[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #23880: Minimum PHP version in Plugins

[WordPress Trac]

#23880: Minimum PHP version in Plugins
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 Reporter:  TJNowell         |       Owner:
     Type:  feature request  |      Status:  closed
 Priority:  normal           |   Milestone:
Component:  Plugins          |     Version:
 Severity:  normal           |  Resolution:  wontfix
 Keywords:                   |     Focuses:
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Comment (by jdgrimes):

 Just running some numbers based on the WordPress stats:

 If the number of users on PHP 5.2 continues to drop at its current rate of
 ~0.14% per week, it will be about 94 weeks or almost 2 years before it
 goes to essentially 0. PHP 5.3 usage is dropping at ~0.25% per week,
 meaning it will approach 0 in about 2.5 years. Usage of 5.4 is still on
 the rise.

 In 1 year, 5.2 usage will probably be ~6% and 5.3 usage ~20%. So it is
 probable that over one quarter of active sites will be not updated at that
 time. A push from WordPress might be able to improve that number. But
 remember that by the time we get there, both 5.4 ''and'' 5.5 will be dead.
 And right now a lot of people are moving ''to'' 5.4 and 5.5.

 I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make here, but I guess we're in for
 a long battle against outdated PHP. It is really an issue that is much
 bigger than WordPress, and yes, it's going to take the whole PHP community
 to find a long-term solution.

 I don't think that we should make it any easier for plugins to require a
 different PHP version than WordPress. And I do think that we should try to
 up WordPress's version ASAP. The question is, how soon is possible? I have
 long thought that WordPress should just pick a date. How about, "on 28 Aug
 2017, we will stop supporting unsupported versions of PHP" (Yay PHP 7!).
 It is a generous 2 years distant and actually fixes the problem for good
 because we never have to decide when to drop a PHP version ever again.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23880#comment:54>
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