On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Julien Pauli <jpa...@php.net> wrote: > > Hi people. > > Ferenc and I, actual RM of 5.5 and 5.6 , were discussing the calendar today > on IRC. > > Let's start with facts : > > - We release new PHP versions (major or minor) on summer. Usually, if we > can have it end of June, it is good. > - We may delay that, 5.6 got released end of summer : in september. It is > bad, but acceptable. >
Lies, it was released at the end of August. :P > - We always have, from our release process, *2 active versions at the same > time + 1 sec fix version*. Not more, not less. > > > If we release during summer, that means we need to prepare everything > around Christmas. > Tip : Christmax is approaching :-) > > > So the main question is : *What version will we release next year ?* > > Will we have a PHP 5.7, or jump directly to a 7.0 ? > > > Don't forget, that if we go for a 5.7 , then we won't have a 7.0 at least > one year later. > If not : we'll happen having 3 active versions (5.6 , 5.7 and 7.0) and one > sec-fix only (5.5) , *this is something we don't want* , because we have > the feeling that it is too much pain to maintain so many versions alive. > > > - If we go for 7.0 : > I wouldn't mind delaying its release to November(2015) if needed, its a > major, extra care should be taken. However, not later : our release process > status for 2 years of active life , if 7.0 were to be released in 2016, > then we'd have 5.5 lasting for much more than 2 years active. > > - If we go for 5.7 : > We could release it this summer (2015) , but that would mean that 7.0 > wouldn't come before summer 2016. > Releasing a 5.7 will lean the release cycle curve, but it is not mandatory, > that should be debatted. > > > Decisions should be taken now : aka in 2014. > Taking decisions later than this will lead to a rush in release process, > wich is very bug/error prone, and should be prevented. > > > Thank you. > > Julien.Pauli > it would be also possible to release 5.7 and 7.0 in parallel, and I know that some people were against this, as this would mean less effort going into 7.0, but to be honest, I think that it would only mean that instead of continuing to accept small self contained features to 5.6.x (which we already have a couple and people are we are still have a bunch more requested/worked on already), we would turn 5.5/5.6 into mostly bugfix status and push those small features into 5.7 instead. Given the past trends about the penetration of new major(ish) php versions, I'm fairly sure that when 5.6 gets EOLed, there will be plenty of people/projects who will not be ready to migrate to PHP7 yet, so I think that one way or another, 5.6 won't be the last minor version in the PHP 5 family. If we can agree on that, I think it would make sense to have an 5.7 released a bit before or together with 7.0, which can be used as a stepping stone for migrating 7.0: we could make sure that anything which will be changed/removed in 7.0 is properly deprecated in 5.7, so you will do two smaller steps instead of one big one. -- Ferenc Kovács @Tyr43l - http://tyrael.hu
