Evaluate which versions of Drupal and PHP to support in 4.x

[pfrenssen]

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Now that we are working on the 4.x release it is a good time to evaluate which versions of Drupal and PHP we are going to support in this version.

Currently we are supporting the following:

• Drupal 6, 7, 8
• PHP 5.5, 5.6, 7.0, 7.1

Of these, Drupal 6 and PHP 5.5 are already EOL, and PHP 5.6 and 7.0 will be EOL before the end of the year. I'm assuming that there won't be a stable 4.0 release for drupalextension before this date.

Dropping support for older versions has many benefits. Not will it be easier to maintain, but we can also start to leverage the new functionality that is offered by the newer versions. For example starting with Drupal 7 we know that we have full support for entities, and PHP 7.1 is vastly improved over PHP 5.5.

On the other hand we have to consider people that are using drupalextension to test Drupal 6 sites, or Drupal 7 sites on older PHP versions. There are a few things we can do:

1. Drop support completely. This is the most drastic option. The software packages are EOL so they no longer get support. People can still fork.
2. Still support Drupal 6 and PHP 7.0 and below in the 3.x branch of drupalextension. I would assume that the additional maintenance cost of supporting 3.x for older versions is not going to be a huge burden. At least if we agree to limit the scope to only bug fixes and security fixes that directly affect D6 and PHP <= 7.0. There are not so many issues raised for these versions lately. We could support it for a limited period, or just let it die out naturally as fewer people use these versions.
3. Still fully support Drupal 6 and / or older PHP versions in 4.x.

Thoughts? Are you planning on using drupalextension 4.x for Drupal 6 sites or on obsolete PHP versions? Would you be OK with extended support in 3.x?

[jhedstrom]

I am ok with extended support in 3.x should issues arise. I'd like to drop all php less than 7 if we can :)

[wizonesolutions]

Option 2 seems reasonable to me. People starting with 4.x know what they're getting. Some way of still using D6 would be nice, as I think there are still various sites in the D6LTS program.