rfc:policy-release-process-update

PHP RFC: Policy release process update

  • Version: 0.1
  • Date: 2025-05-09
  • Author: Jakub Zelenka, bukka@php.net
  • Status: Under Discussion

Introduction

This is a policy RFC that tries to match the current policy with the process that we currently have and also clarify few details.

Proposal

The policy change is composed of following items

  • Definition of backward compatibility (BC) and noting few cases that are not considered a BC break
  • Clarifying that an RFC can allow a backward compatibility (BC) break in a minor version — this already occurs in practice
  • Introducing a special exception for breaking ABI in a patch release in the case of a HIGH severity security issue.
  • Allowing build compatibility fixes in security releases.
  • Allowing regression fixes in exceptional cases during the fourth year of support.
  • Improving feature selection wording.
  • Explicitly allowing features to be merged without an RFC if there are no objections or RFC requests from core developers. This does not apply to user-facing engine changes (including syntax changes).

Proposed Voting Choices

Yes / No vote requiring 2/3 Yes votes to pass.

Policy pull request

References

Links to external references, discussions or RFCs

Rejected Features

Keep this updated with features that were discussed on the mail lists.

rfc/policy-release-process-update.txt · Last modified: 2025/05/09 11:57 by bukka