Old plugin versions - Long Term Support

Hello all,

I have come across a barrier setting up my server. Every time I get started on setting it up, a new version of craftbukkit is released. Shortly after, plugins follow suit. I admire this always-fresh process, however, I have been trying to find a long-term support version of both the plugins and the server.

When the plugins update, I notice the older versions shortly after are no longer available for download. This becomes frustrating because a lot of plugins I've noticed are not backwards compatible with most older versions of craftbukkit. To be able to get a long-term support version for craftbukkit, all plugins must support this version by providing downloads and documentation for them.

I've googled and found nothing, does anyone here know of a site that hosts old versions of these plugins? Perhaps a suggestion to have all developers/distributors of plugins to provide downloads/documentation for specific earlier versions that would solve this issue.

Anyways, I've started a poll about this to see what everyone thinks.

 

You want the old stuff? Save it! You dont have to re-configure every time an update is released.

Jeez...

 

This currently will not work for a number of reasons:

1. Minecraft is unfinished. A LTS can be prematurely obsoleted with an update.
2. Older versions of plugins are often more buggy and shouldn't be used
3. Many plugins often do not break when bukkit is updated
4. Many plugin authors already do post previous versions on their websites
5. By having multiple bukkit versions you are asking plugin authors, who often are just one person teams, to maintain AND support multiple versions of their plugin at the same time?

Bukkit does not update that frequently; an LTS does not work in this context.

 

I once used the 1.5 version of essentials with 1.7, just for teh lulz (worked fine!)

 

I admit I am a bit new to setting up a craftbukkit server. My luck hasn't been that great with forwards/backwards-compatibility for plugins with newer versions of craftbuckkit.