[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #33381: Strategize the updating of minimum PHP version.

WordPress Trac noreply at wordpress.org
Mon Aug 17 13:08:00 UTC 2015


#33381: Strategize the updating of minimum PHP version.
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 Reporter:  alexander.rohmann  |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement        |      Status:  closed
 Priority:  normal             |   Milestone:
Component:  General            |     Version:
 Severity:  normal             |  Resolution:  maybelater
 Keywords:                     |     Focuses:
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Comment (by jdgrimes):

 Replying to [comment:30 pento]:
 >We tried setting a date years ago, back when we dropped PHP 4 support.
 All it resulted in was people's sites being broken, it didn't hurry the
 transition to PHP 5.

 Thank you for this bit of history, I did not know that.

 However, this ticket isn't really about picking a date. That's something
 we'd like to see, but at a higher level, we're wanting some kind, ''any
 kind'', of concrete strategy for this.

 This gets discussed over and over and over again. And the core leads
 usually jump in at some point and explain why the required version won't
 be updated yet. But the question is never really settled, because we're
 always left wondering, "So, when?"

 I understand if you don't want to answer that with a hard date. But, to
 avoid endless wrangling about this in the future, could we please try to
 piece something together that is less fuzzy?

 WordPress will always have a minimum required version of PHP. A
 comprehensive explanation of the philosophy behind that needs to be hashed
 out in put on a page in the handbook. Then you'd never have to have this
 argument again, over 5.2 or 5.3 or 9.7. You could direct folks who bring
 it up to that place where all of their questions and arguments would be
 answered, and where hopefully they'd also be given a pretty firm idea of
 when they can expect the next version requirement bump.

 Again, I'm not saying this has to be a date. It could be a percentage of
 sites or number of sites instead. Or it could be something else. It could
 be exact or approximate. And it can have all of the caveats in the world
 (well, one or two anyway), as long as we're given the benefit of being
 allowed to understand what things will be taken into consideration and
 what weight they will be given when the decisions are made.

 I can understand that folks are tired of talking about this. But it is not
 a problem that is going to go away any time soon. For the foreseeable
 future, we're going to have old versions of PHP to fight over. And so I
 really think putting together a more comprehensive resource on this issue
 is in everyone's best interest. And since it has been discussed to death
 already, I guess we have plenty of material to draw on. :-)

 > This year, we've been speaking to several major hosts about updating
 their PHP versions - in the last three months alone, this has resulted in
 about a million sites being upgraded from PHP 5.2 and 5.3, to 5.5 and 5.6.
 Setting a hard deadline won't improve this rate, because it's not a thing
 that can be improved through threats.

 Thank you for your continuing work (and progress!) on this. It is deeply
 appreciated.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/33381#comment:33>
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