Next Europa Major Version Support Policy.

Dear Next Europa/Multisite Drupal users,

Due to the increased development capacity needed to support the large number of current versions of the Next Europa platform, and the need to focus development work on the Drupal 8, COMM (as business owner) and DIGIT (as solution provider) have agreed on a support policy for Next Europa versions.

From now on, each time a new version is released by the core team we will continue to support the previous version (for both security fixes and high priority bug fixes) and the one before for 1 month only (exclusively for security fixes).
Practically, this means that when the version N is released, version N-1 will continue to be supported for security fixes and bug fixing while version N-2 will continue with only security fixes for 1 more month.

All site owners are therefore asked to ensure a timely upgrade of their site – preferably to the latest version each time – in order to assure a proper security protection of the site.
It is important to note that since most sites are hosted on a shared infrastructure it is not possible to allow sites to remain without proper security fixes. If a high-level security risk affects a site on a version that is no longer supported, the core team will not provide support. In such case, DevOps will forcefully upgrade the site to the oldest supported platform version or transform the website to a static HTML version, which is not exposed to security risks.

Since this is a new policy, we will allow 1 month from the current date for dropping security support for versions 2.3 and older. Please make sure your site is upgraded to version 2.4 at least by 30 November. If this is not the case you are requested to let us know the desired action in case of a security exposure for your site: forced upgrade to version 2.4  or transformation to static HTML.

What this means for your site:

• If your site is on Next Europa version 2.3 or lower,  please make sure to upgrade your site to version 2.4  at least as soon as possible (version 2.5 is recommended, as version 2.6 is already in its final stages before release).
• If  your site is on Next Europa version 2.4,  please start working on the upgrade to version 2.5.. Support for version 2.4 will be maintained exclusively for security fixes for one month after the release of version 2.6.
• If your site is on NE version 2.5: Congratulations, your site is already benefiting from the latest functionalities and all available fixes released by our core team.

If you do not upgrade the site by 30 November please inform Comm Europa Management of the choice regarding the forced upgrade or transformation to static HTML. If a choice is not expressed in advance, we will choose by default the transformation to static HTML, since this solution will allow your DG to reduce hosting costs as well.

A separate mail will be sent to site owners using Next Europa version 2.3 or lower. Those sites will need to be upgraded urgently.

Best regards,
The Next Europa IT Platform Team.