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Date:      Sat, 10 Aug 2019 11:18:52 -0700
From:      Patrick Powell <papowell@astart.com>
To:        freebsd-ports@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: PHP version retirement
Message-ID:  <64faf143-bae3-378c-3ee2-b196c2ea4111@astart.com>
In-Reply-To: <CF1F28D6-1072-4BE6-B124-A97DE43FA4E6@waschbuesch.de>
References:  <CF1F28D6-1072-4BE6-B124-A97DE43FA4E6@waschbuesch.de>

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On 2019-08-10 01:17, Martin Waschbüsch wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> At least the last  two versions of PHP, 5.6 & 7.0, were removed from ports as soon as (or even shortly before) they were no longer actively maintained upstream.
> I am unsure what the exact reasoning behind this was, but I do not think it is a good idea moving forward:
>   
> I suppose it is true that outdated & no longer supported versions of PHP could be seen as a security risk. So far so good.
>
> However, if, for whatever reason (and I think there are legitimate ones), I still need to use a now obsolete version of PHP, having them removed from ports effectively makes it harder for me to keep everything else up-to-date.
> I might have to stick with an old ports revision so I cannot update other packages.
> If I just keep PHP as is, and update other packages, I cannot easily switch to a new version of FreeBSD itself, because I'd have to go back to an old revision of ports (hopefully working with the OS version I updated to) to compile PHP and then do other packages.
> Libraries / dependencies may change and break my PHP, etc.
> So, on top of possible security concerns for the outdated software I use, I basically get an overall less secure / stable system to boot.
>
> Now, I am not suggesting we leave every old and outdated PHP version in ports, but why remove a port just days after it received its last security update upstream? (With PHP 5.6 it was actually removed from ports before it got its last update upstream).
>
> Would it not be better to have, say, the last two versions before current stable still in ports but with a huge disclaimer saying: use at your own risk, etc.?
>
> What do y'all think?
>
> Martin
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-ports@freebsd.org mailing list
> https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-port

Umm this was just the kick in the pants that I needed to switch to PHP 7.
See https://www.glaver.org/blog/?p=1109 for a desperation 'I need 
PHP5.6' hack which I used during this update.

I must say that the update to PHP 7 was relatively painless - there is 
PHP6 to PHP7 update support and lots of help/suggestions.   I also found 
an embarassing amount of bad PHP code during the update process,  something
I should have suspected I would find.

Note that the changes suggested by Mr. Glaver seem to be applicable to 
new versions of the Ports tree UPDATING and .../.mk files so you can use 
the latest Ports tree with the appropriate minor modifications.  You can 
even generate a
script to apply these updates/mods each time you run 'portsnap'. But I 
digress...

-- 

Patrick Powell                 Astart Technologies
papowell@astart.com            1509 Hollow Ct.,
Network and System             San Diego, CA 92019
   Consulting                   Cell 858-518-7581 FAX 858-751-2435
Web: papowell at astart dot com




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