Symphony.

I've been with the Symphony community for a little over 6 years and in that time I've made worldwide friendships and have had the opportunity to work on some truly amazing websites with some very clever people. Symphony is the reason I excelled at creating interesting experiences. Unlike others in the industry, I've never had to worry about my CMS getting in the way of the website. I'm sure many of you will have shared a similar experience.

I started contributing to the codebase in May 2010 and I've learnt a hell of lot since then. It was my first open source project and the community has been wonderful and incredibly grateful and supportive through thick and thin. It's therefore with a touch of sadness that I'd like to say that I'm stepping down from the Core Lead Developer position and taking a bit of a 'open source' holiday.

I've been mulling this over for a few months now and believe some time away from the project is what I need right now to reflect, analyse and figure out what's next. I hope in this time to experiment with new ideas, new technology and above all, learn. I still use Symphony personally and professionally, so I will be around to help and contribute wherever I can!

I'm excited to announce that stepping up will be Nicolas in the Core Lead Developer position. Nicolas and his team use Symphony almost exclusively and have been nicely rewarded with a stack of awards. Nicolas has been an invaluable contributor to the Symphony project both with his code and his insights and discussion. Moving into this role will allow Nicolas to push Symphony forward and continue empowering new developers to create the experiences they dream about.

I hope you will all welcome Nicolas to this position, it's a fantastic opportunity and I'm sure he'll do a stellar job!

I am really sad to see you stepping down, Brendan. I always admired your clear technical evaluation, and I appreciated your patience — and your coding skills — just as much.

At the same time I say "hello and welcome" to Nicolas: I know that you are burning for Symphony, I have seen you doing great things… you are the best to take over, and I wish you all the best!

Thanks Brendan for your awesome work and professionality.

Wish you all the best in your upcoming efforts and further growth.

And thanks again, Nicolas, for your sparkling activity.

All the best to all of you guys!

I can only second Michael and Juraj. All the best to you Brendan, and many thanks for all your work, support and patience!

Brendan, I'd like to chip in a massive thank you for your dedication and hard work over the past years. Symphony has been a hugely successful tool for me so I certainly owe you (a lot of) beers.

Welcome Nicolas. Its great to see someone stepping into the lead position and I look forward to seeing how Symphony and the communication shape up as we go forward.

A huge Thank You Brendan! for all your hard-work as well as your wise and considered leadership, Symphony continues to be the best CMS for the discerning developer in no small part due to your great efforts, many many thanks and wish you the very best for the future.

Welcome Nicolas! Thank you for taking on the responsibilities of leadership and I look forward to Symphony continuing in its tradition of excellence.

I'll repeat it: Thanks Brendan.

I will do my best to honor your work (and the work of many others by the same occasion).

I'd also like to invite anybody that would like to contribute to the project or any of its related projects (extensions) to contact me on twitter or github (@nitriques).

Can't wait to do my first release!

Welcome Nicolas and till soon Brendan. Both of you guys did and do a tremendous part for the cms we all love.

Brendan, there is no way we can thank you enough for you have done for the Symphony community, it's with sadness that we see you leave this role. Would like to wish you luck in your endeavours and hope to see you around.

Nicholas pretty sure that we'll see you do a great job, feel free to ping me maybe I can start helping out a bit more.

Many thanks, Brendan. I hope your time away is good, and all the best with whatever's next.

Thank you, Brendan, for the enormous contribution to this amazing project. Good luck in finding a great adventure to follow next. Thank you Nicolas, for taking over, and thanks to all of you who contribute so much.

Thanks @plenaforma, @gunglien, @DavidOliver and @ellie !

Thanks a lot Brendan, for all the time, knowledge and passion you invested into Symphony! I started using it shortly before you joined the team and the developing experience, flexibility and power have improved to such a great extent over this time - largely due to the work you put into this project! Wish you all the best & hope to see you around!

Your loss as the "leader" of Symphony will be hard to bear for such a small community and therefore I'm really glad to see Nicolas stepping in and taking over the responsibilities as lead core developer. Having used most of the long list of awesome extensions he has published over the last years I'm pretty sure he's the perfect choice as follow-up. So thanks to you too, Nicolas - I hope you'll get enough support from the community so that developing and maintaining the core and all your extensions doesn't become too much of a burden.

I hope you'll get enough support from the community so that developing and maintaining the core and all your extensions doesn't become too much of a burden.

I sure hope the same! But I have some many projects running with it (close to a 100 still online), I do not see how the maintenance can stop :)