EOL ( End of Life ) Policy

[Fufu]

The new code structure and new PHP implemented in xenForo 2.x got me thinking about the EOL ( End of Life ) Policy. I understand xenForo team has even assisted me with xF 1.0.x and 1.1.x, which is awesome. Although, I wonder if I keep paying my subscription or even later and stay on say 1.x series and 2.x series, or even 3.x series, etc ... is current. I keep thinking about xenForo developers, stylers and translators included, how long is it before their work become outdated in forum owners eye.

How long can we expect support for previous versions?
What is the EOL ( End of Life ) Policy?
Will patches be provided for previous version if vulnerabilities/exploits are found?
Will bug fixes for the last X.x.x series be fixed for what duration of time?
Will one last x.x.X before moving on?

 

[rainmotorsports]

Thats a good question!. Curious myself. Id imagine 1.4 is going to be receiving bug fixes longer than any other version did. I don't know how many sites are still on 1.1, 1.2 was a bit of an update. 1.3 wasn't bad at all and other than money and a little bit of time I don't see a reason for anyone to not update. 1.4 is probably still in question when it comes to how hard it will be for some sites to update but if it doesn't break the most popular plugins i would like to see everyone who has an active subscription on it by the time the first post 1.4 bug fix release for 1.3.

As horrible as they who will not be mentioned was, thats one thing we did see a good amount of was long term patches. Some of them were not great and the products suffer to this day.

 

[Moshe1010]

Thats a good question!. Curious myself. Id imagine 1.4 is going to be receiving bug fixes longer than any other version did. I don't know how many sites are still on 1.1, 1.2 was a bit of an update. 1.3 wasn't bad at all and other than money and a little bit of time I don't see a reason for anyone to not update. 1.4 is probably still in question when it comes to how hard it will be for some sites to update but if it doesn't break the most popular plugins i would like to see everyone who has an active subscription on it by the time the first post 1.4 bug fix release for 1.3.

As horrible as they who will not be mentioned was, thats one thing we did see a good amount of was long term patches. Some of them were not great and the products suffer to this day.

I won't be that sure about 1.4 to be the last second point release for XF 1. As it sounds right now, XF 2 is at its very early stages. Considering 1.4 would get an update every 4-6 weeks, it's about 5-6 months until there would not be much to update. XF 2 would need a very long alpha and beta testing. It would also need to give developers some time to fix/rewrite their add-ons. I suspect XF 2 would be released somewhere in Q2 or Q3 2015. I don't think that XF developers would leave XF without new features for 6-12 months - this would create a disadvantage for them in the forum world since competitors are releasing new features all the time, sometimes to an older and newer series of products simultaneously.

 

[cellarius]

I don't think that XF developers would leave XF without new features for 6-12 months

I would expect them to do exactly that, more or less. How else could it work? It's surely not like they're twiddling their thumbs now They have a certain time to develop xF, and that does not double just because they do xF2 now. There's no way they can be expected to keep up the current momentum in the xF1 series and develop xF2 at the same time. Every feature release for xF1 will push the xF2 release further away. I guess - and hope - they will pretty much concentrate on xF2 now.

 

[rainmotorsports]

I won't be that sure about 1.4 to be the last second point release for XF 1.

Yeah I was hesitant to say it without thinking about that first. I personally am leaning towards 1.4 being the last. But your argument is entirely valid. I would rather see the work shifted to 2.0. As was stated before 2.0 will not necessarily be 100% feature complete in comparison to 1.4/1.X. The less distraction the better. They do have to spend time working on maintenance releases for 1.4 as well and with such a small team... They seem to cope well with the current product so I won't doubt them.

 

[Paul B]

I guess - and hope - they will pretty much concentrate on xF2 now.

As XenForo 1.4 nears release, the time has come to shift our primary development focus to a brand new version, which will become XenForo 2.0.

 

[Moshe1010]

Unless they are ninjas and can produce an alpha/beta version during the holidays, then yeah it would make sense.

 

[Pereira]

I think it would good policy to update bugs for at least a year after the release of 1.4.

As regards to security fixes, I don't see a problem there. I'd assume XenForo would issue security fixes for at least the next few years as they seem to be very rare.