With Joomla! 2.5 just a few weeks away, it's time to reveal our plans for the future.
Joomla! 2.5, the next Long Term Support release of the Joomla! CMS, is around the corner, with a planned release date before the end of January 2012. This marks a new era for Joomla! and we have to adjust accordingly. But first, let's see what this release means for us, Joomla! users.
At the time of this writing, the Long Term Support release of Joomla! is version 1.5. This means that Joomla! 1.5 is the "really stable" release of the Joomla! CMS and the one we have been focusing our compatibility tests with. Versions 1.6 and 1.7 are Short Term Support releases, with a lifespan of just 6 months (+ 1 month to ease transition between versions). Joomla! 1.7 was released in July and Joomla! 1.6 was declared end-of-life in August. Similarly, Joomla! 1.7 will stop being developed as soon as Joomla! 2.5 is released in January 2012 and will stop being supported in mid-February 2012. Moreover, since Joomla! 2.5 is the new Long Term Support release. It will be officially and actively maintained and supported for 18 + 3 months. This means that Joomla! 1.5 goes obsolete as soon as Joomla! 2.5 launches and will stop being supported by the Joomla! project in April 2012.
We have already stopped supporting Joomla! 1.6 when it became end-of-life in August. Likewise, we will cease supporting Joomla! 1.7 across our entire product line when it goes end-of-life in February 2012. This left us with a difficult question. What should we do with Joomla! 1.5 and Joomla! 2.5? Should we support both, one of them or something else?
So here is the plan:
Existing versions of our software (Akeeba Backup 3.3, Admin Tools 2.1, Akeeba Subscriptions 2.0, Akeeba Release System 1.0) will adhere to the following support schedule:
- Supported on Joomla! 1.5 until March 31st, 2012 – only major bugs will be resolved
- Supported on Joomla! 1.7 until 29th February 2012 – only major bugs will be resolved
After these dates, we will not be supporting any of our users still using Joomla! 1.5 or 1.7.
These versions of our software might work on Joomla! 2.5, but we expect a few minor, non show-stopper, issues which will be addressed with new releases about a week after Joomla! 2.5 is released. Right now I am aware that the native CRON script, backup.php, of Akeeba Backup Professional will not work with Joomla! 2.5.
All future versions of our software (Akeeba Backup 3.4, Admin Tools 2.2, Akeeba Subscriptions 2.1, Akeeba Release System 1.1) will only be supported on Joomla! 2.5. This is actually a very hard but very positive decision for us. Supporting only version 2.5 will allow us to leverage new features of the CMS and get rid of a lot of legacy code which has an adverse impact on performance. It might also delay the inclusion of new features in future versions of our software by a month or so, but we hope that you'll hardly notice!