[TYPO3-core] Proposal for the upcoming Roadmap and LTS

[Lukas]

Hi

On 2012-11-07 19:55:59 +0000, Jigal van Hemert said:

> I think I'm bad at marketing, but the situation is simple:
> 
> - with TYPO3 you don't pay an initial license fee. Everything the 
> client pays goes to the agency for installation, configuration, custom 
> work, etc.
> - with TYPO3 you don't pay a yearly license fee. Instead you pay the 
> agency to keep the installation up-to-date.
> 
> Compared to a commercial CMS all the money goes to the agency.

I don't want to compare to a commercial CMS. And the clients don't want 
to. Because they already chose TYPO3. Probably also BECAUSE there are 
no license fees (which is, btw, the first argument in the executive 
summary on the TYPO3 website: "Open source - No license fee").

If you want to compare, better compare it to other open source systems 
which call themselves "Enterprise level": Ubuntu, Joomla, OpenERP, 
Contao, Asterisk, etc etc. All of them support LTS versions. Why? 
Because it matters to get a position in the professional enterprise 
sector.

Even if our customers would pay the upgrades, there is no reason to do 
it: Customers are generally happy with their version. They don't need 
new features and they don't want new interfaces just because they exist!


> At work we've used the latest stable version for each project. No 
> problems. Upgrades cost money, but that is peanuts compared to the 
> initial cost of the site. Also, if you upgrade regularly the costs are 
> spread. If you jump from LTS to LTS (if a new LTS will come at all) the 
> upgrade is more complex (extensions that work with 4.5 can have fatal 
> problems with 6.x and their versions for 6.x won't run on 4.5) and will 
> cost far more.

The thing is that all our extensions will have to support different 
versions as all clients run different versions as there is no clear 
upgrade cycle with these short term releases. I agree that an upgrade 
from 4.5 to 6.2 will be more complex than from a 6.1 version. But we 
can do this once and upgrade it everywhere. We're not talking about ONE 
installations, we're talking about DOZENS of installations with the 
same version and the same extensions!


>> So in order to move everyone to the next level, an LTS (e.g. 6.1) is
>> more than overdue - and everyone will benefit from it, developers and
>> agencies.
> 
> How will developers benefit from more unpaid maintenance work? I don't 
> see a benefit in having to backport bugfixes to 3, 4, 5 versions which 
> have a more and more diverting codebase. Can you explain that?

As I said before, I can hear it loud and clear: You just don't want to 
do this work anymore. But as I also said: It must be a concern of the 
Association to maintain an LTS version if TYPO3 wants to be successful 
in the enterprise sector. So it must be a strategic decision if an LTS 
version should be held or not. After that, we can talk about numbers.

And to make one thing clear: I appreciate your work very much and I 
don't have the intention to blame anyone or to demand anything from any 
developer. I just think this is a too important issue to just let the 
'unpaid' developers to decide about!

We will have to talk about this in the Association.

Regards
Lukas.