Here is the transcript of the video in case you would have a hard time understanding my accent ;)

Hi, I'm Matt Aimonetti from the merb core team and as you might have heard, a big announcement was made earlier today.
I did this video to hopefully answer the questions you might have.


Q: So what's the big news?

* merb and rails team will work together on the next version of their frameworks
* merb 2.0 and rails 3.0 share the same common endpoint
* we realized we now have the same objectives and agreed on all the key principles.
* merb will provide Rails with agnosticism, modularity, improved performance and a public API.
* The end product will be called Rails 3.0 but what real matters is that it's a huge gain for the entire community.


Q: What??? I thought there was a war going on between Rails and merb, what happened?

* There was no war between rails and merb
* We created merb because rails was not fitting us
* We wanted better performance, more choices/ more modularity and a Public API.
* The Rails team now embraces these concepts and want Rails to follow them, so why not work together?

Q: Wait, does that mean that merb is dead?

* Absolutely not!
* merb development won't stop, we are going to keep on releasing updates until rails 3.0
* clear migration path, and upgrading to rails 3.0 will be as trivial as upgrading from rails 2.x to Rails 3.0

Q: What does the timeline look like?

We just started getting together and discuss the technical details. We are shooting for a release at RailsConf 2009. However it's hard to estimate this kind of things so again, that's just an estimate :)

Q: I just started a merb project, so what now?

I'm sure you had valid reasons to use merb, you needed modularity, performance and a solid API.
Keep on using Merb, we won't let you down. The good news is that the next version of merb (rails 3.0) will be even awesomer!

Q: What about my client who was looking at using merb for his new project?

If your client is going to be using merb for valid reasons (and not, just because it's not rails) he should still use merb, but with the full understanding that he/she will end up using Rails in 6 months or so. Again, Rails 3.0 will have what pushed you to use merb.

Q: I've been involved with the merb-book, what will happen with this project?

* rails 3.0 won't get released right away
* still need awesome documentation
* if we look at rails 3.0 as merb 2.0, we can easily imagine how the current work can be extended to the new version.
* rails team will also include an evangelism team which I will be part of, so will be able to focus more on projects like the book.

Q: I've been working on a merb plugin, what should I do?

Keep working on it! We'll assist you with the migration process and the new solid API.

Q: What if I still have questions?

Come talk with me, or any members from the new team. We'll be open to hear your questions, worries, frustrations.
merb always valued its developers and we will continue to do so but at a bigger scale.