[TYPO3-core] Release-Cycle and Maintenance-Policy of TYPO3

[Georg Ringer]

Hi Mario,

thanks for your posting. Of course I know this kind of dilemma from both
sides because of working in an agency too ;)

Am 11.05.2012 10:27, schrieb Mario Rimann:
> For us (www.internezzo.ch) as a mid-sized TYPO3 agency with no
> inhouse-core-dev,

I don't really know what this has to do with having a core dev inhouse
or not ... everybody can check the meeting protocols, take a look at the
master branch ... there is no special core-dev-branch

> Then 4.7 came out and we decided on using it for new projects since it
> really brings new features that are of interest for our customers –

so this is the choice you have to take as always in life. Either having
something not that shiny but being more stable or the newest coolest ...
 same with cars .. driving always the latest model is nice for sure but
a bit more expansive - and still - it just brings you from A to B.


> A customer that got a website with 4.5 LTS had up to 3-years of
> maintenance “included”. One that get’s $today either a 4.5 LTS or a
> 4.7 will have only up to 1.5-years which is not really cool.

so? Same with a car or macbook .. you can of course wait until fall when
there will be a new macbook which is even faster and better and ... If
you need a macbook now, it is a bit ugly but there just can't be an LTS
every 6 month ;)

And the whole core team agreed during the last T3DD that the plans are
to stick to the 6 month-plan.

> - have a longer supported-time (only regarding security fixes!!) than
> just approx. 1.5-years starting from the release-date of a minor
> version (see below)

this might sound nice *but* see below

> - have more LTS-versions – it’s not about how fast the next LTS is
> released rather than increasing the overlapping lifetime of two LTS
> releases (it would already help to know, when in the schedule the next
> LTS will be released)

I don't know the schedule but for sure there will be a new LTS ready
before the old one will be finished.

> We know that both having more LTS versions and in general increasing
> the lifetime of any release will “cost” manpower. But from discussions
> with several persons I know that just throwing money at it is no
> solution itself (since the developers/testers are missing to actually
> *do* the (probably paid) work).

This is the most interesting part: The problem is not actually the
backport itself, this is really nice with git/gerrit but the proper
testing. Backporting is really not fun and hard work, so this is
something where agencies could help a lot: with testing backported
bugfixes. Because of course it would be possible to just say: Yeah lets
support every version 3 years back but without actually backporting
changes to those branches, there would be no benefit.

Yes security bugs can't be tested by the public but only by the core
team but you can of course sponsor/pay that work too. So IMO yes money
is still an option there.

Again about the 6 months: What would be your plan like? 8 months or just
change it to 1 year? Be also aware that with more releases the changes
get even bigger in the meantime!

Georg