> On 10 Jan 2022, at 12:44, Peter Maydell <peter.mayd...@linaro.org> wrote:
>
> ... On Linux this tends to take the form
> of dropping support for older versions of various dependencies
> and compilers.
My build environment uses modern tools (like GCC 11, etc), but compiled from
sources on an older Linux release.
The xPack QEMU specific build scripts also compile all QEMU dependencies from
sources.
Unless you change the system APIs your code depends on (like it happened to
Cocoa), I should be able to build future QEMU versions in my environment.
The problem is not that I enjoy using very old releases, but my tools are also
used in some very conservative enterprise environments, where RedHat 7 is still
in wide use (given that support for it ends in 2024). Starting with 2022 I just
dropped support for RH7, and moved to RedHat 8, which is roughly equivalent to
Ubuntu 18, and I have to support it for a few more years.
Thus, where possible, I would appreciate changes in APIs to be additive, and
support for older versions to be kept for a while as unmaintained, not removed
completely.
Thank you,
Liviu
