X-Cart forums

[Triple A Racing]

Written (with clenched teeth...) to provide the answers given by the XC Team, after questions were asked as part of a recently submitted ticket, that was chasing up other outstanding, unanswered and/or unresolved previous tickets etc

1) XC 5.4.2.* will NOT be released. The XC Core will be revised and a new XC 5.5.*.* version will be released instead. This has a current ETA of: Q2 / 2022

2) PHP 8.* support for XC5 (PHP 8.0 or PHP 8.1 was not stated...) will NOT be available until XC 5.5.*.* is released AND this may NOT be available in time for the 1st XC 5.5.*.* release

3) All of the Apache overdue changes e.g. mod_access_compat will NOT be available until XC 5.5.*.* is released

4) All of the outdated AKA currently unsafe 3rd party components used within XC5 (and there are a LOT...) will NOT be updated or changed until XC 5.5.*.* is released

5) Support for Maria DB 10.6.* will NOT be included until XC 5.5.*.* is released

Unless you want to spend some considerable time de-bugging, and then re-writing vast areas of the core yourself, there is no other alternative. It's wait for XC5.5.* or bust aka Catch22. IMHO & In a nutshell: XC5.4.1.* is dead software walking and the 2nd coming; XC 5.5.* will (apparently) save us all...

Feel free to draw your own conclusions and / or decide if XC5 (sorry SellaLottaLabs...) and you, have a bright future together

[cflsystems]

As far as I know 5.4.2.x was supposed to have significant changes over 5.4.1.x. If the move now is to 5.5.x I can only assume the changes will be even more drastic and there will be no compatibility between 5.4.x and 5.5.x - while 5.4.1.x and 5.4.2.x would have been compatible to a degree.

It is of no surprise they won't make 5.4.x PHP 8 compatible - there's way too many 3rd party vendor packages to upgrade as well as the core code, modules, etc.

Considering even PHP 7.4.x now gets only security updates and only until the end of this year I would say XC is again very late for the show. By the time they release 5.5.x and it is consider stable it will be 2023 and PHP will be way into the 8.x version.

5.4.1.x is not dead but its safe use pass end of this year is questionable. It can be made PHP 8 compatible the question is why would anyone outside XC do it. Too much work and it has to be packed as its own package, cannot be installed as a module, not to mention licensing issues...
You can also expect with 5.5.x SL will tighten even more the SaaS model.

I think it is save to say XC5 is turning into XC4 - slow but sure decline in user base over few years. Unless SL somehow manages to move its Amazon user base into XC5 based marketplace(s).
The great advantage XC had over competitors for years was its source access and the fact that anyone with knowledge could do anything with the cart to fit any type of business or requirements. SaaS may be great for the owner of the software but it is not so great for the end user, in my opinion.