[General] PHP4 – End of Life

I saw where the PHP website is reporting that the PHP 4 release tree will go end of life on December 31, 2007. This has been expected, although this is the first I am aware of any official timetable. I suspect that this has a lot to do with the recent GoPHP5 movement which is a project whose aim is to get everybody, every server, and every script switching to PHP5 by February 5th 2008.

This goes along with our unofficial timetable. Over the past year or so we have been eying the end of 2007 as a timetable for getting all of our servers ready to support PHP5. A lot of our servers already support PHP5 although by default all of our servers use PHP4. I am not sure what kind of bearing this announcement will have on our plans. We may make a move to set PHP5 as the default setting around the first of 2008. This has not yet been decided. At any rate, our plans are that by the end of the year, all of our servers should be supporting PHP5.

I would highly recommend that all users check with the developers or vendors of any scripts that they are using and make sure that those scripts are compatible with PHP5. If PHP4 is going end of life, then developers and vendors need to be making sure that their scripts are compatible with PHP5 and making the appropriate changes. This is something that is beyond our control. If PHP4 is no longer going to be supported by the PHP developers then we are going to have to make the switch to PHP5 eventually. It is up to the individual script developers to make sure that there are no issues with PHP5.

Scott