[Development] Remove OSX 10.6 Build?

[Robert Knight]

> Dropping support for 10.6, and making it possible to clean up that code, would in the mid-term free up resources that would make
> it possible to spend more resources on better OS X integration in general (or, would make the existing resources more efficient in doing so)?

That was the implicit assumption in my comment but I'm not in a
position to comment on whether that is accurate or not.

Regards,
Rob.

On 27 January 2014 09:08, Ziller Eike <Eike.Ziller at digia.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 26, 2014, at 8:10 PM, Robert Knight <robertknight at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> In regards to users of Mac OS Qt applications: I’m am extremely confident that more Mac OS applications would be/have been written in Qt,
>>> if the priority for native looking widget support was higher. Mac OS users are notorious for their attention to detail and noticing a non-native L&F.
>>> Forcing application developers to resort to Objective C/Cocoa/style sheet hacks/whatever in order to make the UI look and behave more
>>> native sort of defies the notion of a cross platform framework.
>>
>> Indeed. In terms of diverting resources away from supporting older
>> versions of OS X this is probably going be much more compelling for Qt
>> users than talk of being able to use C++11, ARC, newer naive APIs etc.
>> inside Qt itself.
>>
>> As an aside, in a company with enough resources to have product
>> designers, the designers are highly likely to be using Macs and their
>> impressions of Qt apps there tend to carry over to discussions about
>> what platforms to base other versions of a cross-platform app on. So
>> if Digia want to sell commercial licenses to use Qt on iOS, Android
>> etc. investment in Mac L&F may be quite worthwhile.
>
> So what’s the relationship of that discussion on quality of Qt on OS X, to the discussion on supporting 10.6 or not?
> Dropping support for 10.6, and making it possible to clean up that code, would in the mid-term free up resources that would make it possible to spend more resources on better OS X integration in general (or, would make the existing resources more efficient in doing so)?
>
>> On 23 January 2014 21:35, Jan Farø <jan.faroe at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 24/01/2014, at 03.46, Alexis Menard <menard at kde.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 5:16 PM, Jan Farø <jan.faroe at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don’t think anybody has mentioned the lack of ability to upgrade
>>>> hardware - mostly because of financial issues, I suppose. 10.6 is as far as
>>>> I know the last Mac OS to support 32 bit systems. Previous versions of my
>>>> own software supported PPC and down to Mac OS 10.4, which gave me a
>>>> considerable user base from that segment. Percentages aside, there’s still a
>>>> LOT of people sitting with old hardware, simply because they cannot afford
>>>> to upgrade.
>>>>
>>>
>>> But is that a significant part of the Mac OS X users or users of Mac OS X Qt
>>> applications? I seriously doubt so. Let's be realistic, less and less
>>> software are supporting PPC nowadays, the best you can get is a 32/64 bits
>>> binary for Mac OS. Last machines from Apple with 32 bits only processor :
>>> 2006.
>>>
>>> One other point is that Qt5 is about QML and is pushing towards its usage on
>>> the desktop with better components for it with a modern GL scene graph.
>>> Running on outdated graphic cards with outdated graphic drivers is also not
>>> something people want to bother testing and fixing.
>>>
>>>
>>> I completely agree in regards to PPC support.
>>>
>>> In regards to users of Mac OS Qt applications: I’m am extremely confident
>>> that more Mac OS applications would be/have been written in Qt, if the
>>> priority for native looking widget support was higher. Mac OS users are
>>> notorious for their attention to detail and noticing a non-native L&F.
>>> Forcing application developers to resort to Objective C/Cocoa/style sheet
>>> hacks/whatever in order to make the UI look and behave more native sort of
>>> defies the notion of a cross platform framework.
>>>
>>>
>>> Again let's balance the cost of the maintenance of the code of 10.6 vs
>>> supporting few users stuck in the past? If they must stick in the past for
>>> various reasons (financial or others) then they can just use Qt4, it works
>>> just fine for Mac OS 10.6 or even Qt5 released versions. Why such users
>>> would care of modern Qt5 applications?
>>>
>>>
>>> Qt4 looks suboptimal on Mac OS. It still has problems with some of the list
>>> widgets. Among other things. Qt5 has several showstopper issues on Mac OS,
>>> some of which seems to finally being taken seriously (5.2.1?). You can’t
>>> ship a quality application on Mac OS with Qt5.0 - Qt.5.2.0.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
> --
> Eike Ziller, Senior Software Engineer - Digia, Qt
>
> Digia Germany GmbH, Rudower Chaussee 13, D-12489 Berlin
> Geschäftsführer: Mika Pälsi, Juha Varelius, Tuula Haataja
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>