What is LTS (Long Term Support) and should I use it?

[artfulrobot.com]

The CiviCRM website hints (small print on download page) that an LTS version is available, but I can't find any information on where to get it (the website points to the github page, but there's no reference to LTS there. Searching this forum said 0 results...) or which version it is (I've since learned it's ~4.2), or how long it's supported for, or what the policy might be for releasing a new LTS version.

I have had a good experience with Ubuntu's LTS releases and they are well documented. This has really helped reduce the admin overhead in situations where the latest feature is not the main concern. So I think I might be interested in CiviCRM LTS.

Please can someone point to where I can find information on this, or provide it here so I can understand whether this is the one for me?

Many thanks :-)

Rich

[Coleman Watts]

The current LTS is 4.2, but it is very near EOL. The next LTS is planned to be 4.4, so if you start out on that you will be covered for a long time.
All downloads (lts and latest) are available here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/civicrm/files/civicrm-stable/

[artfulrobot.com]

Thanks, so looks like I should install the latest stable one  on the 4.4 branch.

Could you define "long time"?

Is the planning all back-room stuff or is there any public schedule we can look at? The lack of info on LTS stuff kinda undermines my confidence in it - I really support the LTS concept but I realise it's an additional overhead for the stretched team, which is why I'm looking for a commitment to it online; without a public plan I'm worried I'll end up on an old version and think I'm supported (security) when actually it's been dropped or there's a new LTS or something.

Thanks again.

Rich

[Coleman Watts]

https://civicrm.org/blogs/eileen/4210-lts-release answers most of those questions.

LTS is community supported and not officially maintained by the core team, although we do pitch in from time-to-time when needed.
It's main benefactors are Eileen from Fuzion and Nicholas from CiviDesk. They do some internal coordination on the lts mailing list, which you could subscribe to if you wish, but most of the discussion is done publicly on the forum.

Hope that helps.

[artfulrobot.com]

great, thanks so much.

Hadn't found that whole forum area! (wondering why lts search failed, now... probably my bad).

Good to know that it's a community supported effort.That explains why there's no release schedule or page on the main site etc. I'd found Eileen's blog before but but I had been looking for a central page explaining LTS rather than one specific to a particular version.

All clear, thanks for your very prompt help!

[Eileen]

At the moment the LTS is pretty much only security patches for 4.2. We were planning to announce that 4.2 LTS was coming to an end ant that efforts would be switched to 4.4 when Giant Rabbit stepped up to say they would continue to support security for 4.2 (and probably 4.3) for a while longer.

We still expect there to be a 4.4 LTS effort

[artfulrobot.com]

Hi Eileen,

So I began implementation on 4.4 after Coleman's post. I need to upgrade (security 4.4.7) but I'm not sure whether to go for 4.4.7 or 4.5? I understand 4.5 has some more significant changes.

Do you still plan to LTS 4.4 or 4.5?

Thanks,

Rich

[Coleman Watts]

My general recommendation is to always use the latest version of CiviCRM unless your project has a significant blocker preventing you from doing so. Examples of such a blocker would be:

• piles of custom code that you can't upgrade right now
• legacy extensions that are not compatible with the latest version
• template overrides (tsk tsk) which are too difficult to upgrade (which is why you shouldn't do them in the first place)

Otherwise I always say go for the latest version. It's got the best features, current documentation, up-to-date apis, and probably a lot of bugfixes which didn't get backported to the LTS.

One note about extensions: often an extension is not marked as compatible with the latest version for no better reason than that the maintainer hasn't gotten around to it. But if you ignore the warning and install it anyway, 9 times out of 10 it will still work fine. Unlike Drupal, we don't tend to break all of our apis with each new release, and backward compatibility is generally very good.

[artfulrobot.com]

Yeah. I tend to have a bit of custom stuff e.g. Localising templates for UK addresses is pretty painful http://artfulrobot.com/blog/localising-civicrm-uk; plus a custom report or two; plus a fair bit of Drupal but using the API. So there's a lot of testing after an upgrade.

(With templates I check in a copy of stock, then make my changes and commit that. So when there's an update I revert changes, re-copy stock, apply my patch and commit.)

So upgrades are best only-as-necessary (security mostly) in my book. Obv. I like shiny new features as much as the next Civi' fan, but with a number of clients on the go now, each update can take a day or so to complete.

That's why the LTS seems attractive, hence the question re 4.4 / 4.5

[Coleman Watts]

each update can take a day or so to complete.

Which is why you should start new projects on the newest possible. Less upgrades in the future. Just sayin...

[Eileen]

There was an intention to do an LTS every second upgrade - giving a degree of certainty so people could plan to upgrade every second release. But we really don't know what the release after 4.5 is going to be yet - there has been some mention of it being a fairly minor release (4.6) in which case the LTS can be expected to stay on 4.4 until 4.6 has been out for 6 months or so. However, the next release might be 5.0 and if that is the case there may be a 4.5 LTS. The 4.4 LTS will run for at least a year

So, there is no reason to choose 4.4 over 4.5 as there is no certainty as to which one will be supported for longer

[Donald Lobo]

There will be a 4.6 release. Hopefully it will be a short quick release. The current features that we want to add to 4.6 are:

a. VAT support
b. recurring event support
c. GSoC CiviMail user interface improvements
d. GSoC CiviMail A/B testing
e. (some parts of GSoC Bootstrap project, right bgm?)

and depending on when D8 comes out maybe D8 support (also a GSoC project)

lobo

[Eileen]

we should definitely put the d8 code in there too - if d8 is still beta then so will the integration be - I understand it works but we need more out of Torrance so I'll try to beat on his skype about it

[Donald Lobo]

would be good if torrance can post a blog post on where he is with D8 and what needs to be done etc. I'm assuming (hoping) he'll be willing to do the needed work to merge the stuff with core

lobo

[Eileen]

I checked with him & apparently D8 is still changing a lot - but my understanding (& I should check with Tim) is that we should merge this part of his repo in now

https://github.com/torrance/civicrm-drupal/tree/master/core/

& then if it needs to be patched again as drupal evolves so be it