[development] Freezing the Drupal API

[Richard Archer]

Hi all,

Recent discussions on the Consultants list has raised the issue of
the cost of doing business using Drupal, notably the high cost of
upgrading existing installations due to the ever-changing nature
of Drupal's API.

I wonder if there would be any interest in forming a group to
tackle this by identifying where the current API has potential
for improvement and perhaps even writing some code!

My aim would be that as of Drupal 5.0 with CCK, the published
API would be treated as "stable" and changes to it would be
resisted strongly.

IMHO, if this could be achieved it would give Drupal a much more
mature look and make it more attractive to large users.

It would also increase the manpower available to work on future
Drupal development because right now extra resources are being
wasted maintaining the 4.5 and 4.6 trees, simply because the API
changes between releases makes it impractical for many users to
upgrade to 4.7.

 ...Richard.