Clearing Up Some Confusion on the Release Versions of CakePHP
There seems to be a bit of confusion as to what version of PHP will be supported in what CakePHP releases, and where to find which projects on [url]http://code.cakephp.org/projects[/url]. Hopefully, this post will help answer any questions you may have.
If you only read one line of this entire post, read this: CakePHP 1.3 != Cake3.
Now, while this may seem obvious to many, there are quite a few people who seem to be confused about the naming of the different versions of CakePHP.
CakePHP 1.2 supports PHP 4 and PHP 5.2, inclusively. PHP 5.3 introduced a few changes to the error handler flags, which we have accounted for in CakePHP 1.3-dev and will be accounting for in all subsequent releases.
The reason we are not including PHP 5.3 compatibility in CakePHP 1.2.x is that we want people to move forward to CakePHP 1.3 & up when they become stable. If you're willing to update the php *language* to a new point release and not willing to update your application to a new framework point release, I think you have a slight disconnect. If you want, you could always apply the patches that we have committed to 1.3-dev to a local git branch, and continue on your merry way by merging in upstream changes from 1.2.x into your local branch.
CakePHP 1.2.x and 1.3.x are in the same project, at http://code.cakephp.org/cakephp. The 1.2 and 1.3-dev releases are simply different branches.
Note: As of now (1251729076 seconds since Unix Epoch), CakePHP 1.3 is not considered stable. We encourage everyone to checkout the 1.3-dev branch, play around with some of the new features, and file bug reports and/or enhancement requests, since now's the best time to get any new desired features worked on. For notes on the minimal amount of backwards incompatible changes occuring in CakePHP 1.3, please consult the migration guide: http://code.cakephp.org/wiki/1.3/migration-guide
CakePHP 2.0, a different project, is also being worked on, which will be PHP 5.2 and up only, meaning we're dropping support for PHP4. See http://code.cakephp.org/cakephp2 to follow along the development of this project. The goal of this release is to be a nearly transparent upgrade for anyone running CakePHP 1.3 stable (whenever that is released), meaning that the two should be pretty much 100% API compatible.
Finally Cake3 is a different project, found at http://code.cakephp.org/cake3. This is an experimental project which is a complete rewrite of the CakePHP framework from the ground up, and will only support PHP 5.3 and up.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion.
-jperras.
Now, while this may seem obvious to many, there are quite a few people who seem to be confused about the naming of the different versions of CakePHP.
CakePHP 1.2 supports PHP 4 and PHP 5.2, inclusively. PHP 5.3 introduced a few changes to the error handler flags, which we have accounted for in CakePHP 1.3-dev and will be accounting for in all subsequent releases.
The reason we are not including PHP 5.3 compatibility in CakePHP 1.2.x is that we want people to move forward to CakePHP 1.3 & up when they become stable. If you're willing to update the php *language* to a new point release and not willing to update your application to a new framework point release, I think you have a slight disconnect. If you want, you could always apply the patches that we have committed to 1.3-dev to a local git branch, and continue on your merry way by merging in upstream changes from 1.2.x into your local branch.
CakePHP 1.2.x and 1.3.x are in the same project, at http://code.cakephp.org/cakephp. The 1.2 and 1.3-dev releases are simply different branches.
Note: As of now (1251729076 seconds since Unix Epoch), CakePHP 1.3 is not considered stable. We encourage everyone to checkout the 1.3-dev branch, play around with some of the new features, and file bug reports and/or enhancement requests, since now's the best time to get any new desired features worked on. For notes on the minimal amount of backwards incompatible changes occuring in CakePHP 1.3, please consult the migration guide: http://code.cakephp.org/wiki/1.3/migration-guide
CakePHP 2.0, a different project, is also being worked on, which will be PHP 5.2 and up only, meaning we're dropping support for PHP4. See http://code.cakephp.org/cakephp2 to follow along the development of this project. The goal of this release is to be a nearly transparent upgrade for anyone running CakePHP 1.3 stable (whenever that is released), meaning that the two should be pretty much 100% API compatible.
Finally Cake3 is a different project, found at http://code.cakephp.org/cake3. This is an experimental project which is a complete rewrite of the CakePHP framework from the ground up, and will only support PHP 5.3 and up.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion.
-jperras.

http://bakery.cakephp.org/articles/view/release-cakephp-1-2-5
btw, I agree with Martin on the problem of the latest stable cake isn't compatible with the latest stable from php.
I believe 1.2 is compatible with all versions of PHP 5, it just doesn't make use of features recently introduced in the newest PHP versions.
I'm actually looking forward to Cake 2. Let's drop PHP 4 altogether!
Cake 1.2 PHP4 & PHP5.2 (current stable version of Cake)
Cake 1.3(-dev) PHP4 & PHP5.3
Cake 2 <=PHP5.2 (first PHP5 only version of Cake)
Cake 3 <=PHP5.3
Is that correct Joel?