Some folk jumping to conclusions in the comments here ... The linked message is one post on an internal mailing list. It was intended as a summary of the votes

Some folk jumping to conclusions in the comments here ... The linked message is one post on an internal mailing list. It was intended as a summary of the votes, for the voters. It has no broader context of the situation they face or no links to any debates that might have happened before because of the audience it was aimed at. If anyone from PHP internals wants to tell us about the background of this decision that would be really interesting.