phpBB 2 Security Patches Stopping on February 1, 2009

[Patrick]

Hello,

Today, the phpBB Group announced that they will continue to offer security patches until February 1, 2009. phpBB.com will cease support of phpBB 2 on January 1, 2009.

The motivating factor cited is the PHP Group's upcoming plan to retire PHP 4, with security patches coming to that version no later than August 8, 2008.

Thank you for reading and for visiting phpBBHacks.com.

Sincerely,

Patrick
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[Ptirhiik]

And there I'm asking myself why pretexting this reason though the real one would rather be the lack of developper time to give to phpBB 2 when phpBB 3 requires it ? And what the link between minimal requirement of an api and minimal requirement of a server, when the minimal requirement of an api is lower than the minimal requirement of the server ?

Anyway, it is the choice of the phpBB group, I won't discuss it .

[Truestar]

Well support had to end at some point I suppose. But it's a year off which gives plenty of time for conversions, new communities, or last 'minute' support threads.
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[Ptirhiik]

Who wants to convert ? phpBB 3 is a plenty different product from phpBB 2, and doesn't answer the same expections that directed users to phpBB (for some more, for many at this time less, especially regarding available styles).

Less than one year for security patch is really too short for such a number of existing boards, and most boards won't upgrade to the first version of a new product: phpBB 2 has begun to be stable at 2.0.3 version, and is fairly stable since only 2.0.7 (and that's normal). Do you really think phpBB 3 will do better ? I don't think so, really, or that would be the ever first large public product succeeding in this.

But the real problems behind all of this are:
- who will trust the phpBB team in the future, knowing they announce they will keep security fixes even on old previous version (that is what they have claimed since the release of phpBB 3, and before), and finally drop it in such a short time line ? I won't for sure.

- how will board owners be informed of security reports about phpBB 2 ? This means: "go with the new product (it is not only a new version), or be hacked without any warnings", and that is a real concern.

You know, as a mod and full product designer, though I drop support on old jobs, I'm still watching for new security issues that may pop onto my old to very-old (6 years...) productions. I would be very uncomfortable with proceeding differently, and I have not the same spread of my products than phpBB has... And I'm not a perfect guy on this, especially on phpBB mods.

The fact is: phpBB group has lost my trust in their words with this last move. I often have disagreed with their choices (especially this past year), but I kept them my trust because they showed by the past their dedication to users. With this *erm* funny pretext - what the hell they had in mind with choosing this excuse though they have probably plenty of solid arguments that can be easely understood by everyone ?, they have broken something that I don't think it can be repaired, at least for me.

Do I care ? Yes, because I have always be an active supporter of phpBB, and I feel at least very deceived here. Do I care for my boards ? No, I already have superseded phpBB to my own devs. Do I care for my current mods ? No, I will just break quicker than planed from phpBB and go my own way, for the benefits of my users and people who are trusting me.