of synch as we adapted to current needs and conditions. We also tried to detail several releases in the future. In order to allow for more flexibility, we are simplifying our roadmap(s) - we will have 1 overview, published on our project site, providing the goals and objectives of the current release and future releases. There will be a technical roadmap maintained in Trac with all the how-to's and tasks needed to implement the features of the release and meet the goals and objectives.

Back in a role he is well-suited for, Marc-Andre (marcan) has been selected as the lead developer for the ImpressCMS 1.3 release. Marc-Andre, one of the original founders of ImpressCMS, he once again is available, willing and quite capable of assuming this role. As the lead developer, Marc-Andre will be responsible for the technical implementation of the goals and objectives of the 1.3 roadmap. He will be working closely with David Janssens (fiammybe), the release manager for 1.3, who will be responsible for final determinations of what is added in this release and what does not stay.

As discussed in our forums, a new leadership role has been established for ImpressCMS - that of Release Manager. The release manager will have the responsibility of leading the release from beginning to end, considering each feature request and making the final determination if it fits within the roadmap established for the release. No stranger to the community or to project management, David Janssens (fiammybe) will be filling the role of release manager for 1.3.

Almost 14 months in the making, ImpressCMS 1.2 is now ready as a Final release! ImpressCMS 1.1 was released at the end of October 2008 and the scope of changes in this release has kept the developers, testers and translators busy.

ImpressCMS has had a short, but notable history - founded in 2007, an initial release in January 2008, 3rd place in Packt Publishing's Most Promising Open Source CMS in 2008 and 1st place in 2009, a 2008 finalist in SourceForge's Community Choice Awards, 32 separate releases and almost 10,000 commits in its code repository.

This release is a Final release, meaning it is ready for use on a live site!