[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #51043: PHP: bump minimum version requirements

[WordPress Trac]

#51043: PHP: bump minimum version requirements
----------------------------+-----------------------------
 Reporter:  jrf             |      Owner:  (none)
     Type:  task (blessed)  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  high            |  Milestone:  5.6
Component:  General         |    Version:
 Severity:  normal          |   Keywords:  has-patch early
  Focuses:                  |
----------------------------+-----------------------------
 As discussed in the [https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/05/07/agenda-
 for-may-11th-site-health-meeting/ May 11th Site Health meeting]
 ([https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/CKSU841L7/p1589212852137000 Slack
 logs]) and announced in the
 [https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/08/13/wordpress-5-6-release-
 planning/ WP 5.6 release planning] support for PHP 5.6 will be dropped in
 WP 5.6.

 This ticket is specifically to handle this version bump.

 The target PHP minor is PHP 7.1 as that version will allow us to upgrade
 the test suite to be compatible with PHPUnit 8.x and 9.x, which is
 necessary to be able to test WordPress against PHP 8.
 Ticket #46149 is in place to address that and has a patch ready to be
 committed.

 I propose we bump the minimum supported PHP verson to PHP 7.1.26.

 Reasoning to choose this specific version:
 * 80% of 7.1 sites are on 7.1.26 or higher.
 * PHP 7.1.26 has less than 20 known security vulnerabilities.

 Sources:
 * https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php/7.1
 * https://www.cvedetails.com/version-list/74/128/2/PHP-
 PHP.html?sha=78e084dbc6897971bd02e634619a193e623904d6&order=1&trc=1128

 Opinions welcome on the specific patch version choice.

 The version bump itself should be regarded a foregone conclusion.

 To quote @sergeybiryukov:
 > We only need to look at the recent WP versions here (5.2 to 5.5), for
 those the PHP 5.6 percentage is currently 10.69%, which is lower than the
 12.11% percentage of PHP <5.6 for WP 4.9 to 5.1 just before the WordPress
 5.2 release (May, 2019), where support for PHP <5.6 was dropped.
 >
 > Given that we're still releasing security updates for WP 3.7 (released
 almost 7 years ago), it's not like we're leaving PHP 5.6 or 7.0 users
 without security updates, they just won't have some latest and greatest
 features of WP 5.6+, which seems fair.

 Source: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/08/13/wordpress-5-6-release-
 planning/#comment-39483

 Tickets related to previous version bumps:
 * #46594 - WP 5.2 bump of minimum PHP version to 5.6
 * #16917 - WP 3.2 bump of minimum PHP version to 5.2

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/51043>
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