Re: [boost] Windows XP support survey

Subject: Re: [boost] Windows XP support survey
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-05-08 06:15:04

On 8 May 2015 at 4:43, Rob Stewart wrote:

> > Why 7 and not Vista?
> 
> Vista never had much traction. Smart users upgraded computers 
preloaded
> with Vista; I did so on a laptop. As another example, my company
> bypassed Vista. All its desktops run Windows 7. 

Also Vista is highly unusual in that it had no corresponding Windows 
Server edition. There was a straight jump from an XP base (2003) to a 
7 base (2008).

I can see us remaining on Windows 7 support for a very long time. 
Which is no bad thing, Windows 7 hammers down all the nails I 
currently care about on Windows.

> > > What I'm suggesting is that notice is given that XP support is now
> > > down to each library maintainer's good wishes, and libraries are
> > > coming which won't support XP, and will never support XP.
> > 
> > I think XP should either be properly supported or it shouldn't be
> > supported period.
> 
> XP isn't supported now since there's apparently no testing for it. The
> change is to be clear that the minimum supported Windows OS is 7. That
> doesn't mean that maintainers or Boost.Config should make changes to
> purposely sabotage using (parts of) Boost on XP. 

Exactly.

If those who really care about XP support could donate some XP 
testing resources to Boost it would go a long way towards keeping XP 
support around. After all maintainers can't know if they have broken 
XP support unintentionally otherwise.

If they don't donate those resources, it's obvious they don't 
actually care that much after all.

Even still, there are libraries coming which can't support XP. I 
especially see any Boost.Thread v5 not supporting XP, not ever. 
That's still a while out, but the bullet should be bit sooner rather 
than later so notice should be given. Once Windows Server 2003 passes 
EOL I think it's time to give notice.

It's not like older versions of Boost are going anywhere. People 
needing XP support can remain on an older Boost.

Niall

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