[Interest] [Development] Windows 7 support will be dropped in Qt 6

[Roland Hughes]

On 6/11/20 6:07 PM, Sérgio Martins wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 9:51 PM Roland Hughes
> <roland at logikalsolutions.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 6/11/20 1:47 PM, Michael Jackson wrote:
>>> Windows 7 is EOL. Period. If it costs you, as a developer, additional money to support an EOL'ed, unsupported version of an operating system then you will need to pass that onto the customer. By still supporting Windows 7 we, as developers, are just enabling those customers to keep from updating. There are very few real reasons*not*  to update to at least Windows 8. At some point the customer needs to understand that they are not going to get any new features. They current piece of software will keep working (Assuming a perpetual license) but nothing new will be supported. I've had requests to back port our software to CentOS 6 and once you explain the cost to them for us to maintain all the extra development hardware, extra engineering to develop codes that are not supported on the old compilers, it becomes cost prohibitive to maintain those versions.
>> Personally I don't think anyone should be running a virus known as
>> Windows on any computer.
>> There are major corporations still running Windows XP, let alone 7,
>> because they have critical systems written and running on that OS.
> They can continue to. And why would critical systems be ported to Qt 6 ?

Not ported, added to.


>
>
>> The
>> tool or whatever cannot port forward or costs massive amounts of money
>> to bring forward. Just today someone told me about one of GM's factories
>> in Europe is run by a highly customized "canned" factory control system
>> written in VB5. When people show up to the factory, it makes vehicles
>> every day.
>>
>> You can't have rolling upgrades on critical systems, you just can't.
> Then why would you want to port that to Qt 6 ?
Not ported to, added to.
>
>
>> Upgrading is a multi-million dollar cost adding nothing to the bottom
>> line. They really don't care if a third party developer's life is any
>> easier, that developer isn't on the payroll and they have an
>> auto-renewing can only be cancelled for non-payment support contract.
>>
>> Windows 7 is EOL in marketing only.
> Just like Qt 3, 4 and 5 will be used for many years.
>
>> I'm willing to bet CAT is still using WinCE. They were as of less than a
>> year ago because a contract hit my inbox.
> Yes CAT for sure won't be ported to Qt 6. Why do you even mention it
> on a thread about running Qt6 on Win7 ?
Because there seems to be a continuing focus here to only care about 
what Apple is shipping tomorrow and what Best Buy is selling today. 
That's not how it works in embedded systems.
>
>
>> I don't know how, but Agco has their own version of DOS and is somehow
>> using Qt.
> And they can continue to, regardless of the outcome of this thread.
No, they can't. They won't be able to do enhancements.
>
>
>> As I said, I don't personally care about Windows. If Qt drops support
>> for Windows 7 going forward it will simply shove a big chunk of current
>> users (who aren't using QML and JavaScript) to CopperSpice because it
>> claims to still be supporting Windows via MinGW all the way back to
>> Windows Vista.
>>
>> https://www.copperspice.com/docs/cs_overview/supported-platforms.html
>>
>> You cannot force customers to "upgrade" but you can force them to leave.
> So their systems are too critical to update software but a port to
> CopperSpice is fine ?
>
> All the examples you gave don't care about Qt 6, in fact many of them
> don't even run on Qt > 5.6, which dropped support for WinCE and XP.
> And that's OK, it's the software lifecycle.

Not port, add to.

You are still thinking in the home hobby x86 frame of mind. That's not 
how a line works.

At some point on an assembly line you have a local control system.

Today they are making the GMC Sierra 2500 and at this point in the line 
there is a welder hooked up. The worker loads the control program that 
runs the bead on the left side of the truck welding the front cab post 
to the frame then engages the rear cab post weld as the line crawls.

Next week that same spot on the line has a robotic grinder hooked up. 
The worker loads the grinder control program for the vehicle model being 
made that week.

For the 2021 model year, a shiny new type of machine needs to be at that 
spot in the line. It needs a shiny new control program THAT MUST RUN ON 
THAT BOX. Yeah, you can find people that still know the version that 
runs on there. How about for the 2028 model year?

There is a medical device that Harman emails/calls about seems like 
every 18-36 months using Qt 3.x and OS/2. The problem for them isn't 
maintaining the equipment and development tools, it's finding someone 
that doesn't have to start from scratch learning Qt 3.x. They can get by 
with a shorter trial and testing period if say, Qt 6 still compiled on 
OS/2 because if you aren't changing out the OS there are different 
rules. A full new product clinical trial would cost millions of dollars. 
It's cheaper to play people like me off against one another trying to 
find someone charging less than $180/hr knowing full well you are 
probably going to pay $225/hr for on-site work than it is to do an OS 
and full tool set swap because now you have to go through the full "new 
product" clinical trial (usually.)

So no. I'm not saying PORT. I'm saying they would switch new development 
(and any support/royalty/licensing) contracts to a similar tool set that 
still supported the platform.

If Qt is only chasing the last version shipped then it can kiss any hope 
of royalties goodbye. What incentive is there to sign up and pay 
royalties when the embedded system OS they used gets dropped like 
yesterday's newspaper?

I keep trying to explain it but it falls on deaf ears. Big business; 
real systems at real companies; need 15-30 year (not month, year) 
support cycles.

But hey! If Qt Company doesn't collect one red cent from customers 
because developers keep dropping the very platforms that just might pay 
big support contracts, that's OK, it's the software lifecycle.



-- 

Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630)-205-1593

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