[Koha-devel] Perl version requirement

[Victor Grousset/tuxayo]

Hi o/

On 20-06-24 09:46, Julian Maurice wrote:
> While reading the release notes for 20.05.01 I noticed that the minimum
> Perl version required is still 5.10.

Noticed the same while releasing Koha 19.05.12 ^^
https://gitlab.com/koha-community/release-tools/-/issues/12
Should have also brought the topic here to ask if there are still people
managing to run a supported Koha with Perl 5.10

-

On 20-06-24 12:34, Julian Maurice wrote:
> Debian and Ubuntu are the recommended systems, but are not required.
> I think it's useful to know the Perl requirements for people that want
> to install Koha on other systems.

«recommended systems, but are not required»
Indeed, they should be recommendations because we actively test them.
But not requirements since we don't test enough other systems to tell
that they won't work.
Actually they have a good chances of working IIUC (though with a lot of
work). (David Cook correct me if I'm wrong)

«useful to know the Perl requirements»
Yes, it's important because in these cases we **can tell** that Koha
won't work. Which is different from "we don't officially support and
actively test on".

So for system components in general we would have 3 categories. 4 if
want to split one but that should not matter much here.

- recommended/official: systems actively tested on (though we still run
CI on some older components and they pass even if not recommended)
- shouldn't work: too low Perl/DBMS version to support some of our code
- things in-between that should work without much work(if any) or issues:
    MySQL 5, Debian 8 because depending on the Koha version they were
recommended not a long time ago. The CI even passes on them depending on
the Koha version.
   I guess components advertised as experimental would be here? MariaDB
10.3 on Koha 19.05.x and MySQL 8
- things in-between that should work with potentially a lot of work:
    CentOS, OpenSUSE

Does that model looks accurate?

-

On 20-06-24 12:42, Tomas Cohen Arazi wrote:
> I agree we should raise the minimum version to 5.14 in that case.

Is there any known feature that would make one of our supported Koha
versions not working on Perl 5.14?

On 20-06-26 01:31, dcook at prosentient.com.au wrote:
> I wonder if there is a reliable list of features by Perl version without
> reading through every delta listed at
> https://perldoc.perl.org/index-history.html. There is something at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl_5_version_history.

+ similar work for Perl dependencies 😱

An easier approach would be to ask everyone (koha-devel only or also the
general koha list?) What is the oldest systems components they installed
a supported version of Koha on. Then we will see which is the lowest
version of Perl & OS & DBMS that people have a chance to encounter on a
server when installing or upgrading Koha. (and at what cost did it work)
That's the info that matters right?

Also we could use Hea. Current step is Bug 23914 - Hea - share the DBMS
(name and version)
https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=23914

-

On 20-06-24 18:40, Mark Tompsett wrote:
> I apologize if this is a dumb question, but do we support Xenial
> (Ubuntu 16.04) still?

Nor recommended nor advertised as supported from what I see.
But in the CI it's enabled and successful on master and 20.05

-

On 20-06-24 19:15, Julian Maurice wrote:
> In the latest release notes:
> [...]
> - 19.05.12 says the the recommended environements are Debian stretch or
> Ubuntu bionic, and requires Perl 5.24 (it's strange that an older
> version of Koha require a newer version of Perl)

That was me due to being confused that came up with a bit to simplistic
logic:
«We only have automated tests passing for Debian 9 and Ubuntu 18.04. So
we only demonstrated Koha 19.05.12 working with Perl 5.24 and 5.26. So
that's the requierements»
But that's squashing "recommended" and "required" together. The
previously mentioned 3 or 4 categories are better.
I'm fixing the release notes of 19.05.12 with the following:
«Perl >= 5.14 is required and 5.24 or 5.26 are recommended»
(not sure about what to do with the 19.05.12 release notes in the Koha
source code though)

-

On 20-06-25 00:59, Paul A wrote:
> On 2020-06-24 1:15 p.m., Julian Maurice wrote:
>> Ah yes, I forgot about Xenial.
>> Not sure if it is still supported.
>
> Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS (Xenial Xerus) was released February 28, 2019, has an
> "End of Standard Support" set at April 2021, and "End of Life" of April
> 2024 -- where some package enhancements are ensured up to the first of
> those dates, and *security* is ensured until the second, i.e nearly
> another four years from now.

It's supported by Ubuntu publicly until April 2021. And for their
customers another 3 year via ESM (extended security maintenance).

That doesn't mean Koha should recommend or even keep continuously
testing on Ubuntu 16.04 until the ESM EOL or even the public EOL.
IMHO it's a balance between the resources that Koha community members
can provide for the additional human and (to a way lesser extend)
machine resources needed to watch out for and fix regressions.
VS
The benefits of upping the Perl or Perl dependencies or DBMS
requirements to use new features or drop ugly workarounds for bugs.
(note: I don't think we should consider stopping continuously testing on
Ubuntu 16.04, it was an example.)

-

On 20-06-26 12:30, Julian Maurice wrote:
> I added the topic to next dev meeting agenda

Thanks Julian :)



-- 
Victor Grousset/tuxayo