Strict error messages in php5.4

Problem/Motivation

I recently upgraded to php5.4 in a local development environment and the heartbeat stream began throwing strict checking errors.

Strict warning: Non-static method HeartbeatMessagePool::getInstance() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in flag_heartbeat_message->_load_content() (line 266 of /home/ross/projects/srcom/sites/all/modules/heartbeat/modules/heartbeat_plugins/plugins/flagattachment.inc).

There were other contexts in which this error arose for the heartbeat.module on line 661, which is the same code as line 266 above.

heartbeat.module line 660.

function heartbeat_activity_load($uaid) {
  return HeartbeatMessagePool::getInstance()->getMessage($uaid);
}

Proposed resolution

My proposal for resolving this problem is to make the constructor of the HeartbeatMessagePool class a public function. That way we can use the following approach to accessing the data:

Fix for flagattachment.inc

  function _load_content($content_id) {
      $heartbeatMessage = new HeartbeatMessagePool();
      $heartbeatActivity = $heartbeatMessage->getInstance()->getMessage($content_id);
      return is_numeric($content_id) ? $heartbeatActivity : NULL;
  }

Fix for heartbeat.module

function heartbeat_activity_load($uaid) {
  $heartbeatMessage = new HeartbeatMessagePool();
  return $heartbeatMessage->getInstance()->getMessage($uaid);
}

Remaining tasks

I've tested this out locally, and the above solution seems to work. I'm not, however, certain if there is a security reason for making this class constructor private. If so, a different solution would need to be found.