Support for Older PHP Versions

[hakastein]

Why are you dropping support for older language versions?

Fluent is a great language and tool, but many people are still using PHP 8 and below. Each version upgrade without a compelling reason reduces the likelihood of the library being used.

[hakastein]

Version upgrades without a compelling reason are detrimental to everyone. Fewer people will choose Fluent as the language for localizing their systems, fewer people will use your library, and consequently, fewer people will contribute to it and make it better. Isn't that the core principle of open source?

Take me, for example. Some time ago, I chose Fluent. I found your library and decided to use it. But our project runs on PHP 7.2, so I had to fork and rewrite your library to make it compatible with 7.2. Now, as we heavily use Fluent (about 10 megabytes of text regularly updated via Weblate), I have a couple of updates. However, I haven't made them because we plan to upgrade to 8.1, and I intended to contribute these fixes to your version instead of my fork. But now you're dropping support for 8.1, and it seems I'll either have to keep these changes to myself or do double work again (by first writing them in my fork and then making a PR to you).

[jrmajor]

Hi, I'm really happy to hear that you're using my library. Congratulations on making it work on PHP 7.2, that sounds like a lot of work :)

Why are you dropping support for older language versions?

There are a few reasons for that:

• PHP 8.1 is no longer actively supported (security fixes only), so it seemed reasonable to drop it,
• I used to run tests in GitHub Actions for every supported version, so that's more CI minutes burnt,
• So that I can use newer language features in this project,
• I don't use this package with older PHP versions, and no one ever asked me to maintain support for other versions, so it seemed like there is no need for that. Now that you're asking, I'm happy to reconsider :)

I can restore PHP 8.1 support, but I would like to keep to minimal required version to a supported version of PHP, so I will want to drop it when PHP 8.1 reaches EOL. Would that work for you?

BTW, the author of the blog you linked to has some opinions on that :)

[hakastein]

I'd love to live in this wonderful world where the entire community constantly updates language versions, but when you're in a legacy project with hundreds of thousands of lines of code, it's not that simple. And there are thousands of projects like mine. There aren't that many developers with active position, and for most, it's easier to just pass by rather than even send an issue.

So, I think using the EOL approach is the most reasonable and justified decision.

[hakastein]

And thank you for fast response and understanding