bsd.php.mk suggestion

[Vladimir Zorin]

Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 12:29:17PM +0300, Vladimir Zorin wrote:
>> It's a common need, especially among internet-hosting providers, to have
>> several different PHP versions installed on a server. ...
> 
> I think your request is fair, and I have no real problem with it.
> However, I do often question why people have multiple versions of PHP
> installed; it seems unnecessary with how badly-written PHP is to begin
> with (that is to say, the API may change, but usually the PHP authors
> simply add a new API function rather than break/tinker with existing
> ones).

One of the reasons here (actually, i would say the only one :) is a 
user's request - after all, we host people,
they have different tastes and habits, they use different software which
may need specific php-version and so on.
Of course, with a bit of handwork you can get almost any software to 
work with that php version that you have installed. But you know people. 
Old habits die hard.
Say, one user is used to php4. And doesn't want to migrate to php5 
because: it's not stable, it's bad-coded, or whatever this person thinks 
of php5. And another is used to php5. And believes it's all the voque 
and staff. And they are hosted on a same machine.
We host these people, and this means that we have to provide them with
some space on our servers and with the ability to install and use the 
software they used to. We can't tell each and everyone on how to get 
his/her favorite software working with php5 or php4 - there are just too 
many users and a very small bunch of tech.support guys ;)

And as I've mentioned before - there's only a minor change to the 
bsd.php.mk file, which would seriously ease the process of multiple 
php-versions installation and wouldn't affect the people who don't need 
this.


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Best regards, Vladimir Zorin