Some time ago I was asked to allow developers use the short “<?” tag instead of the “<?php” on my server. The php manual clearly discourages this, especially when using code that is going to be redistributed.

On the other hand, why are both possible and if the first isn’t more dangerous then it doesn’t matter does it?

Anyway, the proper way to handle it is to change the short_open_tag = Off/On option in php.ini