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

[Lukas]

Hi

On 2012-11-09 13:14:03 +0000, Jigal van Hemert said:

>> Even if it gets cheaper and easier to sell, this is not my reason! I'm
>> really convinced, that the LTS gives TYPO3 a massive plus in the
>> enterprise sector.
> 
> Can you elaborate on that? Do you have concrete cases where enterprise 
> customers have said that they selected TYPO3 for their website because 
> it has an LTS version?
> It's not to convince me, but it would help with arguments for getting 
> the right solution started. If it needs funding an there are factual 
> arguments (and not a feeling, opinion) that would really help to 
> support for that solution.

We don't have a concrete case where a customer selected TYPO3 just 
because of the LTS. What I can say though is:
* Comparing to the time before the LTS, we have a significantly higher 
stability just because IT WORKS (except from a few regressions or 
browser incompatibilites)!
* The confidence in TYPO3 is much higher if there is an LTS version. 
Why? Because it shows that TYPO3 cares about its customers. And I'm 
talking mostly of enterprise customers.
* As I said earlier, we had not one case where a customer was asking 
for a feature, the actual LTS did not have.
* I'm absolutely 100% sure that our customers, if we would give them 
the choice between the LTS or the newest stable, they would choose the 
LTS. Not because of the price, I assume that the upgrade from one LTS 
to another costs the same as the cumulated upgrades between the LTS. 
But because they are safe!
* This all sums up to that our customers are not striving for new 
features. In the opposite, they are happy if the interface they know 
does not change too often.

Who has other and more arguments to back up?


> If it is accepted that it would be a substantial burden for the core 
> team who work for a large part in their spare time on this, one could 
> think about solutions:
> - an agency can provide longer support by backporting patches
> - a group of agencies can collaborate on this
> - this collaboration can be done for example from the Association
> - ...

+1 for the collaboration supported by the T3A. This should be a task 
organised from the inside.
As Ernesto already mentioned, we are already on a good track.


Best regards
Lukas.