Re: RIP PHP 4?

Nevermind the wording, just as soon as we just put a notice on php.net that the "end is near, prepare yourselves" the sooner hosting companies, etc. realize the end is really near.. :) I'd be more for dropping all support whatsoever by the end of this year and focus totally on PHP 5/6. Critical security fixes are another issue altogether. --Jani Rasmus Lerdorf kirjoitti:

Antony Dovgal wrote:

On 06.07.2007 19:07, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:

I'm breaking your vote only rule. I don't really understand what dropping support means if we will still release security fixes. That's the mode we have been in for at least a year, so what would change at the end of the year? Dropping support to me means PHP 4 becomes like PHP 3. No new releases for any reason, and I don't think we can realistically do that yet. Saying we are dropping support and then continuing on with the status quo seems odd to me.

To me it means in the first place that we can add a canned answer to the bugtracker which would say "PHP4 is not supported anymore, install PHP5" and close all PHP4 only reports. So no bug-fixes, no releases except for ones fixing critical security problems. And even that should be ceased either in say.. 1 or 2 years.

When was the last time we did a PHP4-only bug fix? My fear is that the impact of the no-more-support statement is hurt when we qualify it with the fact that nothing is really changing. I'd be more in favour of a statement that put a final death date on it which means no new releases of any sort. We could still say security-fixes only by the end of the year and then death by 08/08/08 or something like that. -Rasmus