Earlier this month, popular forum software phpBB announced its plan for future releases and support. phpBB 3.1.0 was released in November 2014 and gave an injection of modern web app development to the software. While it has some growing pains (the end of mods and the introduction of extensions), the developers seem to be focusing on the sustainability of the software more than chasing the next great feature. That new sustainability makes it exciting to see them publish a roadmap for future releases and end of life previous versions in the next couple years.
The shared schedule was listed as:
- Nov 2014 – 3.1.0 Release
- May 2015 – 3.0.x End of Maintenance
- Nov 2015 – 3.0.x End of Life, 3.2.0 Release
- May 2016 – 3.1.x End of Maintenance
- Nov 2016 – 3.1.x End of Life, 3.3.0 Release
- May 2017 – 3.2.x End of Maintenance
Every November the next major release version should come out and the following May will mark the end of maintenance for the previous version, with the end of life coming for that previous version with the next November. With the focus on sustainability, this will keep moving things forward and reduce the support workload.
While the end of maintenance and end of life are listed, a separate end of support is not listed. An explanation states that this will be determined by the support team with support at least to the end of life and with at least 6 months notice.
End of Support – End of Support means, that the support forums for the respective version will be closed and questions will not be answered anymore. Currently there are no specific End of Support dates but the Support Team will support the versions at the very least until the End of Life of the respective version. Support may be provided past this point and the support team will give at least 6 months notice before the End of Support for a particular version.
For more details, you can review the phpBB Release, Security and Support Plan announcement or the phpBB Release & Update Policy page.