[asterisk-users] Discussion: Are we ready to leave 1.4 behind?

[Olle E. Johansson]

> 
> I(me, my opinion, my feelings, my commercial view) am on the side of
> dropping support for 1.4 and 1.6.  1.8 had some major issues which are
> resolved/being worked on with more energy as older platforms are shut
> down. If a large enough security issue showed up, I hope we would all
> try to do the right thing and push it back to 1.6 and 1.4.
1.6.x is not an option for me at all. These' releases are not LTS. We can't 
upgrade as often as that release schedule required. I am very happy to see 1.6.x disappear
in the darkness and from my hard disk drives.

> Support
> must end sometime. Merging changes across many versions is very
> difficult and time consuming.  
I fully agree here.

> Asterisk GUI is very limited do to its
> 1.4 support code.  There are users that still use 1.2 and are very
> happy.  They are not looking for new features. I hope the 1.4 / 1.6
> users can survive while they test the 1.8 branch and share why or why
> not it will fit their needs.

They will survive and they will merge their own bug fixes. I just wish we could share the work and maintain the branch in public instead of everyone managing it by their own. As long as 1.8 is not ready for the way we use it, we have no version to migrate to. 

I am sure that 1.8 will fit their needs and deliver a lot of extra. It's a cool new release. Everyone wants to go there. That's not the issue here. The issue is when it's ready for the larger installed base beyond the early adoptors.

I don't like the project I've been part of for many years not offering a supported option that fits the customers I work with. It's as simple as that. 

Saying that they should know better, that the project has posted the release plans for a long time warning about this - it  just doesn't cut it as long as we have no working code to replace the current version with. 

Compared with last time we had a painful migration (from 1.2 to 1.4) there are numerous other options out there.  I think the project have to be a bit more careful about our attitude towards the installed base. I want to keep them in the Asterisk project. That is where I belong and where they belong.

/O