[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #56454: Bump PHP version requirement

[WordPress Trac]

#56454: Bump PHP version requirement
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 Reporter:  snoringdragon                  |      Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement                    |     Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal                         |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  General                        |    Version:
 Severity:  normal                         |   Keywords:  dev-feedback
  Focuses:  performance, coding-standards  |
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 Hi,

 It’s been around 4 years since wordpress last increased its minimum PHP
 requirement.
 Make post => https://make.wordpress.org/core/2018/12/08/updating-the-
 minimum-php-version/

 At that time, only 85% websites were using PHP version 5.6 or higher but
 wordpress still decided to increase its minimum PHP requirement to 5.6 for
 security and performance reasons.

 Buw now, as per wordpress statistics, only 5.8% wordpress installations
 are currently running on PHP version 5.6.

 I think we are now ready to further increase minimum PHP requirement to
 7.0.

 With proper coordination with hosting companies and encouraging the sites
 to increase PHP version to 7.0 by showing message in WordPress 6.1, we
 will be able to further decrease that 5.8% statistics.

 We can target wordpress version 6.2 for this change but we should make a
 proposal on make blog and try to include message that wordpress version
 6.1 will be last version to support PHP version 5.6.

 This change will allow wordpress to enhance the security while at the same
 time get rid some bloat from core, improving the performance. I think this
 will also pave the way for some good new feature
  such as https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/427.

 Thanks for your time.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/56454>
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