Comment 24 for bug 1522422

> This worries me a bit more. Do we risk breaking PEAR/PECL users if we
> commit to PHP 7.0 in 16.04 and then find we don't have this ready in
> time?

PECL seems to be mostly fine although some PECL packages won't be converted at all and some need a code from some upstream git branch.

PEAR is hard to say - that's probably individual. I've seen report about broken Cacti with PHP 7 just today, so it needs some effort to test at least major packages.

The timing is very tight, but I think it's doable if you put enough effort into it and do some SRUs later to move the PECL modules from git branch to release code. This might be good to prenegotiate with release/core team.

Both choices are horrible due timing, but fixing bugs in PHP 5.6 long after it's security support has ended is a nightmare because PHP 7.0 has diverted too much from PHP 5.6 code.

Fixing bugs as they appear in PHP 7.0 and dependent packages should be much much easier because it will be up-to-date code. It might need relaxing SRU policy a bit, but it will pay of in invested time (and money) long term.

Also I would say that people expect to find PHP 7 in next LTS and the sheer effect of disappointment might lead to distro-switch (although my PPAs could come to save a day in such case, there are some people who won't use PPAs in production no matter what).

In the end, this should not be just a technical decision, because the impact of either choice are also not technical.