[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #58719: Bump the minimum PHP version to 7.2

[WordPress Trac]

#58719: Bump the minimum PHP version to 7.2
-------------------------+--------------------------
 Reporter:  justlevine   |       Owner:  johnbillion
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  closed
 Priority:  normal       |   Milestone:  6.6
Component:  General      |     Version:
 Severity:  normal       |  Resolution:  fixed
 Keywords:  has-patch    |     Focuses:
-------------------------+--------------------------

Comment (by samiamnot):

 Updated for early July based on [https://wordpress.org/about/stats/
 stats]. With the slowdown of upgrades on 7.2+7.3 to under 0.4% a month, I
 do not think that it is realistic to drop 7.2+7.3 for quite a while. At
 the current pace, it will take a minimum 7 months, but the actual change
 rate is slowing down every month. My assumption is that will will not be
 low enough to drop for close to a year.

 @justlevine, Now that this is closed and expected to be released in the
 next few weeks, you may want to open the follow-up ticket to drop support
 for PHP 7.2 and 7.3 that will likely not be able to be targeted for a
 release for quite a while from now. Not only are the numbers too high, but
 there has never been a historical case of dropping release of a PHP
 version within a year of the previous drop. WPDisplay has a nice
 [https://displaywp.com/wordpress-minimum-php-version/ graph visualizing]
 this.


 ||='''Month/Year'''=||='''PHP 7.0'''=||='''PHP 7.1'''=||=''' PHP 7.0 +
 7.1'''=||='''PHP 7.2'''=||='''PHP 7.3'''=||='''PHP 7.2 + 7.3'''=||
 ||Jul 2023|| 2.05|| 1.38|| '''3.43%'''|| 6.48|| 8.16|| '''14.64%'''||
 ||Aug 2023|| 1.99|| 1.33|| '''3.32%'''|| 5.64|| 7.62|| '''13.26%'''||
 ||Sep 2023|| 1.93|| 1.27|| '''3.20%'''|| 5.55|| 7.18|| '''12.73%'''||
 ||Oct 2023|| 1.87|| 1.23|| '''3.10%'''|| 5.31|| 6.87|| '''12.18%'''||
 ||Nov 2023|| 1.79|| 1.17|| '''2.96%'''|| 5.20|| 6.51|| '''11.71%'''||
 ||Dec 2023|| 1.73|| 1.12|| '''2.85%'''|| 5.08|| 6.17|| '''11.25%'''||
 ||Jan 2024|| 1.68|| 1.09|| '''2.77%'''|| 4.79|| 5.90|| '''10.69%'''||
 ||Feb 2024|| 1.62|| 1.04|| '''2.66%'''|| 4.67|| 5.54|| '''10.21%'''||
 ||Mar 2024|| 1.55|| 0.99|| '''2.54%'''|| 4.30|| 5.11|| '''9.41%'''||
 ||Apr 2024|| 1.50|| 0.95|| '''2.45%'''|| 3.80|| 4.79|| '''8.59%'''||
 ||May 2024|| 1.45|| 0.92|| '''2.37%'''|| 3.63|| 4.52|| '''8.15%'''||
 ||Jun 2024|| 1.41|| 0.89|| '''2.30%'''|| 3.46|| 4.30|| '''7.76%'''||
 ||Jul 2024|| 1.36|| 0.86|| '''2.22%'''|| 3.33|| 4.10|| '''7.43%'''||

 For historical reasons, here are the stats for no longer supported
 versions (as of WP 6.6) going back to PHP 5.2. This is not changing much
 (going down about 0.20% a month) and many are likely "abandoned" sites
 that are on old versions of WP.

 ||='''Month/Year'''=||='''PHP 5.2'''=||='''PHP 5.3'''=||='''PHP
 5.4'''=||='''PHP 5.5'''=||='''PHP 5.6'''=||='''PHP 7.0'''=||='''PHP
 7.1'''=||='''Total'''=||
 ||Jan 2024|| 0.21|| 0.50|| 0.44|| 0.35|| 3.21|| 1.67|| 1.08||
 '''7.46%'''||
 ||Feb 2024|| 0.21|| 0.49|| 0.42|| 0.35|| 3.12|| 1.62|| 1.04||
 '''7.25%'''||
 ||Mar 2024|| 0.21|| 0.48|| 0.39|| 0.34|| 3.02|| 1.55|| 0.99||
 '''6.98%'''||
 ||Apr 2024|| 0.20|| 0.47|| 0.38|| 0.33|| 2.93|| 1.50|| 0.95||
 '''6.76%'''||
 ||May 2024|| 0.20|| 0.46|| 0.37|| 0.32|| 2.84|| 1.45|| 0.92||
 '''6.56%'''||
 ||Jun 2024|| 0.20|| 0.45|| 0.36|| 0.31|| 2.76|| 1.41|| 0.89||
 '''6.38%'''||
 ||Jul 2024|| 0.19|| 0.44|| 0.35|| 0.30|| 2.63|| 1.36|| 0.86||
 '''6.13%'''||

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58719#comment:53>
WordPress Trac <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/>
WordPress publishing platform