Re: Should We Start Dropping Windows XP Support?

[John Emmas <johne53 tiscali co uk>]

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