D8 & D7 descriptions on the drupal project page need updating

Suggestion sounds good to me. I *think* this would be in the drupal.org customizations module also. Definitely not in Drupal core.

Anyone who can create Drupal releases can edit the "short description" and change the copy.

https://www.drupal.org/node/2892409/edit

Any committer can change this, yes, but the text was drafted in collaboration with the DA and so we need consensus on what it should be. Furthermore, D8 committers should not be changing the D7 description without consensus.

I don't speak for the DA, but my guess is as long as it is correct, and accurate they won't care much.

I don't speak for the DA, but my guess is as long as it is correct, and accurate they won't care much.

In the past, there has been a lot of scrutiny over copy related to core and a lot of concern with what committers drafted on our own, so yes, they do care. The original copy was not written by core committers. Maybe this is in the wrong queue though.

Reading https://www.drupal.org/project/webmasters, I think Drupal.org content is probably the right queue? Or core and then reach out to the DA, but I don't know who at the DA to ask about content decisions anymore.

I sent this issue over to the DA, my guess is we might get a response on Tuesday or Wed of next week.

Here’s a draft with a few less words:

The latest and greatest, with new features and improvements every six months.

A proven platform with a wide variety of contributed modules and themes.

I’d say the Association and core committers should come to consensus here, but it doesn’t need to be as much of a process as the giant 8.0.0 launch.

It would be ideal to run this by people who don’t know if they should get D7 or 8. But, this can be changed at any time, so shouldn’t block clear improvements.

@drumm: like the suggested wording :) +1

Another +1 to drumm's wording, though I would not be opposed to pushing D8 even stronger if we can find the words to do so.

Currently, D8 has different text for this depending on whether it's a patch or minor release. Should we come up with text that works for both, and not distinguish between them?

The text for minors is:

The latest minor release includes new features and backwards-compatible API improvements, and is ready for new development and production sites.

That text lasts up to 4 weeks until the next patch release, whereupon it becomes the patch release text shown in the screenshot:

The next patch release of Drupal 8 is ready for new development and use on production sites.

So maybe combining the minor text with #9, we get:

The latest and greatest, with new features and backwards-compatible improvements every six months.

(The BC part is important.)

However, this doesn't capture one of the key advantages of adopting D8, which is future-compatibility. If you pick D7, you have a lot of modules and themes now, and a very costly upgrade in your future if you want to continue to use Drupal. If you use D8, there might not be as many modules and themes, but at least once you're on D8, there's a promise of future-compatibility with the continuous upgrade path that does not exist for D7.

(I also find the phrase "latest and greatest" a bit too breezy, but that's just me.)

Not sure if this is the direction you'd like to go. But how about
"The latest patch release of Drupal 8 is ready for new development and use on production sites. Choose this release for future-compatibility and a long life of security coverage."

a long life of security coverage seems a bit exaggerated.
I know Drupal 8 will not have security coverage when Drupal 10 have a stable release, but it would be better to say have security coverage for the next X years. (Replace X with the correct number.)

Well, it's not just the next X years (where X is about 3 atm). If you build a site on D8, you get the continuous upgrade path forever. If you build a site on D7, though, you have to go through a horrible, painful upgrade sometime in the next 3 years.

First of all, looking at the state of affairs which is still as screenshot on #14, I think the RC text looks good at least for Drupal 8 RCs:

Release candidates are not supported for production sites, but they are intended for widespread testing in preparation for the upcoming stable release.

For Drupal 7, I would suggest something like this, given we don't want to suggest 7 anymore for new sites, right? That would be sad after 3 years of Drupal 8 being stable.

Supported until November 2021, use this version for sites already running Drupal 7.

For Drupal 8 releases, it would be nice to not need to have separate text wouldn't it?

Actively improved with new features and backwards-compatible improvements every six months.

I was pondering how to include forward-compatibility and less pain in towards Drupal 9 in the Drupal 8 description but don't know how best to add that.

We should also remove Drupal 6 from the download page finally :) https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal

I looked into the drupalorg and drupalorg_crossite module code and did not find the template for the download page. It seems like it comes from a template or setting somewhere as it is not on the project node AFAIS. (To remove Drupal 6).

As per https://www.drupal.org/node/3060/edit/releases we still technically mark Drupal 6 supported which is not good either. I tried turning that off but then the Drupal 6 header and intro text still shows up on the page without a release to use. So turned it back on.

Alright, so iterating on what @Gábor Hojtsy proposed:

D7:

Supported until November 2021. Use this version for sites already running Drupal 7.

D8 or D9 active maintenance:

Actively maintained with new features and backwards-compatible improvements every six months. Use this version for the best compatibility with future releases.

D8 LTS:

Supported until November 2021. Use this version for sites already running Drupal 8.

I double checked with my coworkers, the Drupal Association does not need to provide any sign off here. You can of course still ask our opinion, if you want.

Final sign off and changing this makes sense as something the core maintainers are empowered to do.

@xjm your text proposals sound fine to me. Anyone else it would need to be confirmed with?

@drumm Is it possible to provide these as a default value for core in the short description field? Or otherwise allow us to specifiy default values for that field?

We should also update https://www.drupal.org/core/maintainers/create-core-release which the new descriptions for both 7 and 8.

I updated both https://www.drupal.org/core/maintainers/create-core-release and the two current latest releases showing on the project page. I also opened #3032107: Prefill core short release description in release creation form as @xjm mentioned to me over chat that it would be really valuable to automate the prefilling of this. My understanding is that this is complete as-is.