PHP 5.5 alpha

[breun]

I'm seriously curious what kind of software would still need this. Do you run something custom that you can't touch?

Fact 1: Some clients don't know the requirements for the code they're running.
Fact 2: Some clients are running code that hasn't been updated in years.
Fact 3: Some servers are running PHP code for lots of clients.

Combine these three facts and you have an upgrade project that requires extensive testing. Even if you're allowed to - and want to - touch the code of your clients (and that's a big if in my book) this is not trivial.

[faris]

The real issue here is that as hosters, we are client-driven. What the majority of clients want is what we need to provide.

Unfortunately there's lots of code that clients run that won't be 5.4 compatible. Clients often have no idea about any of the code on their sites. It gets installed by someone at some point in the dim and distant past and they expect it to work forever. From their point of view this is fair enough -- Windows 95 apps still work in Windows 8, after all. At least the majority of them do, so why should their scripts stop working if we upgrade something on our side? We had more problems than I expected with the 5.1.6 to 5.3 upgrade and 5.4 will be far worse.

So even though they might not actually know it themselves, the majority of our clients want 5.3 right now and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

As I mentioned before, at some point we will of course have to upgrade. For example if one of the main scripts like WordPress starts to require it, and a significant number of our customers use WordPress. Or if there's no source of 5.3 RPMs that have the necessary security updates.

The Atomic repo is all about hosting, Plesk and security. Scott's the repo boss so it is his decision where we go. I'm just appealing for 5.3 to be supported in the Atomic repo for as long as practical and sensible security-wise. If 5.4 (and later) is offered alongside a "stable" 5.3 then that's surely the ideal option. But obviously it would add to Scott's burden and it isn't a direct source of any income for the guys so...