Re: [Phplib-users] phplib 6.1, php3 and php4

[Michael C. <mdc...@mi...>]

On Tue, Jan 22, 2002 at 02:52:19PM -0600, Lindsay Haisley wrote:
> Actually, I installed phplib from a tar package from the author's website. 
> When I installed it, v 6.1 was the newest version.  All my customer's
> websites are built against phplib 6.1.

I'm still not sure why this is the case, unless you built them all years
ago and haven't had any new business since then.  My customers are
informed enough to know that software changes, and that periodically
they'll get updated.

> I would very much like to upgrade the whole she-bang.  The issue, which
> everyone seems to have missed, is that this is a _production server_.  I
> host sites which my customers are paying me to keep online rock-solid and
> unbroken.

I don't think any of us missed that.  I am in the exact same business as
you, except that my customers understand that keeping anything running
rock solid means updates to fix security problems and bugs
occassionally, but continually as an ongoing effort.  As many of us have
said, you are running old software which has known security problems, and
worse yet you're thinking of upgrading to another broken version of PHP.

Package management is great.  But PHP changes too quickly, and the
upgrades are too important to miss, for package management to be an
option.  Breath deep, download the sources, and do a build.  And get
used to it.

> If I intend to upgrade to php4, I need to know _very
> specifically_ what I can expect to break in existing code so that can either
> preempt any problems or fix them quickly if I get complaints that something
> on someone's site has stopped working.

The reason that we're not answering that is because your version of
phplib is so incredibly old that we have no idea what all will break.  I
started with it two years ago and it was version 7.2 then.  I cannot
fathom how old the 6.1 version is, and I cannot fathom that someone
would update software so rarely.  I suppose that you're still running an
exploitable 2.2 kernel, too.

I would highly recommend that you get in the habit of upgrading PHP and
Apache when upgrades are available, and update phplib when upgrades are
available.  You do your customers a great disservice by not doing this.

Michael
-- 
Michael Darrin Chaney
mdc...@mi...
http://www.michaelchaney.com/