[Koha-devel] Koha 3.4 end of life?

[Mark Tompsett]

Greetings,

> Should development of 3.4 be officially ended?

Yes. It was suggested that it was defacto-orphaned already in the meeting as 
well.


> If so, how should this be handled?
> Discussion in today's IRC meeting brought up the question
> of whether it should be "killed" or merely "orphaned." I
> would appreciate some explanation from both sides
> about the definition of those choices so we can proceed to
> an informal vote.

3.4.0 was released April 22, 2011. Given our 6 month cycle, I would suggest 
that every version only gets 1 year of bug fixes (not a hard limit, but 
generally) and 2 years of use before "killed". This means an announcement is 
made saying that "This version has reached the end of its bug fix period, 
upgrading is recommended to correct problems" after 1 year, and another 
announcement is made saying "This version is no longer supported, upgrades 
are required to correct problems" after 2 years.

This is a combination, in that it is merely orphaned now (after the fact --  
April 22, 2012), but officially killed April 22, 2013. The differences lie 
mostly in the announcement and the fact that one is recognized to be in use 
while no patches are done (orphaned), while the other's use is actively 
frowned upon in the first place and frequently accompanied by suggestions to 
upgrade (killed).

I think this also addresses another concern that was raised in the lists 
somewhere about constantly having to upgrade every single year and worrying 
about "Oops! We missed an upgrade! Can we still upgrade?"

GPML,
Mark Tompsett