PHPNG is actually the official next version of PHP. If the PHPNG team is dead that means no active development is being done on PHP (period).

If PHPNG dies they simply could elect a different environment to be the official one. Just because PHPNG is "the future" right now doesn't mean the fate of the language is tied to it forever.

It's all well and good labelling HHVM the new official environment, but a lot of existing code does not work on HHVM.

Facebooks' ties with the NSA spying ring is what makes me think that. Oh, that and showing users their dead relatives pictures surrounded by festive themes around christmas time.

EDIT: I didn't think I would need to mention the obvious reason nhtechie there mentioned. That was my whole point after all, for the ones who understood it before downvoting, but whatever.

You're being downvoted because it's extremely foolish to think that Facebook will collapse due to the dead people on it. My theory is that people don't even know where to start on a rebuttal for such an argument given how absurd it is, so instead, they downvote.