Introduction

The Simple:Press WordPress Forum plugin has been under continuous development for 12+ years now.  In that time, we have included features that made sense at the time but no longer makes sense now.  And, we have had numerous versions in that time frame, some with security issues that have since been resolved.

It is normal for software companies to have a formal process for transitioning old versions of product to "end-of-life" status and to communicate that policy to their users. As such we created this document to formally communicate our policies and processes to our new and existing customers.

With this post we aim to clarify to all of our customers:

• What is currently supported
• Features that will be deprecated in the future
• When currently supported versions can be expected to be unsupported in the future ("end of life")

We hope that with this information we can help you to reliably plan transitions and upgrades to supported versions. (For many reasons, including security and compatibility with WordPress, we strongly encourage our customers to upgrade to new versions when available!)

Supported Versions

Generally, support will end for older versions one year (12 months) after a newer version is available or one year after its initial release.  This means that:

• Version 6.8.2 is supported until December 1st 2023
• Version 6.6.x was supported until September 18th 2021 but has reached it's end of life.  Customized support contracts are available for extended support if necessary.
• Version 6.5.0 was supported until February 28th 2021 but has reached it's end of life. Customized support contracts are available for extended support if necessary.
• Version 6.4.0 was supported until February 18th 2021 but has reached it's end of life. 
• Version 6.3.0 is no longer supported. Supported ended on December 19th 2020.
• Version 6.2.0 is no longer supported. Support ended in May 26th 2020.
• Version 6.1.0 is no longer supported. Support ended in April 11th 2020.
• Version 6.0.0 is no longer supported - support ended on Feb 1st 2020.
• Version 5.7.5.3 is no longer supported - support ended in December 2019.
• Version 5.7.5.2 hit the end of its life on September 17th, 2019 no longer receives support or updates. This is because version 5.7.5.3 was released on September 17th, 2018 and 1 year from that date is September 17th, 2019.
• Version 5.7.5.1 and all prior 5.x versions are considered to be "end of life" and thus is no longer eligible to receive support
• Version 4.x is no longer eligible to receive receive support
• Version 3.x is no longer eligible to receive receive support
• Version 2.x is no longer eligible to receive receive support
• Version 1.x is no longer eligible to receive receive support

Deprecated Features

Deprecated features are those that will be removed in a future version. A deprecated feature will continue to function until the date it is removed.  The purpose of moving a feature to deprecated status is to alert customers ahead of time that it is going to be removed - this allows for an orderly transition to a replacement if necessary.

Below are features that are deprecated or will be deprecated in the future.  If, for some reason you are still using these features, please be sure that you transition to alternatives asap.

• RPX:  Was deprecated in 6.0.0 and removed in a point release version some time later.
• Identities:  Some identities in core was deprecated in 6.0.0 and removed in a subsequent point release version some time in 2019.  These identities include AIM, ICQ, YAHOO and others where the service has been terminated.  If you would like your users to be able to use those identities in their user profile, you can use our User Identities plugin - but users will have to update their profile again with their identity data.  [Update:  This has already been completed.]

Plugins

• PLUGIN: Achievements - was discontinued in the 2nd half of 2019 and is no longer offered for sale at this time.
• PLUGIN: Cubepoints  - was discontinued in the 2nd half of 2019 and is no longer offered for sale at this time.

Themes

Going forward, only three themes are supported:

• Barebones
• Reboot
• Modern 2020

All other themes are deprecated.

• THEME: DEFAULT - will no longer be supported beyond December 1st 2019.  While the theme will likely continue to work for a while, new features introduced in Simple:Press will not be seen on this theme and bug fixes and other support will no longer be available beyond December 1st 2019.
• THEME: STACKED - will no longer be supported beyond December 1st 2019.  While the theme will likely continue to work for a while, new features introduced in Simple:Press will not be seen on this theme and bug fixes and other support will no longer be available beyond December 1st 2019.

PHP Versions

Support for version PHP version 5.6.x was removed at the end of 2019.  This does not mean that Simple:Press will suddenly break or not run on PHP version 5.6.0 after 2019 - it just means that we will no longer test future development on that version or support it going forward.

We are doing this because PHP version 5.6 no longer receives updates and security updates were terminated at the end of 2018.  So we strongly recommend that users move to at least PHP 7.4 sooner rather than later!  Note that even PHP 7.0 no longer receives security updates - those were discontinued after Dec 2018!  So if you need to transition, it is best to transition to at least 7.4.

Simple:Press will continue to be tested in and support offered under PHP 7.2 or later versions of the 7.x line.

You can find out more about the PHP end-of-life and support schedule here:  PHP end-of-life and support.