A PHP internals mailing list thread discussing concerns about syncing PHP's bundled libgd to the unreleased upstream 2.4.0 version for PHP 8.6. Giovanni Giacobbi raises four concerns: the code is less than a month old, libgd 2.4.0 has never been released or tagged, PHP 8.6 is already at alpha1 leaving little testing time, and new ext/gd features tied to libgd-2.4 would force use of the bundled library. Respondents are divided — Jakub Zelenka and Ilia Alshanetsky support proceeding, arguing the update is long overdue and syncing releases would be beneficial. Kamil Tekiela suggests waiting for an official libgd 2.4 release. Pierre Joye (the PR author) defends the change as a pure sync with no BC breaks, notes security audits have been performed, and explains the intent to coordinate the libgd 2.4 release with PHP 8.6.
