From: Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com   
      
   On Tue, 30 Dec 2025 10:46:49 +1000, noel wrote:   
   > as for eol 3 years ago, yes, it was eol when Pat released 15.0   
      
   Not exactly, version 7.4.33 of PHP was released slightly more than 3   
   years ago, at the third of November 2022, the same day support for PHP 7   
   was discontinued.   
      
   When Slackware 15.0 was released at second of February 2022, it included   
   the then considered stable package n/php-7.4.27 package as well as   
   sligthly less well tested extra/php80-8.0.15 and extra/php81-8.1.2   
   packages.   
      
   Since then, all these 3 versions of php has received a number of security   
   updates, but PHP 7.4 obviously no longer receives any updates. On the   
   other hand, PHP 8.2 has also been added in /extra. As those version 8 of   
   PHP are part of /extra those updates does not come in the /patches   
   directory but in the /extra directory. That is so no one by mistake would   
   install a version of PHP which breaks their existing applications.   
      
   Basically, stable versions of Slackware don't receive any feature   
   updates, only security updates and most importantly, those updates are   
   not supposed to break anything. This means that when upstream providers   
   stop supporting a release series, stable versions of Slackware will stop   
   providing updates for that application. Some applications will have newer   
   versions in /extra, but those newer versions might break your stuff.   
      
   Would things be better if Slackware released stable versions every year?   
   No, not really, the main problem with upgrading to newer versions from   
   upstream providers which break your existing configuration would still be   
   there. To avoid that problem, you need to avoid getting dependent on   
   tools and languages breaking backwards compatibility.   
      
   regard Henrik   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)