Re: Switching default version of PHP/RUBY and retirement...

[Stephen Borrill <netbsd%precedence.co.uk@localhost>]

On Thu, 1 Feb 2024, Greg Troxel wrote:
> taca at NetBSD.org <taca%back-street.net@localhost> writes:
>
> > I'll switch default version of PHP and Ruby:
> >
> > 	PHP_VERSION_DEFAULT	82
> > 	RUBY_VERSION_DEFAULT	32
>
> no objections to that.

Me neither.

> > Also, retire obsolete PHP, php80 first and hopefully php74 (and php56)
> > since there are many unmaintained PHP based pacakges...
>
> Recursive removals in the past have gone badly, almost always much more
> so than the person proposing them expected.  unmaintained is not
> entirely the point; it's about users and what is withdrawn vs the
> maintenance cost.
>
> My understanding is that there is nothing that needs php80, in that
> every package that works with 8.0 will work with 8.1.  So that seems
> fine.
>
> I really don't understand the situation with php74 and especially php56.
> If you want to delete those, we should have a removal proposal that
> identifies the packages that will be removed.
>
> While I see the point of cleaning up cruft, it doesn't feel like the
> presence of php56 (to pick one) is causing trouble.  We need to have a
> "versions accepted" mechanism no matter what, and packages that only
> take 5.6 are coded that way, and I don't see that this is causing anyone
> to have to do any ongoing work.  Am i misperceiving?

I want to see php56 kept (and probably php74), certainly until the time 
that it is unable to build and fixing it is too much work.


--
Stephen