When will PHP 7.1 be available in official repositories?

Question

I'm aware that I can install any version of PHP using the answer here: How do I install different (upgrade or downgrade) PHP version in still supported Ubuntu release?

I'm running an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS server and am not in a hurry to upgrade, but was unable to find anything about the official timeline for when PHP 7.1 would be available in an official repository.

Why does it have to be in the official repositories? If you need it so badly you can install it from PPAs. — David Foerster, May 29 '17 at 10:39
@DavidFoerster I don't "need it so badly", I was wanting to know so I can plan a long term upgrade strategy. The only problem I have with PPAs is that they aren't "official" and therefore I introduce a third party that I have to trust. — Icode4food, May 29 '17 at 12:12
PPAs aren't inherently more or less trustworthy. Whoever maintains a particular package in Canonical’s official repositories may just as easily add something that affects availability or security negatively by accident. Ondřej Surý who maintains a popular PPA for PHP is a professional though not official Debian and Ubuntu package maintainer. For more info about how and when PPAs may be unsafe see Are PPA's safe to add to my system and what are some “red flags” to watch out for? — David Foerster, May 29 '17 at 13:24

Ravexina · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-29T07:28:17.153

"PHP 7.1" will be available in Ubuntu Artful [1].

Ubuntu is not a bleeding edge distribution and most of its packages (except some) in repositories are frozen. These packages only get patchs and will not be updated to upstream major releases. So it's not going to come into "Ubuntu 16.04" repositories at all.

For more information read this answer: Why don't the Ubuntu repositories have the latest versions of software?

Once the release happens additional changes to those packages only happen for bug fixing and security issues. There are no more upgrades done to the packages in the official repository even if new versions of the packages are released.

That is exactly the piece of information I was missing. Thanks. — Icode4food, May 29 '17 at 12:12

When will PHP 7.1 be available in official repositories?

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