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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] 5.4 moving forward
From: davidkmuir@gmail.com (David Muir)

On 07/06/11 01:49, Stas Malyshev wrote:
> Hi!
>
>> Currently off the shelf, 5.2.17 is the 'old stable' but for some
>> windows users
>> it IS the only available version. Changing the rest of the
>> infrastructure to
>
> 5.2.17 is unsupported. It is announced on php.net. Now, some Windows
> users, due to certain choices, may have to run this version - but this
> doesn't change the fact it's officially unsupported. So I don't see
> how it supports viability of LTS idea.

Yes, and one week after support ending with announcement of 5.2.15,
5.2.16 was released again claiming that support has ended. And then a
month later 5.2.17 was released, but no longer mentions that support has
ended. Not too surprising then if people incorrectly assume that
critical issues will continue to be fixed for 5.2.

>
>> package! So while PHP may have washed it's hands of the problem,
>> those users who
>> are stuck in the hole still need to be supported in some way. But all
>> that is
>
> There's nothing to prevent anybody willing to do it from providing
> this support. However, the question is not if there are users with
> some special needs. The question is LTS, specifically:
> 1. Will PHP group ever willing to support a version in LTS timeframe -
> so far it never happened

5.2 was supported for about 5 years, which is what one would expect from
an LTS release, so yes. It has effectively already happened.

> 2. How we know we'd need to support such version UPFRONT - before it's
> released?

Because you say upfront how long the release will be supported. This is
fairly straight-forward for any project using timed releases, which by
the looks of it, is what the RFC is suggesting.
How does Canonical know which Ubuntu release will be LTS? Because they
decided every 4th release will be LTS. It's really not any more
complicated than that.
Maybe confusion is because in the past PHP has not followed timed
releases, so there's no knowing how long it will be until the next
version comes out. The best you can do then is promise x months of
support after the next version is released.

>
>> being asked for is security fixes which seem to be a LOT less of a
>> problem
>> nowadays anyway? So support IS just a matter of maintaining
>> availability to it
>> and the correct builds of extensions that go with it.
>
> It looks to me you are confusing the question of "is LTS a viable
> model for PHP development" with "if we had LTS 5 years ago, would
> somebody benefit from it now". These are two different questions, and
> the second one is pure theoretical since we didn't and still haven't
> and I for one still don't understand how we could have it.

Not intentionally, but 5.2 was supported for the time-frame expected
from an LTS release. That may have given the impression that 5.3 will be
supported for 5 years too, and therefore hosts can upgrade within a year
or two after the release and still expect to get updates for the next
3-4 years.

One thing that I think would help drive adoption of newer versions is
EOL being very clearly stated. As it stands we don't know if 5.3 will
continue to be supported for the next 5 years, or if it will be EOL next
year. All we have to go on is what's happened in the past, and although
5.2's lifetime was an anomaly, it seems it's what people have come to
expect.

Cheers,
David