[Development] Remove OSX 10.6 Build?

[Richard Moore]

>> XP was introduced in 2001. It’s still supported. Mac OS 10.6 was
>> introduced in 2009. I understand the desire to get rid of the messiness
>> under the hood, but I think it should be considered that it cuts out users
>> on hardware platforms not so much up to date.
>
>
> Right but the difference is that Microsoft was not very good at making a
> decent successor of XP which made most of the people stick with XP.
>
>
>  It’s not just that. This also has to do with the cost of upgrading
> hardware. Charts describing OS destribution, top contributors mentioned):
>
> Worldwide: http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201212-201312-bar (Win7:
> 52%, XP: 22%, Mac OS: 7%)
>
> Denmark: http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-DK-monthly-201212-201312-bar (Win7:
> 53%, Mac OS: 16%, iOS: 8.5%)
> Denmark is a country with big purchasing power. Win XP is almost gone here,
> below Mac OS and iOS, units usually associated with higher price.
>
> China: http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-CN-monthly-201212-201312-bar (XP: 56%,
> Win7: 36%, Win8: 2%)
> XP dominates here. One might suspect the cause being less general buying
> power. Note the lack of Apple hardware in the top.
>
> Cuba: http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-CU-monthly-201212-201312-bar (WP: 51%,
> Win7: 32%,  Linux: 6.7%
> Same here. Note the sudden appearance of Linux. Many Linux distros runs well
> on lower powered hardware. I doubt that Cubans are die hard Linux fans in
> general.
>
> I don’t think I’m interpreting too much from the above by stating that the
> popularity of older OS versions are dependent on buying power and geography,
> not just the existence of replacement candidates.

If you're going to make a commercial argument based on 'buying power'
then you also need to factor in how many of those installations have
actually paid for their licenses. Or more specifically, how many of
them are going to pay to buy applications developed in Qt. As an open
source developer I don't really care, but we have limited resources so
a target platform that isn't going to offer a return for commercial
developers /or/ open source developers isn't sustainable.

Cheers

Rich.