[buddypress-trac] [BuddyPress Trac] #6258: Update supported WordPress versions

[buddypress-trac]

#6258: Update supported WordPress versions
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 Reporter:  DJPaul                    |       Owner:
     Type:  idea                      |      Status:  new
 Priority:  low                       |   Milestone:  2.4
Component:  Tools - Code Improvement  |     Version:
 Severity:  normal                    |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  2nd-opinion               |
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Comment (by boonebgorges):

 OK, let's revisit. According to https://wordpress.org/about/stats/, usage
 stats for old versions look like this (release dates in parentheses):

 * 3.6: 2.5% (2013-08-01)
 * 3.7: 1.7% (2013-10-13)
 * 3.8: 5.3% (2013-12-12)
 * 3.9: 8.0% (2014-04-16)
 * 4.0: 8.9% (2014-09-04)

 The 5% rule suggests that we drop official support for 3.6 and 3.7.

 As a cross-reference, 3.8.x was still the latest stable version as of
 early April 2014 (just before 3.9 came out). This is about 15 months ago.
 For 3.7.x, the "most recently stable" time is about 21 months. As I
 mentioned above, I think a good guideline for "most recently stable" is
 that we should maintain support for WordPress versions going back at least
 12 months, which would suggest that we should definitely keep support for
 at least 3.8.x.

 Based on the above, I'm going to suggest we bump the minimum official
 supported version to 3.8. If everyone else is OK with this, I suggest we
 do the following:

 1. Bump the minimum supported version in trunk
 2. Open a separate ticket where someone does a quick review of backward
 compatibility and progressive enhancements in BuddyPress that become
 obsolete when we no longer support 3.6 and 3.7, and make some
 recommendations for removal (or leaving stuff alone, as appropriate)
 3. Post about this on bpdevel
 4. Formalize these steps for future release cycles

 Thoughts?

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Ticket URL: <https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6258#comment:9>
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