[TYPO3-typo3org] Package matrix incorrect?

[Michael Stucki]

Hi Francois,

>> I actually think the versin matrix should show 5.2 either way, because
>> our policy was always to officially announce 5.2 being the requirement
>> and only internally trying to keep TYPO3 4.2 compatible with 5.1 as well
> 
> Of course it should show 5.2. The question is whether it should show 5.1
> as well or not.

I agree with Ingmar, it should show 5.2 (which includes any later
versions, but nothing older). So 5.1 should not be mentioned here!

>> (whether that was a wise choice in the first place to have it that way
>> is another question though).
> 
> It probably wasn't, given the confusion that this is causing, even
> inside the core team :-(

The idea was mine, and the reason is simple:
http://buzz.typo3.org/people/stucki/article/leaving-php4-behind/

| # If you are using PHP 5.1 then you might be in luck... We are aware
| that enterprise Linux distributions of Novell and RedHat do not ship
| with PHP 5.2 yet (they both come with 5.1). Therefore, we will avoid
| using PHP 5.2 any specific features in TYPO3 as long as they have not
| switched.

Note that this article was written 2.5 years ago, and as far as I know,
the situation has still not changed! (Source:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/PHP_5.1_To_5.2 - which was last changed in
March 2010, so it seems to be very recent)

Our plan was to support 5.1 for as long as there is not 5.2 in RHEL and
SLES, so we could silently drop the 5.1 compatibility as soon as this is
released.

However, it seems that at least Redhat simply does not care about their
pre-historic PHP version. I expected to see a 5.2 release within 6 or 12
months, but never expected that it is going to take years for a change...

Anyway, I think that the time has come that we should no longer care
about this. It's their problem, not ours!

- michael