1) They aren't lining it up with PHP version support which means if that was their justification, they didn't think it through at all.
2) That doesn't make it long term support.
3) > Since originally launching in 2011, Laravel has always followed the “release early, release often” mantra which is popular in open source applications. With the historic rise in popularity of the framework, it was time to start focusing on the needs of large organizations and mission-critical applications that need security fixes but can’t upgrade quickly. Laravel 5.1 will now include 3 years of security fixes.
The logical way to have handled this if that was the reasoning would have been to say "Laravel 5.1 will be supported until Aug 2017 to line up with the PHP release cycle and provide a stable platform for large organizations along multiple levels of their tech stack.
As each version of PHP is released, we will release a LTS support version of Laravel in sync with PHP's cycle within X months."
That isn't what they did and that is not what they communicated in any, way, shape or form. It doesn't line up with PHP's release cycle, it doesn't have the coverage needed to be truly LTS. It isn't like PHP has breaking changes in every point release.
2) That doesn't make it long term support.
3) > Since originally launching in 2011, Laravel has always followed the “release early, release often” mantra which is popular in open source applications. With the historic rise in popularity of the framework, it was time to start focusing on the needs of large organizations and mission-critical applications that need security fixes but can’t upgrade quickly. Laravel 5.1 will now include 3 years of security fixes.
The logical way to have handled this if that was the reasoning would have been to say "Laravel 5.1 will be supported until Aug 2017 to line up with the PHP release cycle and provide a stable platform for large organizations along multiple levels of their tech stack.
As each version of PHP is released, we will release a LTS support version of Laravel in sync with PHP's cycle within X months."
That isn't what they did and that is not what they communicated in any, way, shape or form. It doesn't line up with PHP's release cycle, it doesn't have the coverage needed to be truly LTS. It isn't like PHP has breaking changes in every point release.