Dropping 5.5.x

[David Golden]

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:08 AM, Ovid <publiustemp-tapx at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The Perl survey reported around 13% usage for < 5.8, but so?  5.8 has been out for almost SEVEN YEARS!  Should we really limit the usefulness of some core modules just because a tiny minority can't upgrade?  That minority holds everyone hostage.  If there's a truly compelling reason to stick with 5.6, let's hear it.

Playing Devil's Advocate here:

I question it from two angles:

(1) The case should be made on why we *should* drop it -- not why we
shouldn't drop it.  The only thing I saw was about how nice it is to
use in-memory files in testing.  Is supporting 5.6 adding particular
difficulty or complexity to continue to support it?  I'd rather see a
reasoned argument rather than a knee-jerk attitude that that X% "holds
everyone hostage".

(2) We should consider the implications of such a decision on the
broader community.  When Schwern declared no further support for
5.005, I personally used that as the justification to drop 5.005
support for everything I've written since.  If core parts of the
toolchain drop support for 5.6, that could ripple through CPAN
development, so the decision is bigger than just Test::Harness.

Back on-side the argument -- if a major security bug were found going
all the way back to 5.6.2, would there be a 5.6.3?  If so, then I
would argue not to drop support for 5.6.  If not -- if the answer is
"tough, upgrade to 5.8.10 or 5.10.1 for the fix" then I think that 5.6
could be considered end-of-life.

-- David