[Development] Dropping XP?

[Robert Knight]

Hello,

> I don't know about the codebase, but given the feedback for Qt Creator there are still a lot of people using XP even as a development platform ...
> so I'd expect quite some backslash if we completely drop support for Windows XP, at least for 'traditional' QWidget based apps.

I'm afraid so. To provide some example numbers for our cross platform
app targeted at students and researchers, based on the first half of
September:

- The Win/Mac/Linux split is 71%, 22%, 7% (the high Mac and Linux
usage here is a reflection of the domain we target)
- OS X 10.5 is used by 2.5% of Mac users, OS X 10.6 by 20% of Mac users
- Windows XP is used by 11% of Windows users

Dropping XP support entirely would be painful, but if new
functionality did not support XP that is more tolerable.

> OTOH people won't move unless the industry gives them reason to do so by dropping support :-)

Microsoft Office and web browsers like Firefox and Chrome are best
placed to nudge the existing userbase I think. Unfortunately
for developers, Chrome's XP support is now extended until April 2015.

Regards,
Rob.

On 10 December 2013 09:25, John Layt <jlayt at kde.org> wrote:
> On 9 December 2013 23:23, Thiago Macieira <thiago.macieira at intel.com> wrote:
>> As Kenneth reminds us[1], Microsoft is ending the security updates for Windows
>> XP in April 2014. That's about when we plan to release Qt 5.3.
>>
>> Should we stop supporting Windows XP? Is there anything we can improve in our
>> codebase if we do?
>
> I would like to, but I'm not sure we can quite yet given how
> widespread its use still is.  OTOH people won't move unless the
> industry gives them reason to do so by dropping support :-)
>
> Localization would benefit, or at least would be cleaner.  Vista added
> a lot of new APIs and features I'd like to use without having to fudge
> things on XP, like we do in QCollator.  It would also mean the WinRT
> port wouldn't need to ifdef everywhere to replace LCIDs with locale
> names and the potential for behaviour differences that brings.
>
> Printing I haven't noticed any new API at all.
>
> If 5.3 is a stabilization release and on a shorter release cycle, and
> comes out about the XP EoL date, then perhaps it would be a good final
> release to offer XP users, with 5.4 giving us more time to replace XP
> code and make sure there's no regressions?  Or would the WinRT port
> benefit from us doing it sooner?
>
> John.
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