On 2011-01-25 01:09, Erinn Clark wrote: > I think supporting multiple versions back is a laudable goal, and one we > should > consider, but right now it's not feasible (for me, anyway, as the primary > packager with the current infrastructure). The following is my initial sketch > of the package support policy, which is an accurate snapshot of what's > currently out there (specifically for Tor and Vidalia):
Erinn, My feedback is that the Tor Project really, really will want a written and published policy of how far back an OS is supposed to be supported. Otherwise, you will get to have this discussion every time a new OS version is released. Industry standard for consumer software that goes into the far corners of the world is "current and previous major version", which has different meanings depending on OS. I.e, in MacOS "major version" translates to "minor version number". Also, MacOS upgrades happen quickly in the field, which means that MacOS can have support for older versions deprecated with less pain than most other OS'es. MacOS upgrade uptake is to Windows upgrade uptake what Adobe Flash upgrade cycles are to Adobe Reader's. In Windows, "current and previous major version" translates cleanly to major version numbers, though that means that during the current Windows cycle you have to support three versions of Windows due to Vista's special status of Win7 market beta. A temporary oddity and burden on Tor Release Engineering that will soon go away. In Debian, that translates into "stable" and "oldstable". Plus of course whatever dev and beta versions you want to support. Similar hardcodable rules apply to other OS'es. Supporting older OS'es, perhaps non-intuitively, leads to reduced overall deployment of most software as coding for less-evolved IP stacks and GUIs takes away engineering resources, constraining beneficial features that would attract more users. --Lucky, wearing his day job hat for brief moment.
