As development of Phabricator is ceasing, what steps will Wikimedia take to ensure staying operational? There is a community fork called Phorge (overview at we.phorge dot it/T15010), but it is struggling to catch on.
Topic on Talk:Phabricator
@Xerus2000 Phabricator is a stable codebase. Which specific issues do you have in mind that could threaten "staying operational"?
For example, PHP 8.1 is not supported: https://secure.phabricator.com/T13588
As per the link, PHP 7.4 is "expected to work", but security support for this version will end in Nov 2022: https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php
AFAIK the underlying servers run on Debian. So I'd check the support plans of Debian (for PHP 7.4 etc) instead.
@AKlapper (WMF) right. Still, in the light of this announcement, I think Wikimedia Foundation should have a plan.
I mean, even if it may be OK to run unsupported software for some time (operationally speaking), I don't think we should wait until Debian LTS support ends to start a discussion on this.
Ah, I see how my last comment might be misinterpreted. We do not use a Debian package for Phabricator. I don't consider Phabricator "unsupported software" - there is a forked upstream project at phorge.it.
Well, in the long run or even midterm it is a problem to have a static software without maintenance.
New challenges might arrive, regarding HTTP or security mechanisms or whatever.
In this case shifting to a maintained fork might become necessary. Anyway, jump over a bar when you are in front of it, not half a mile before.
Good to keep in mind that there is a fork now, thank you for the hint, and when migration becomes necessary it is to be checked which codebase or system should be selected then.
See also phab:T302528, proposing migrating to Phorge once it is ready.
@AKlapper (WMF) @DZahn (WMF) I am not seeing any tasks related to community communications on this?
Hmm, I personally don't believe enough people mind or care about this technical detail in the background to justify communications. (I might be wrong of course.)
Is there a task I missed that described what would change on the user side of things?
If/when we migrate from the upstream "Phabricator" software to its fork upstream "Phorge" successor software as what is running at the address phabricator.wikimedia.org, then we'll get a bunch of upstream software changes which took place in Phorge in the meantime. This is maybe comparable to migrating from MediaWiki 1.38 to 1.40 or something like that. (Writing "maybe" as I have not reviewed changes but I played with Phorge locally for a few weeks and did not spot "huge" changes.) This is my impression; others involved may disagree.
Also (I should have shared this earlier), the main technical epic task about this is at phab:T333885
Migrating from MediaWiki 1.38 to 1.40 is tech news material, so this could be along the same lines. But if the impact on the average, non-technical members of our community were more noticeable, or if there's any action that they would need to take (even if it's something minor like "update your bookmarks",), then I would say we may want to coordinate more closely on that.
There is no action to take. The URL remains the same.
Not sure User:DZahn (WMF) did get my ping, so trying again.