Topic on Talk:Support policy for PHP

At any given point in time, there must be at least one combination of Debian Linux LTS and MediaWiki that both parties support for an overlapping period of two years.

This is not possible. The MediaWiki LTS cycle is three years, so 1.5 years into the cycle, there is no MediaWiki version at all which will be supported for two years (the old LTS is supported for 1.5 more years, the next LTS is not released yet, and the non-LTS versions are only supported for one year).

I think what's really meant here is not any point in time but the time of the new MediaWiki release?

Or maybe overlapping period of two years means a period of time that contains the point in time we are talking about, but does not necessarily start with it?

The intention here is that at all times there is one or more such combinations with a time span of support that is at least "two years wide" (such as visualised on Version lifecycle), and that there will be a point in that span where you can jump to newer one with 2+ years before the next required jump.

It is indeed not neccecarily true that there is always a starting point for such smooth chain with 2+ years left.

Bottom line being to always have continuous support, and not require upgrades more than once every two years. However, depending on when you start it indeed does not mean the that first upgrade has to be more than 2 years away, it is allowed to be sooner.

Thanks. I was trying to work out T257879 but I guess it's not possible then.

Nevermind. This confused me for a while but I think I figured it out.