Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
Hi, On Di, 2014-12-30 at 09:45 +, John Emmas wrote: > I work on an audio product called Mixbus which uses gtk+ (albeit gtk2, > rather than gtk3):- > > http://harrisonconsoles.com/site/mixbus.html > > I've been arguing for a year or more that we should phase out XP support > - but the more senior devs don't agree. Why? Because a surprising > number of our Windows users are still running XP (probably more than a > third). XP is still far more common than you might think. As much as I'd also like to get rid of XP support, I can confirm the above. We have many GStreamer users that still use Windows XP for one reason or another... while at the same time all Windows users with a newer version would benefit a lot from the usage of newer API, especially around networking. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
On Tue, 30 Dec 2014 09:45:11 +, John Emmas wrote: > Perhaps Microsoft itself should be the guiding factor? If Microsoft > starts bringing out products which can't be run on XP, that might be the > right time for gtk+ to start dropping it. Office 2013 doesn't even run on Vista, let alone XP. -- begin .sig < Jernej Simončič ><>◊<>< jernej|s-ng at eternallybored.org > end ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 5:25 PM, Ryan Lortie wrote: > I also make > a totally uninformed 'gut' guess that the people who are still running > XP are probably not the kind of people (by and large) who are into > installing new versions of software on their computers anyway (ie: they > won't be using the new versions of GLib and Gtk or any software that > packages them). > Easily the best rationale I've seen yet. Other than the fact that software that uses Glib or Gtk on Windows is going to (to quote upthread) "bring its dependencies with it". Neverthless, the notion that "sure, XP is out there, but it isn't a target for installs or development of new software" seems dead center to me. ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
hi Fan Chun-wei, On Tue, Dec 30, 2014, at 03:26, Fan Chun-wei wrote: > -There are some things that required specialized implementations for XP, > for example, SRWLock in GLib and networking items in GIO, which may or > may not work well. > (for example, by using inet_pton() directly in ginetaddress.c for > Windows Vista and later enabled many of the network-address.c tests to > pass) > -We often needed to do GetProcAddress() to check the availability of > system-level funtionalities, which would probably need a clean-up. > -As people may know, Microsoft ended support for XP this past April, and > it is found that maintaining support for XP is becoming a bigger and > bigger maintenance burden. > -There is likely the need to move forward to use newer system APIs and > features, which were only available after XP (such as desktop/window > composition) > -Other reasons that people might bring up for this. Very well reasoned. Among the reason above I'd also include the fallback path that we have for monotonic time and secure random number generator seeding. It's my opinion that we should drop XP support early next cycle and take Vista with it. That would mean that our minimum requirement would become Windows 7. Wikipedia seems like as good of a source for information as any: http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm My reason for thinking that is based on the fact that Vista is also out of (mainstream) support and it's even less popular than XP. I also make a totally uninformed 'gut' guess that the people who are still running XP are probably not the kind of people (by and large) who are into installing new versions of software on their computers anyway (ie: they won't be using the new versions of GLib and Gtk or any software that packages them). The only thing I have doubts about are the "server" OSes (ie: Windows server 2003/2008). I have no idea how popular these are and I suspect that they would be unrepresented in any browser-based stats gathering (aside from terminal servers). I also expect that interest in running Gtk-based software on these machines is perhaps lower, but the same might not be true for GLib. We may fine-tune our requirements for "Windows 7 at minimum" to "Windows Server 2008 at minimum" depending on the availability details of the APIs we actually want to use. Let's make that decision when we get there. One thing worth noting is that Server 2003 is out of extended support before the release date of GLib 2.46.0. Windows 2008 will also be out of mainstream support. It seems less likely that a responsible admin would continue to use a server product past its end of life than a normal user with a client OS. If people are really interested in maintaining backwards compatibility of their software to old releases they can make installer packages based on older versions of GLib. I already almost axed XP this cycle. I think next cycle (released ~1.5 years after the end of super-extended-special support) is more than long enough. I also stress the fact that all already-released versions and their stable branches (including 2.44) will continue to work for those who want to package their software based on them for another couple of years. Cheers ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
On 30/12/14 08:30 AM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > there's also the aspect of other projects in the larger free and open > source software ecosystem. what is Firefox doing? what is LibreOffice > doing? what is Qt doing? are we the last holdout? Firefox still supports Windows XP [1]. It still represents a bigger user base than Linux. *sigh* Hub [1] a few feature like native H264 decoding aren't available. ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
On 30/12/14 13:30, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: I've been arguing for a year or more that we should phase out XP support - but the more senior devs don't agree. Why? Because a surprising number of our Windows users are still running XP (probably more than a third). XP is still far more common than you might think. I agree that we should base this decision on numbers. I would not use a single application usage data, however skewed it may be, though, to be quite fair. Hey Emmanuele :) Just to be clear, I didn't mean app stats, but how many people are generally using Windows XP these days. if we look at OS usage statistics for websites, XP goes from <5% (below Linux! we won! oh, wait…) to ~14%, which is far below 33%. it's also steadily decreasing month to month, and Microsoft terminating support for XP was likely the final nail in the coffin. yes, we all know people not upgrading their machine because everything else is terrible, but it's a balancing act, and we need to ask ourselves if we're targeting the retro-computing scene or not. Yea, this is more what I had mind. Though from my recollection, Windows dropped support for Windows 98 before we did with GTK+ 2.x. I could be wrong. At the point where Microsoft drop support, I would base the decision on the maintenance burden. If it is really a minor amount of work to keep support there, then why not (I think you said that too Emmanuele :) ). -- Regards, Martyn Founder & Director @ Lanedo GmbH. http://www.linkedin.com/in/martynrussell ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
hi; On 30 December 2014 at 12:48, Martyn Russell wrote: >> I work on an audio product called Mixbus which uses gtk+ (albeit gtk2, >> rather than gtk3):- >> >> http://harrisonconsoles.com/site/mixbus.html we're definitely not dropping support in GTK 2.x; that branch is done, for better or worse. we're talking about dropping XP code paths directly in GLib (by and large the threading primitives implementation) and GTK+ 3.x (mostly in the composited/non-composited code paths of the windowing system). >> I've been arguing for a year or more that we should phase out XP support >> - but the more senior devs don't agree. Why? Because a surprising >> number of our Windows users are still running XP (probably more than a >> third). XP is still far more common than you might think. > > > I agree that we should base this decision on numbers. I would not use a single application usage data, however skewed it may be, though, to be quite fair. if we look at OS usage statistics for websites, XP goes from <5% (below Linux! we won! oh, wait…) to ~14%, which is far below 33%. it's also steadily decreasing month to month, and Microsoft terminating support for XP was likely the final nail in the coffin. yes, we all know people not upgrading their machine because everything else is terrible, but it's a balancing act, and we need to ask ourselves if we're targeting the retro-computing scene or not. we also need to look at the context in which XP is used. for instance, John's application looks pretty much like an "appliance", and targets a fairly specific user base that won't upgrade because it has no incentive to. the application works, today, just as desired. updating is pointless. likely, the OS in question is running on an isolated machine, with minimal interaction with an hostile environment, so security updates are less of an issue. is that a common scenario? I don't think so. another thing we need to look at is the maintainership burden on the platform and the chance for regressions. we don't have Windows autobuilders, and we definitely don't have Windows XP ones at that. this means that any potential regression introduced in GLib and GTK+ won't get caught automatically, and instead will be caught by application developers whenever they decide to update their dependencies. cue grief and accusations of breaking everything. if on Linux-based platforms application developers test toolkit APIs with 12 months delays, on non-Linux platforms the cycle is even longer. we simply don't have a feedback loop tight enough to be useful. that's where autobuilders and continuous integration usually come in. Windows applications are expected to take their dependencies with them, so it's entirely possible to have a Windows XP build that ships with an older version of GLib, in case GLib dropped Windows XP support. we could even have a separate branch of GLib that would make it easier to target for application developers, and maybe a final Windows XP build on gtk.org. we could have occasional cherry-picks, like we do for gtk-2-24. obviously, it'd help to have regression testing, but since nothing appeared in the last 15 years, I won't hold my breath for it. I'd love to be proven wrong, though. there's also the aspect of other projects in the larger free and open source software ecosystem. what is Firefox doing? what is LibreOffice doing? what is Qt doing? are we the last holdout? finally, while GLib is probably a point of contention where debate on usage statistics is good to be had, I think dropping Windows XP support from GTK+ 3.x makes much more sense; there is a lot less legacy there, and we're starting to assume capabilities from the OS on every other backend, which makes it harder to justify degrading the overall featureset of the toolkit in order to support an OS from 2001 that won't see any update. ciao, Emmanuele. -- http://www.bassi.io [@] ebassi [@gmail.com] ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
On 30/12/14 09:45, John Emmas wrote: I work on an audio product called Mixbus which uses gtk+ (albeit gtk2, rather than gtk3):- http://harrisonconsoles.com/site/mixbus.html I've been arguing for a year or more that we should phase out XP support - but the more senior devs don't agree. Why? Because a surprising number of our Windows users are still running XP (probably more than a third). XP is still far more common than you might think. I agree that we should base this decision on numbers. When I was porting to Windows some years back, one of the more positive things about using GTK+, was the fact that the same installer/app would work across a lot of versions of Windows. It was my experience that native app developers always had to write compatibility layers and it cost them time. I think this is a feature that makes life for developers much easier. If what John says is true (about 1/3 are stilling using XP), I would vote to wait a while. -- Regards, Martyn Founder & Director @ Lanedo GmbH. http://www.linkedin.com/in/martynrussell ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
I work on an audio product called Mixbus which uses gtk+ (albeit gtk2, rather than gtk3):- http://harrisonconsoles.com/site/mixbus.html I've been arguing for a year or more that we should phase out XP support - but the more senior devs don't agree. Why? Because a surprising number of our Windows users are still running XP (probably more than a third). XP is still far more common than you might think. On 30/12/2014 08:26, Fan Chun-wei wrote: -There is likely the need to move forward to use newer system APIs and features, which were only available after XP (such as desktop/window composition) Admittedly, that comes across as quite a compelling reason - but where are these features needed? Mostly in gtk+ or right across the board (glib etc)? If the proposal was to drop XP support from Gtk3, I can see an argument for that. But if the proposal is to abandon XP right across the board (including glib / gio etc) I think that's a much tougher call. Perhaps Microsoft itself should be the guiding factor? If Microsoft starts bringing out products which can't be run on XP, that might be the right time for gtk+ to start dropping it. But IMHO it would be a mistake for gtk+ to preempt that situation and move away from XP unilaterally. What's the situation with similar technologies, such as Qt / wxWidgets etc? John ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
+1 to drop it On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Fan Chun-wei wrote: > Hi, > > Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! > > I understand that this has been brought up before, but I think probably > it's time to gather views on whether we should start to drop XP support, as: > > -There are some things that required specialized implementations for XP, > for example, SRWLock in GLib and networking items in GIO, which may or may > not work well. > (for example, by using inet_pton() directly in ginetaddress.c for Windows > Vista and later enabled many of the network-address.c tests to pass) > -We often needed to do GetProcAddress() to check the availability of > system-level funtionalities, which would probably need a clean-up. > -As people may know, Microsoft ended support for XP this past April, and > it is found that maintaining support for XP is becoming a bigger and bigger > maintenance burden. > -There is likely the need to move forward to use newer system APIs and > features, which were only available after XP (such as desktop/window > composition) > -Other reasons that people might bring up for this. > > I understand that it might be late in this dev cycle to drop XP support, > but I do hope to do it (or at least take part in it) in the next cycle, so > I am writing here to see how people think about this before going into this. > > Any insight into this part would be really appreciated. > > With blessings, thank you! > > > ___ > gtk-devel-list mailing list > gtk-devel-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list > -- Ignacio Casal Quinteiro ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?
Hi, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! I understand that this has been brought up before, but I think probably it's time to gather views on whether we should start to drop XP support, as: -There are some things that required specialized implementations for XP, for example, SRWLock in GLib and networking items in GIO, which may or may not work well. (for example, by using inet_pton() directly in ginetaddress.c for Windows Vista and later enabled many of the network-address.c tests to pass) -We often needed to do GetProcAddress() to check the availability of system-level funtionalities, which would probably need a clean-up. -As people may know, Microsoft ended support for XP this past April, and it is found that maintaining support for XP is becoming a bigger and bigger maintenance burden. -There is likely the need to move forward to use newer system APIs and features, which were only available after XP (such as desktop/window composition) -Other reasons that people might bring up for this. I understand that it might be late in this dev cycle to drop XP support, but I do hope to do it (or at least take part in it) in the next cycle, so I am writing here to see how people think about this before going into this. Any insight into this part would be really appreciated. With blessings, thank you! ___ gtk-devel-list mailing list gtk-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list
