[TYPO3-core] PHP version requirement

[Helmut Hummel]

Hi!

Am 01.03.13 17:02, schrieb Michael Stucki:

>> The INSTALL.txt states the following:
>> Since PHP below version 5.3.7 has a bug in correctly resolving type
>> hints being in method signatures of interfaces - which need to be
>> defined using a map for class aliases - we suggest to use at least PHP
>> 5.3.7. Find more details here:
>>   - https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=54624
>>   - http://forge.typo3.org/issues/40653
>
> Thanks, that was the missing part. I took that and just reported the
> issue at Debian: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=702004
>
> At least, good that 6.0 is not an LTS release. IMHO Debian support is a
> must have requirement for TYPO3...

Some Facts:

* 6.0 runs perfectly on PHP 5.3.0 if no extensions are involved
* 6.0 runs perfectly on PHP 5.3.0 if extensions are used that are
   desinged for 6.0 (using namespaced class names)
* 6.0 runs perfectly on PHP >= 5.3.7 with old extensions using old
   class names
* 6.0 runs fine on PHP < 5.3.7 even with old Extensions, but the
   compatibility layer (which is doing a parsing and rewriting of PHP
   Code on the fly) is (currently) not good enough to catch all edge
   cases.

My conclusion:

The version requirement was set to PHP 5.3.7 because it is the version 
which users will expect the least problems with. It isn't a hard 
requirement (exit in bootstrap), because there are valid cases where PHP 
5.3.0 is fine for TYPO3 6.0.

The alternative would have been to leave the official PHP requirement at 
5.3.0 and dealing with complaints of users who have no problem at all 
updating their PHP version or OS to meet a higher requirement.

You can blame me for not communicating this properly, but I still think 
it is the right decision.

Kind regards,
Helmut

-- 
Helmut Hummel
Release Manager TYPO3 6.0
TYPO3 Core Developer, TYPO3 Security Team Leader

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