Zen Cart versions 1.40+ to require PHP 5.2+, Zen Changes Support Policy

[mandy]

2 announcements from Zen Cart:

Zen Cart moves to PHP 5

Zen Cart continues to be developed with a view to staying current with where technology and customer behaviours/trends are going. In considering the big-picture of ensuring that the Zen Cart code base is not only contemporary but also compliant with current and evolving standards, Zen Cart will be adopting PHP 5.2 as its minimum requirement effective with the v1.4.0 release, or on Feb 5, 2008, whichever comes first.

Background:

1. PHP has announced that PHP 4 will no longer be supported as of the end of year 2007. Ref: http://www.php.net/index.php#2007-07-13-1

2. PHP 5 has been deployed and tested in production environments for three years, and many hosting companies have already adopted it in some way.

3. Several of the leading PHP projects and web hosting providers are working together to push for PHP 5 adoption at GoPHP5.org. Zen Cart is pleased to announce our participation in this movement.


Additional Clarifications
Zen Cart v1.3.8 is currently in development and will continue to support a minimum version of PHP 4.3.2, and security fixes will continue to be applied to Zen Cart v1.3.8 for at least six months after our first release requiring PHP 5.2 (ie: Zen Cart v1.4.0).

If you want to use the cool new features that will be available in future releases (v1.4 and higher), you should make sure that your web host supports PHP 5.2 and encourage them to upgrade if they don't! We feel that requiring PHP 5 is important for Zen Cart and its future development.

PHP 5.2 has been chosen instead of earlier versions of PHP 5 because PHP 5.2 has shown to perform better and be significantly more stable than earlier versions

WHAT THIS MEANS

    * Zen Cart v1.4.0 and higher will be incompatible with PHP 4.x. The minimum supported PHP version will be PHP 5.2.
    * Zen Cart v1.3.x will continue to have updates and will remain PHP 4.3-compatible.

full announcement: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72869

Zen Cart Software Support Life Cycle

Zen Cart continues to make strides in feature and functionality development. With every new release comes expanded capability and improved functionality.

Until now, support has been offered on pretty much any version of Zen Cart that's been released. But that must change.

In an effort to ensure that the development team is able to respond effectively to issues related to current software releases, and still focus on future development, Zen Cart has adopted an end-of-life policy for older software versions.

Zen Cart now officially supports a given release for 6 months after a subsequent release is made.
Software older than that may still receive support as a courtesy by the community or the development team; however, extensive research on issues affecting older releases will not be given priority by the development team members. If a problem is fixed in a newer, released version, the announced solution will be the need to upgrade.


HOW THIS AFFECTS YOU
The best way to explain this is likely with some examples:

Zen Cart v1.3.8 will be supported for 6 months after v1.4.0 is released.

Zen Cart v1.3.7 will be supported for 6 months after v1.3.8 is released.

Zen Cart v1.3.6 is technically no longer supported, with v1.3.7 released on 12/30/2006 and v1.3.7.1 patch released 07/01/2007.

Zen Cart v1.2.x series is officially no longer supported, effective immediately.

Zen Cart v1.1.x and v1.0.x series are no longer supported.

full announcement: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72868