[ic] [interchange] Fix potential "use of uninitialized value" if called during startup

[Peter]

On 27/06/17 11:06, Jon Jensen wrote:
> Please explain how it limits our userbase to require a Perl version that
> is available in every supported distro release.

Should I point out now that RHEL 5 is currently supported by Red Hat
with an ELS subscription and will be until the end of November 2020 and
that this comes with perl 5.8.8?

> Who is actually using a public-facing website on an unsupported Linux
> version, and why should we hold back Interchange for them?

I'm not and I'm really don't have a personal issue with this change, but
given that IC 5 is currently in a maintenance support stage, we should
be focusing more on supporting existing installs rather than enabling a
lot of future work on this.  I would like to see a push to get more
people started on IC 6 and get a stable release with a decent set of
instructions out for that.  IC 6 is where we should be looking for
forward momentum, IC 5 should keep backwards compatibility, support for
bug and especially security fixes and the occasional new feature where
we can do so without breaking existing installs.


Peter