Re: php4 backports anyone?

[Gerfried Fuchs <rhonda@deb.at>]

* Fionn Behrens <fionn@spamfilter.de> [2009-07-03 12:34:05 CEST]:
> I have a customer who is running a very large project on PHP4. Because
> of subtle object usage details in programming, a port to PHP5 would be
> pretty identical to a complete rewrite (about 6-8 man-months estimated)
> and is not financially feasible because of short budgets (like
> everywhere).
> However, a server upgrade is on the list (they still run sarge) and I
> need to know if anyone knows about a repository or something where
> anyone hosts some sort of more-or-less-maintained backport repository
> for ANY debian or deb-based Linux-Distribution that still gets security
> updates! (they are on sarge, currently)

 etch still receives security updates - and it's not backporting related
at all because php4 isn't available in any newer releases. It's
abandoned and not maintained upstream anymore since quite a while
already.

 About rewrite costs, maybe this gets people thinking that php might not
be the best option to choose as a base for programming, but then, I
might turn your flame-bait into a php-flame-bait by saying so. :)

> Please dont tell me that they wont get around a PHP upgrade sooner or
> later because I know and I told them and they dont want it now. All I
> want to do is make the best out of the situation and to achieve that I
> need to move away from sarge, to get at least an OS with security
> updates which would be an improvement already.

 You might want to consider running that piece in a minimum virtual
server through any of the virtualization frameworks, or at least in some
chrooted environment. But then, that holds for any php enabled site
anyway.

 But even then: "they wont get around a PHP upgrade sooner or later" and
currently they still have the posibility to do it in time before it
explodes in their face. I would ask them to sign a paper that holds you
clear of any liability because of that; unfortunately I get the
impression that you will need it eventually.

 Sorry to not have better news for you.
Rhonda