[Development] Windows 7 support future removal

[Lars Knoll]

> On 24 Aug 2018, at 08:24, Thiago Macieira <thiago.macieira at intel.com> wrote:
> 
> On Thursday, 23 August 2018 23:11:09 PDT Lars Knoll wrote:
>> We know that quite some users stay on unsupported versions of Windows for
>> quite a while. I wonder whether it wouldn’t be easiest in this case to then
>> drop Windows 7 with Qt 6.0 in Autumn 2020 (ie. in the release after 5.15).
> 
> I don't mind either way. I just wanted to bring the topic up.
> 
> I don't think we have much that requires Windows 8 or 8.1, which would result 
> in any meaningful clean up of our source code if we were to drop Windows 7. 
> We'd get rid of a few GetProcAddresses, but not a lot.
> 
> And considering that Windows 10 still has a smaller market share than 
> Windows 7 today, three years after Windows 10 TH1 came out (see CW link in the 
> other email), you're probably right.

And see your other mail about estimated market share of Win7. It’s been like that in the past as well. We always had to support older windows versions for quite a long time.
> 
> PS: I don't believe Qt 6.0 will be in the Autumn of 2020. More likely early 
> 2021.

With a major version, we certainly have the risk of delays. But I’d rather like us all to plan for Autumn 2020. If we plan for 2021, it might end up getting out even later :)
> 
> PPS: had anyone noticed we had THREE minor releases of Qt in 2017? 5.8 
> (Jan 20), 5.9 (May 29) and 5.10 (Dec 5).

Yes, because 5.8 was late :)

Cheers,
Lars