[Development] Qt 6 Planning: Consideration of dropping support for Windows 7

[Oliver Wolff]

Hi,

as you might have heard, we are currently in Qt 6's planning phase and 
thus check things, that have to be done to make Qt even better.
Of course we also want to use this opportuniy to drop support for 
platforms, that are no longer relevant in Qt's new environment.

One of these platforms is Windows 7, which will reach its end of life in 
the beginning of 2020. Please keep in mind, that we are talking about 
dropping support with Qt 6, so the last version, that will support 
Windows 7 will be Qt 5's last LTS release, which will be 5.15 (will be 
relased mid 2020). So having the LTS status, Windows 7 will be - without 
extended support - supported until 2023 - which will be roughly 3 years 
after its end of life. So even if we drop Windows 7 for Qt 6, it will 
not be the immediate end of Windows 7 support in Qt.

To be able to make the right decision, we now want your input as well. 
If you can give some input on why support should be kept or have 
additional reasons for dropping support, please reply to this mail or 
add your input to https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-74687 where we 
want to gather all the needed information before making a decision.

As said before, nothing is set in stone. At the moment we are gathering 
information, so that we can make a well informed decision.
Olli