[Development] SSL Plans for Qt 5.6

[Jeremy Lainé]

Hi Rich,

On 02/21/2015 06:30 PM, Richard Moore wrote:
> Here's an outline of stuff I'd like to see get done in the Qt 5.6 time
> frame:
>
> * Complete removal of openssl 0.9.8 support
>
> This has been unsupported for a while and was really only retained
> since it is the only version apple ship on OS X (though they don't
> actually recommend using it). Qt 5.5 introduces the new
> SecureTransport backend for SSL so there's now no good reason to
> continue having all the ifdefs.

Whilst I agree with the goal of dropping support for old / unmaintained
OpenSSL versions, in the case of OS X we probably need to map out the
transition in more detail - especially what policy to follow for the
official binary releases. My main concern is that in Qt 5.5 the
SecureTransport backend is available on OS X, but as far as I know we
are still aiming for OpenSSL-based binaries. This means that a lot of
users will not be exposed to this new backend at all, and then suddenly
in Qt 5.6 the old backend will be completely gone, with no way to build
it even from source.

Cheers,
Jeremy