[ruby-core:39778] [Backport87 - Feature #4996] About 1.8.7 EOL

Issue #4996 has been updated by Shyouhei Urabe.


=begin

Hi folks, I'd like to make an official announcement about this topic on www.ruby-lang.org.
Can you take a look at this draft?  I'm sure my English is bad.


    Hello, and thank you for your getting into our community.
    
    I know most of  you more or less use version 1.8.7  of Ruby today.  It
    was released  in 2008 and was  a state-of-art Ruby  release back then.
    -- I am  proud to say  it is no  longer.  Ruby's core  developers have
    been actively working  on their new versions, 1.9,  and they are about
    to  release new 1.9.3.   I have  been using  1.9 for  years and  now I
    cannot  go  back to  the  days  without  it.  Rich  features.   Faster
    execution.  Rubygems integrated.  Rails works perfectly.  I cannot but
    say it is totally wonderful.  Everyone please, use 1.9.
    
    But at  the same time I  know you cannot  switch to 1.9 right  now for
    various  reasons.    Maybe  you   have  already  been   deployed  your
    application with 1.8.7.  Maybe you use a 3rd party library and that is
    for 1.8.7 only.  Or maybe your Linux distribution only supports 1.8.7.
    So I hereby announce  you how long you can stick to  it.  It is OK you
    are using 1.8.7 today but after a while, it will be shut down.
    
    Please be ready.
    
    Schedule:
    
    * We continue to provide normal  maintenance for 1.8.7 as usual, until
      June  2012.   You can  safely  assume  we  provide bugfixes  and  no
      incompatibility shall be introduced.
    
    * After that we stop bugfixes.   We still provide security fixes until
      June 2013, in case you are still using 1.8.7.
    
    * We will no longer support 1.8.7 in all senses after June 2013.

=end

----------------------------------------
Feature #4996: About 1.8.7 EOL
http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/4996

Author: Shyouhei Urabe
Status: Open
Priority: Normal
Assignee: 
Category: core
Target version: 


No, not  now.  Don't worry.  But  we have to start  talking about this
topic: when and how 1.8.7 should die.


"You should really use 1.9".  I have said this again and again and now
repeat it once more.  As we're  about to release 1.9.3 I can't but say
it is, totally wonderful.  Rich features.  Faster execution.  Rubygems
integrated.  Rails works perfectly.  I've been using 1.9 for years and
now I can't go back to the days without it.


So why there's  still 1.8.7?  It's also clear:  for system admins.  So
far 1.8.7 has  been adopted widely because it was a  state of art ruby
implementation  of the  day  it  was released.   Even  after you  stop
writing  software for  something,  it needs  bugfixes and  maintenance
releases.  For  ruby 1.8.7 , that's  what I'd been  offering for these
three years.


Now... I  know many of  you're still developing your  software against
1.8.7 in spite of its  dead-endedness.  Sooner or later the whole Ruby
community  will move  towards 1.9  and those  1.8.7-based  systems are
expected to become unmaintained.  I  don't like the situation.  I want
you and your system to be 1.9 ready.


So  to encourage  your moving  towards 1.9,  I think  I  should define
1.8.7's end-of-life to be at some point in the future.  I guess you're
not moving to 1.9 because 1.8 is (or at least seems to be) maintained.
Let's stop  it.  We will no longer  touch 1.8.7 in any  way once after
the EOL. right?


My current timeline (to be rescheduled) is:

- Normal maintenance (as it is today): provided until June 2012,
- Security fixes: provided until June 2013.

Give us your opinioms.


-- 
http://redmine.ruby-lang.org