SilverStripe 3.1 was officially released almost ten months ago now and the feedback we’ve had has been great, with users feeling it was a significant step forward. SilverStripe 2.4, on the other hand, was released back in May 2010 making it more than four years old. As a community you did great things with 2.4 and as a widely used popular version it became the ‘work horse’ among freelancers and web development shops alike.
However, all good things must come to an end. Although our general policies state that we would have stopped supporting 2.4 once 3.1 was released, we have continued to support it beyond that. We would like to give you a decent amount of advance notice about the date for the end-of-life of SilverStripe version 2.4.
No need to panic!
End-of-life for SilverStripe 2.4 is set for March 31st 2015, so you have plenty of time to plan a move on to SilverStripe 3.1 for your own or your clients' projects.
What does end-of-life mean?
As the SilverStripe CMS open-source project is curated by the technology company of the same name (SilverStripe Ltd) and maintained by many others out in the open-source community. End-of-life will mean different things to different people.
SilverStripe open-source
Looking at SilverStripe open-source, it’s really important to note that the 2.4 code base isn’t the focus anymore for the active community efforts. This means by upgrading you’ll get more than just the current version, you’ll get the benefits of an active community full of specialists contributing code, features and modules that you can use to optimise your website.
Here is a breakdown of what this means for the community.
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After 31 March 2015 SilverStripe Ltd will no longer be releasing security patches for 2.4.
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We will start the process of archiving older forums and articles relating to 2.4 (these will still be available in an archive space).
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The documentation manual will remain to assist those out in the community still supporting older sites.
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The codebase for 2.4 will remain as part of our github repositories (core and modules), however 2.4 related issues and pull requests will have a lower priority than those submitted for 3.x and only conservatively merged (as mentioned no further official releases will be made).
There are some useful community created upgrade scripts available and documentation to help you make the transition.
SilverStripe Ltd commercial customers
As with any technology, a SilverStripe release has a limited lifespan, and it’s only a matter of time before technical support for it ceases, to make way for bigger and better things. Technology waits for no business, the longer you take to update between software iterations they more difficult and costly both support and upgrading can become. With this in mind, it’s a great time to revisit your customer facing channels, give them a refresh and step up your technology. We recommend seeing the upgrade as an opportunity rather than a chore. Upgrading your site’s codebase is a great time to think about changes and improved functionality that you might want to add, to help you achieve your goals.
If you are a commercial customer of SilverStripe and you are using SilverStripe 2.4, we will be getting in touch with you, but if you do have any questions, please contact us to discuss the best option for you.
For New Zealand, contact Janine Eastwood:
janine@silverstripe.com
Phone: +64 9 9731914
Mobile: +64 22 304 3152
For Australia, contact Owen Windsor:
support@silverstripe.com.au
Phone: +61 3 8352 4431
Why should we start working with SilverStripe 3?
With SilverStripe 3 we have also greatly improved the CMS interface experience. You'll find getting around and editing your content a breeze. The simple, yet effective user interface allows your content managers to effortlessly tailor content to your needs. We’ve worked really hard to give content authors a seamless experience on 3.1. We‘ve also evolved 3.1 with developers in mind in that we’ve given flexibility to the way developers build and maintain your website. We’ve reworked the Object-Relational Mapping significantly to give an all-over better developer experience not to mention added security benefits. SilverStripe 3.1 gives you the tools you need to create high-performing and secure websites. You can check out the demo or read about the features introduced in 3.1
Looking forward
Open source is all about innovation and progress. With the new version of SilverStripe all the improvements, bug fixes and security testing are focused on version 3.1 of our Framework and CMS.
Our stance on supporting versions of our software is to ensure the current (3.1) and one version back (3.0) are supported, while over time we retire the older versions such as 2.4. This helps ensure that our Framework and CMS are moving forward and keeping pace with advances in technology and delivering value to users.
Remember to mark 31 March, 2015 in your calendar - a date to both celebrate the success and longevity of SilverStripe 2.4 and to look at how current and future versions of SilverStripe can help us create the web together.
