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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:44:56 +0200
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To: Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>
Cc: Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com>, Anthony Ferrara <ircmaxell@gmail.com>, jpauli <jpauli@php.net>, 
	PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] What is our definition of a "Backward Compatibility Break"
From: pierre.php@gmail.com (Pierre Joye)

hi,

On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 10:27 PM, Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com> wrote:
> a) The current releaseprocess RFC [1] says that "Backward
> compatibility must be kept" in minor version increments (5.4 -> 5.5).
> Seeing the discussion above, may I rephrase this to "Only minor
> backwards compatibility breaks allowed"? It seems that we agree that
> smaller breaks are okay, just no big stuff. I think that's what was
> meant all along there, but phrased a little bit too conservatively.
>
> b) In the PHP 5.5 thread Pierre said the following:
>
>> There is o 5.5 branch, there is master. Master is the development
>> branch and as such can have such breakages. It does not mean that we
>> have these BC breaks in 5.5. 5.5 should be based on 5.4 with the
>> feature additions and improvements we want in, but definitively not
>> with BC breaks.
>
> This is concerning me a bit. Does this mean that PHP 5.5 will be
> branched off PHP 5.4 and we will then backport features from master?
> If so, this would seem like a Very Bad Idea to me, from a purely
> technical point of view. Unless I'm much mistaken this would have to
> be done manually (git is of no help here) and would be a very tedious
> and fragile business.
> Before Pierre said that I was under the impression that PHP 5.5 will
> be branched off master, which would make a lot more sense to me. Could
> someone clarify how it will be done?

The idea of using 5.4 as base is to actually have a clue about what we break.

We do not have this clue in master and there are for sure non
acceptable BC breaks in master. They won't be in 5.5. I'd said before,
but every user I talk literally love this BC break policy. BC is the
most painful part for every hoster, framework developer or users. It
is also what prevents fast and smooth migration. We must be strict
here or 80% of the reasons why I pushed that release process RFC are
gone.

Cheers,
-- 
Pierre

@pierrejoye | http://blog.thepimp.net | http://www.libgd.org