Software Lifecycles and End of Life Version Dates

What is this whole “End of Life” thing?

Software evolves and is developed with the ever constant changing technology. From a clients perspective this looks like this:

Software Product Lifecycle
Software Product Lifecycle

ProductEndOfLifeCycle” by ArkrishnaOwn work.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.

Tendenci is based on Django which has a stated release cycle methodology. Django is the web framework that handles much of the heavy lifting. Therefore Tendenci which depends on Django is tied to their release and support cycles,

To a developer software development cycles look like this:

Software Development Cycles
Software Development Cycles

Software dev2” by HeyinsunOwn work.
Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons.

Like a cell phone, your web site needs to be upgraded every few years as technology changes. Your old flip phone might still work, but it might also have a security vulnerability that was discovered a year or two after EOL and nobody is there to catch it.

More on that in a follow up post.