zlacker

Many are praising the recent releases of PHP for their quality and performance improvements, and I wouldn't dare argue against that. However, the current release schedule of PHP makes things a little bit difficult for sysadmins. We're now using php-fpm docker containers so that we can (sort-of almost) keep up with PHP updates without doing OS upgrades every single year. A LTS version would be welcome!

>>trey-j+(OP)
PHP 8.2 will get official security updates until December 8, 2025, how much longer do you need?

>>Y-bar+B3
It's not the same, but MySQL offers like 8 years https://endoflife.software/applications/databases/mysql. Obviously very different software with different goals and monetization models (none vs some). Not apples to apples but figured it was a good example of what someone might have in mind.

>>Y-bar+B3
Thats just 3 years, and likely the next release will be again full of incompatible changes. That's not a long timeframe for all but the most active (or smallest) codebases.

>>trey-j+(OP)
What's the difficulty for sysadmins? Maybe it's particular to your OS? With FreeBSD for example, there are port flavours for the various PHP versions, and it easy to choose.

>>1over1+oa
Debian historically does not maintain multiple versions of PHP in official channels. Your options are:

1. Compile PHP yourself (no)

2. Use an untrusted third party repo (probably not)

3. Upgrade OS to latest

4. (apparently) Use FreeBSD instead.

For all I know this could change. The current release schedule of PHP is greatly accelerated from what it was 5-10 years ago, and we're all still adjusting I think.

>>Y-bar+B3
I see 5 years as a good minimum for LTS. Perhaps it's a personal bias, since our OS of choice (Debian) offers LTS for 5 years.

Edit for context: the small business that I work for takes on all kinds of random web work. It's not uncommon at all for us to be asked to rescue an application or website that's still running on PHP 5. For projects that we have initiated, by the time we migrate them all to PHP 8.2, it will be End of Life.

>>jjice+H7
PHP 7, released December 2015, 7 years ago, still gets bug and security patches. Seems similar to me.

>>Y-bar+vL
It doesn't though (granted, support for PHP 7.4 only ended 10 days ago, so you can be forgiven for not knowing): https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php

But PHP 7.4 is not compatible in many ways with PHP 7.3, so lumping them together is not OK. As you can see, PHP 8.0 which was only released two years ago, is no longer receiving active support. Definitely, database LTS is not comparable to programming languages. However such rapid releases of breaking versions is a relatively new phenomenon (thanks NodeJS), and I get the feeling that you've never actually supported a software project for 5+ years.

>>trey-j+(OP)
If you're using a Debian based OS, Ondřej Surý runs a Debian and Ubuntu compatible repos for up-to-date PHP releases. He's also on the PHP packaging team for Debian proper, so these are basically the updated packages that will end up in Debian stable eventually, but available for the most recent few versions.

>>trey-j+Wo
> Use an untrusted third party repo

If you can't trust Ondřej Surý's repo, you're gonna be disappointed when you see who maintains the PHP packages in Debian's official repo.

>>Y-bar+B3
Well, try working on enterprise and you know how much long support they need. Move fast and break things simply doesn't work and doesn't scale properly.

>>Y-bar+B3
A decade would be nice.