Re: [gentoo-dev] Upcoming masking of dev-lang/php-4* and packages depending on it

[Josh Saddler <nightmorph@gentoo.org>]

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Christian Hoffmann wrote:
> Heya,
> 
> I'm going to p.mask =dev-lang/php-4* and all packages explicitly
> depending on this version of php (i.e. the whole dev-php4/ category
> (36 packages) and one webapp, www-apps/knowledgetree, bug 194894 [1])
> next weekend (around Oct 14th). This step is necessary as there is
> hardly any upstream activity anymore.
> 
> The last official version of php-4, 4.4.7, dates back to May 3rd and is
> in the same state as php-5.2.2 security-wise (and we all know how many
> issues php-5 had in the past, just have a look at the recently published
> GLSA 200710-02 [2]).
> 
> All those security problems, which were fixed in the 5.2 branch,
> possibly apply to the 4.4 branch as well, yet there are no (backported)
> fixes in upstream CVS and there is no sign of an upcoming release
> either.
> This means, if we were to continue php-4 support we would have to do
> the upstream work and compile a list of issues + patches. Upstream
> developers seem to see it the same way -- "if you really want to get it
> done - do it" was one reply when I asked what's up with php-4. Noone
> from our PHP team has the time and motiviation to do that work, and as
> such we are going to mask it (unless someone volunteers to do the work
> and/or upstream becomes active again).
> 
> We will still keep php-4 (and all related packages) in the tree until at
> least the end of the year (this is the date where official upstream
> "support" ends) and bump it if (and not "when"...) there are any
> releases.
> 
> We advise all users of of php-4 to upgrade to php-5 as soon as possible.
> 
> [1] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=194894
> [2] http://www.gentoo.org/security/en/glsa/glsa-200710-02.xml

Since you're doing the masking, can you please help out the GDP by
reviewing a few of our documents for any potential changes that must be
made? Grepping for "php4" shows that there are references in the
following docs:

1. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/jffnms.xml
2. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/apache-troubleshooting.xml
3. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/qmail-howto.xml
4. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/hb-working-rcscripts.xml


Thanks,

Josh


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