PEAR packages on PHP 5.6

Hello PHP/PEAR experts, We have been using two PHP (5.2.10) / MySQL (Ver 14.12 Distrib 5.0.45) applications developed in-house, running on CentOS 5.2. These two applications depend on these PEAR packages, specially the highlighted ones: # pear list INSTALLED PACKAGES, CHANNEL PEAR.PHP.NET <http://pear.php.net/>: ========================================= PACKAGE VERSION STATE Archive_Tar 1.3.2 stable Auth 1.6.1 stable Console_Getopt 1.2.3 stable Event_Dispatcher 1.0.0 stable HTML_Template_IT 1.2.1 stable LiveUser 0.16.13 beta LiveUser_Admin 0.3.9 beta MDB2 2.4.1 stable MDB2_Driver_mysql 1.4.1 stable MDB2_Driver_mysqli 1.4.1 stable OLE 1.0.0RC1 beta PEAR 1.7.2 stable Pager 2.4.7 stable Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer 0.9.1 beta Structures_Graph 1.0.2 stable XML_RPC 1.5.0 stable Beside these, the applications also use tcpdf, PHPExcel, XAJAX and some other packages. We are considering upgrading these applications to PHP 5.6. When we set up PHP 5.6 on CentOS 6 / CentOS 7 and run these two applications (We didn't figure out a neat way to set up PHP 5.6 on CentOS 5, and besides it would be a welcome change to upgrade the OS as well), there are many Deprecated / Strict Standard warnings coming up. While we can fix the ones from our applications, many of them are coming up from PEAR classes as well (see attachment). Q1. What is the solution to these warnings? Is there any update planned for these packages? Is it advisable at all to ignore these warnings? To strengthen security, we are considering moving away from MDB2 to PDO. Q2. LiveUser has been a very dear package to us. But unfortunately, there seems to be no update on this class for a long time. If we were to consider moving away from it, can you advise as good an equivalent class that can handle authentication / authorization (role and access management) etc. Regards, Stephanas

Strict Standards: Redefining already defined constructor for class Event_Dispatcher in /usr/share/pear/Event/Dispatcher.php on line 138 Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /usr/share/pear/Event/Dispatcher.php on line 249 Strict Standards: Non-static method LiveUser::singleton() should not be called statically in /usr/share/pear/srms_repo/srmslib/includes/LiveUser/staff_conf.php on line 95 Strict Standards: Non-static method LiveUser::factory() should not be called statically in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser.php on line 512 Deprecated: Non-static method Event_Dispatcher::getInstance() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser.php on line 357 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::arrayMergeClobber() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser/Auth/Common.php on line 242 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::arrayMergeClobber() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser.php on line 676 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::arrayMergeClobber() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser.php on line 676 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::arrayMergeClobber() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser/Auth/Common.php on line 247 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::arrayMergeClobber() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser/Auth/Common.php on line 252 Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser/Auth/MDB2.php on line 145 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::storageFactory() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser/Perm/Simple.php on line 155 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::loadClass() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser.php on line 625 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::classExists() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser.php on line 544 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::classExists() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser.php on line 547 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::arrayMergeClobber() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser/Perm/Storage.php on line 120 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::arrayMergeClobber() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser.php on line 676 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::arrayMergeClobber() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser.php on line 676 Deprecated: Non-static method LiveUser::arrayMergeClobber() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser/Perm/Storage.php on line 130 Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /usr/share/pear/LiveUser/Perm/Storage/MDB2.php on line 112 Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /usr/share/pear/xajax/xajax_core/xajaxPluginManager.inc.php on line 268 Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /usr/share/pear/xajax/xajax_core/xajaxPluginManager.inc.php on line 268 Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /usr/share/pear/xajax/xajax_core/xajaxPluginManager.inc.php on line 268 Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /usr/share/pear/xajax/xajax_core/xajaxPluginManager.inc.php on line 268 Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /usr/share/pear/xajax/xajax_core/xajaxPluginManager.inc.php on line 268 Strict Standards: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /usr/share/pear/xajax/xajax_core/xajaxPluginManager.inc.php on line 268