[Development] Remove OSX 10.6 Build?

deDietrich Gabriel Gabriel.deDietrich at digia.com
Mon Jan 20 21:21:14 CET 2014


On Jan 20, 2014, at 7:55 PM, Allan Sandfeld Jensen <kde at carewolf.com> wrote:

> On Monday 20 January 2014, Thiago Macieira wrote:
>> On segunda-feira, 20 de janeiro de 2014 17:36:26, Kurt Pattyn wrote:
>>> The CI system is still building for OSX 10.6.
>>> Given the fact that OSX is at version 10.9 now, shouldn’t the build for
>>> 10.6 be removed, and ideally replaced with a build for OSX 10.9?
>> 
>> Only if we decide to stop supporting 10.6 entirely. So the question is: do
>> we drop it?
>> 
>> Mac devs, what say you?
> 
> Could we drop support for build on 10.6, but still support it as runtime 
> platform? That seems to be how Apple prefers to support older versions. The 
> question is of course if out CI system would be able to handle building on 
> 10.7 but running  on 10.6


IIRC, this has been the official statement since Qt 5.0. And yet, for some reason, the CI is treating 10.6 as any other platform.

If you do the math from the data available here http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0 (that’s December 2013), 10.6 accounts for slightly less than 20% of all the OS X versions. Let’s suppose those numbers reflect the reality.

Is 20% a lot? I don’t know. Is that 20% the same proportion for Qt 5 end-users? Or Qt 5 developers making a life out of it? Absolutely no idea. Do I see that many bugs reported on 10.6? No, not at all.

The truth is, market share doesn’t mean anything. Point in case: According to the link above, OS X is less than 8% of the total market share. Should we then drop the Mac port completely?

For all I know, that twenty-something percent of Mac users running 10.6 or earlier are all grandma and grandpa who only use Safari, Skype, and maybe some spreadsheet software for tax returns. For all I know, none of them use any Qt 5 based software. And why would they? They haven’t updated their system in years… But maybe I’m wrong, and I’d like to be proven so.

So, can someone tell me what that 20% really means for Qt 5 and its developers? This is what it means for me.

We are not that many working on the Mac port. I can think about 6-8 people, including me, and AFAIK none of us works 100% on the Mac port (I’d say the average is below 50%, so that’s 3-4 full-time people maximum). And the widgets Mac style code is a mess because we still support 10.6. And we can’t still use ARC because of 10.6 and some old Xcode version. And have you seen the CoreWLAN bear management plugin and how we support 10.6? Fullscreen mode hacks? Thank 10.6. Building WebKit and C++ 11, anyone?

Don’t give me “But 20% market share” or “The XP of Apple” when the debate about ending support for 10.6 comes. Give me facts. Give me numbers that concern Qt 5. Give me reasons why we should keep parts of Qt in such unsatisfactory state.

I only work on my little things, and 10.6 is a burden for me. So, you who work out there, that see people using Qt 5 apps, tell me, is it worth it?

Best regards,

Dr. Gabriel de Dietrich
Senior Software Developer
qt.digia.com




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