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The summary
James Titcumb's RFC is the follow-up to the 2025 vote that deprecated PECL in messaging only. It sets fixed calendar dates rather than tying the shutdown to PHP releases. The plan starts with a banner in January 2027, then a full read-only switch on June 30, 2027, with a series of brownouts through December before the site closes on December 31, 2029.
Extension maintainers who ship only through PECL would need a PIE package before mid-2027 to keep releasing. Anyone whose Dockerfiles, CI configs, or provisioning scripts call pecl install would see them break at shutdown and during each brownout. The official PHP Docker images already dropped PECL with PHP 8.6, so some users have hit this early.
The discussion raised concerns that a multi-year read-only period leaves the site unpatched. Rowan Tommins suggested a longer restricted stage and a way for trusted users to upload security fixes, while Derick Rethans argued the needed registry changes are costly and proposed shortening the timeline by a year instead.
Editorial note: This is a summary of an article first published by PHP News. The full piece is on their site.