[TYPO3-core] Official information about the upcoming LTS version

[Oliver Hader]

Hi Michael,

Am 19.09.12 22:28, schrieb Michael Stucki:
> Am 19.09.2012 17:03, schrieb Patrick Broens:
>> On 19-9-12 16:43 , Oliver Hader wrote:
>>> Yepp, I'd be fine with that. But in the end there are a lot of desires -
>>> actually some group needs to do the work. If I look to the current
>>> situation with the changes that need to be backported to 4.5 LTS, I'd
>>> say that we should only create promises that can be kept.
>>>
>>> Of course in terms of marketing big LTS promises sound great, but we
>>> just need to be honest - to the community and to ourselves.
>>
>> Desires and promises, we need to make sure that everybody in the
>> community and beyond are aware that backporting cannot be done in
>> certain cases and especially not for new features. I totally agree that
>> we need to be honest to the community and to ourselves.
> 
> I don't agree with you both. If we lack resources for maintaining LTS
> versions, then the T3A budget is wrongly adjusted. IMHO that would
> clearly be one main reason for getting payments from the Association.
> 
> Talking about this, it's a pity that the work for LTS maintenance is not
> covered in the new budget application (is it?). It would have let the
> members tell us if they want another LTS or not.
> But again, I think the answer to that is already clear anyway...

Thanks for pointing this out as it was not my intention to say that LTS
is impossible. I tried to refer to the part of the LTS period and the
promise as result of that - thus, it's related to the previous part on
e.g. 10-18 months for regular maintenance and 36 months for security fixes.
That way it is more like "we need to be careful to announce a full
support for a period of 3 years and need to be honest about what is
really feasible".

To answer your question on a particular budget for maintaining LTS
versions - there's none - but there is a new position of the "Core Team
Coder", being paid one day per week (= 4 days per months) - thus, it's
about development and code maintenance in general.

Besides that, I don't agree that the main reason for having a T3A budget
for the TYPO3 v4 & v6 Core is just the maintenance of LTS versions -
it's more like keep the ball rolling for the currently released and
productively used TYPO3 versions. And furthermore, to continue with the
step-by-step transition to FLOW3 in general.

Anyway, getting back to the topic - I think we agree on having another
LTS version which will/might be TYPO3 6.2. The detailed conditions and
period of support need to be specified again. Okay?

Cheers,
Olly
-- 
Oliver Hader
TYPO3 v4 Core Team Leader

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